Das achaimenidisch-persische Imperium
Degen, Julian (ed.). 2025. Das achaimenidisch-persische Imperium. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Diese Einführung bietet einen systematischen Überblick über die Geschichte des achaimenidisch-persischen Imperiums, das weithin auch als „Perserreich“ bekannt ist. Dabei handelt es sich um die erste imperiale Formation der Antike, der es durch umfangreiche Eroberungen gelang, einen beeindruckenden Herrschaftsapparat zu errichten, der sich von Indien bis in nach Griechenland und von Äthiopien bis nach Zentralasien erstreckte. Dieses Imperium stellte die Bühne für zahlreiche schillernde Persönlichkeiten der Alten Welt dar, zu denen Kyros, Dareios, Xerxes, aber auch Alexander III. (der Große) zählen. Darüber hinaus setzte das Großreich Entwicklungen in Gang, die großen Einfluss auf die Welt Afro-Eurasiens ausübten und deren Dynamiken selbst in der Zeit nach seinem Niedergang bedeutsam waren. Insbesondere die Konflikte des Imperiums mit den Griechen fanden großen Nachhall in der antiken Geschichtsschreibung und ihre Präsentation stellt nach wie vor einen Orientierungspunkt des kollektiven Gedächtnisses moderner europäischer Gesellschaften dar. Aufgrund der enormen räumlichen Ausdehnung dieses Großreichs, das Herrschaft über eine Vielzahl an Kulturen ausübte, ist die Erforschung seiner Geschichte Gegenstand interdisziplinärer Forschungen. So sammelt diese Einführung Beiträge aus der Feder internationaler Spezialistinnen und Spezialisten aus unterschiedlichen Fachbereichen, die tiefgehende Einblicke in zahlreiche Aspekte der Geschichte des achaimenidisch-persischen Imperiums aus verschiedenen Perspektiven bieten.
Le Yasna Haptaŋhāiti
Kellens, Jean. 2025. Le Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (Publications d’Etudes Indo-Iraniennes 2). Strasbourg: Université de Strasbourg.
Inséré entre la première la deuxième Gâthâ, le Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, rédigé en vieil-avestique, occupe les chapitres 35 à 41 du Yasna. Ce texte fait l’objet d’une traduction commentée dans le présent ouvrage.
Résumé
The realm of the Kuru
Witzel, Michael. 2025. The realm of the Kuru: Origins and development of the first state in India. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 30(2). 1–165.
Major old-new article by Michael Witzel with references and discussions of the relevant Iranian traditions. Open access.
This issue of EJVS contains the long version of my article “Early Sanskritization. Origins and development of the Kuru state” of 1997, published in a volume edited by B. Kölver. At that time, I had merely presented the outline and results of the longer paper published here. After 1997, I have added some data, over the next few years,to the unpublished long version. I have mow [sic] minimally updated it, for example by important genetic aDNA data about the first immigration of steppe people to India (Swat) around 1250 BCE. However, I could not find the time to thoroughly update the paper and therefore present it here as is, in the hope that it will be useful to colleagues.
Preface
As the current version includes many sections of the 1997 paper, some repetitions and overlaps will occur in the bulk of the text, for which I beg the reader’s indulgence.WZO’s Annual Seminar 2025
Three lectures as part of the World Zoroastrian Organisation’s annual seminar.
- Alexandra Buhler: Relations between Zoroastrians in India & Iran during the late Qajar period
- Khodadad Rezakhani: The Heart of the Empire: Ctesiphon & DilĒrānšahr in the Sasanian World
- Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis: Royal Splendour: the art of the Sasanian kings
Iranica Antiqua
Volume 59 of Iranica Antiqua has been published:
- 1 – 24 – Against Cuneiform: The Dawn of Writing in Iran
DANESHMAND, Parsa
abstract details - 25 – 33 – Cylinder Seals in the National Museum of Iran
BAGHBIDI, Bahar Rezai, MIRGHADERI, Mohammad Amin, D’ORAZIO, Claudia
abstract details - 35 – 62 – Petrographic and XRF Analysis of the Ceramics of the Achaemenid Period in the Ramhormoz Plain, Southwestern Iran
AFSHARI, Leila, AKARSU, Rabia
abstract details - 63 – 82 – In Search of the Plains of Gaugamela
SZYPUŁA, Bartłomiej, GŁOGOWSKI, Piotr, MARCIAK, Michał
abstract details - 83 – 108 – The Statue of the ‘Prince’ of Shami: Parthian Nobleman, Local Ruler or Arsacid King of Kings?
SINISI, Fabrizio
abstract details - 109 – 128 – Why the Title rāmšahr for Yazdgerd I?
JALILIAN, Shahram
abstract details - 129 – 151 – Between Dome and Eyvān: Building Techniques, Function, and Symbolism of the Kushk-e Ardashir in Bozpar (Bushehr, Iran)
LABISI, Guiseppe
abstract details - 153 – 193 – The Dynamics of Anthropogenic Landscape Evolution in the Bozpar Valley (South Iran). A Case Study for Small-Scale Hydraulic Engineering in Antiquity
RASHIDIAN, Elnaz
abstract details - 195 – 218 – Passing through the Northwestern Heights of the Alvand Mountains: Restoring the Caravan Routes between Asadabad and Hamadan in Different Historical Periods
REZAEI, Iraj
abstract details
- 1 – 24 – Against Cuneiform: The Dawn of Writing in Iran
Iran and the Caucasus 29 (2)
Volume 29, issue 2, of Iran and the Caucasus has now been published. While all articles relate to the focus of BiblioIranica, two stand particularly out:
- Barnea, Gad. 2025. The significance of ṛtācā brzmniy in Xerxes’ cultic reform: A new light on the “Daiva” inscription (XPh). Iran and the Caucasus. Brill 29(2). 131–152.
This article is open access.
Ever since its preliminary publication, Xerxes’ “Daiva” inscription (XPh) has been seen as an important and unique witness to early Achaemenid Mazdean orthopraxy and cultic propaganda. It is an essential document that captures a major reform in Achaemenid-Zoroastrian cult patterns and its relationship to cognate cults. This royal inscription describes a liturgical reform or, at least, the enforcement of such a reform, targeting and condemning the cult of the daivā—a designation describing competing deities. The key to decoding this reform hinges upon an obscure expression that appears thrice in the document—normalized as a-r-t-a-c-a : b-r-z-m-n-i-y—the meaning of which is yet to be fully understood. In this article, I revisit and analyze the various approaches previously taken to interpreting this remarkable syntagm and provide a methodological approach and a broader and more comprehensive translation which is presented in a more holistic comparative context—including onomastic, epigraphic and archeological data.
Abstract- Arakelova, Victoria. 2025. “She did not give bread to a dog with puppies”: The idea of retribution according to the Yezidi text A’lī Šērē Xwadē Āxiratēdā. Iran and the Caucasus. Brill 29(2). 153–166.
There is no unified Yezidi source that would give a complete understanding of sins and retribution in this tradition. The article is an attempt to identify a number of sins and the expected retributions for them, based on the analysis of the text A’lī Šērē Xwadē Āxiratēdā—“ ‘Ali, the Lion of God in the Hereafter”. The text, which can be attributed to the apologetic genre, tells about ‘Ali’s journey to the afterlife and the opportunity he was given to see the punishments of sinners, in order to pass on this information to people in the “world of light”, i.e. the material world.
Abstract
Across the deserts of Iran
Céline Redard, Université de Strasbourg, has established a new series entitled Publications d’Etudes indo-iraniennes. The first book in the series has already been published and two more volumes are announced. This promises to be an exciting series. The books of the series will be open access.
Redard, Georges. 2025. A travers les déserts de l’Iran. Rapport d’expédition 1951 – 1952 (Publications d’Etudes Indo-Iraniennes 1). Edidetd by Céline Redard. Strasbourg: Université de Strasbourg.
Le présent ouvrage contient le récit de voyage rédigé par Georges Redard (1922-2005) lors de sa première mission en Iran, de fin 1951 à début 1952, en compagnie de Murray Barr et Richard Nelson Frye. Le lecteur les suivra ainsi à travers les déserts de l’Iran pendant 49 jours, et prendra connaissance de leurs rencontres et de leurs découvertes, mais aussi de leurs ennuis mécaniques ou techniques. Autant d’anecdotes qui lui permettront de s’immerger dans une autre époque, une autre culture et d’entreprendre un voyage scientifique à leurs côtés.
RésuméGeorges Redard (1922-2005) était un linguiste suisse, qui s’est notamment intéressé aux langues iraniennes anciennes ainsi que modernes. Il fut professeur à l’Université de Neuchâtel sur la chaire de Grammaire comparée, puis à l’Université de Berne sur la chaire de linguistique indo-européenne.
The Zoroastrian Manuscripts of the Matenadaran
Andrés-Toledo, Miguel Ángel (ed.). 2025. The Zoroastrian manuscripts of the Matenadaran. Facsimile edition (Corpus Avesticum / Handbuch der Orientalistik 32/6). Leiden: Brill.
Armenia was a stronghold of the Zoroastrian religion in antiquity and late antiquity. Of the rich Zoroastrian literature that was composed and transmitted in the region, no single text was extant there after long periods of cultural, political and religious changes.
The three Zoroastrian manuscripts of this facsimile edition, containing precious copies of texts in the Avestan, Pahlavi and Zoroastrian New Persian languages, are the only exception. Stemming from Iran and now preserved at the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran), they are heirs of an ancient Iranian faith that once flourished also in Armenia.
Journal of Iran National Museum
The new issue (vol. 3, issues 1/2) of Journal of Iran National Museum is out. It is open access.
Table of contents:
- Sepehr Zarei: Giant Cores and Large Flake Production at Dehtal: An Acheulean Site in the Northern Hinterland of Persian Gulf, Iran
- Hossein Davoudi; Marjan Mashkour; Fereidoun Biglari: Animal Biodiversity during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene in the Zagros Mountains: Evidence from the Wezmeh Cave
- Arkadiusz Sołtysiak: Human remains from Zard-e Sahel, Kashan, Iran
- Ali Khayani; Sahar Abdolahi: A Door Sealing from Tape Jameh Shuran Sofla, the Mahidasht Plain, Western Central Zagros
- Saman Hamzavi Zarghani; Cyrus Barfi; Samira Jafari; Mohsen Zeidi: Tol-e Khaki: Tracing the Footsteps of a Chalcolithic Community in the highlands of Fars Province, Southern Zagros Mountains, Iran
- Rouhollah Yousefi Zoshk; Hassan Afshari Salaki; Donya Etemadifar: Agricultural Practices in Proto-Elamite Susa: An Analysis of Proto-Elamite Tablets at Iran National Museum (MDP 26)
- Parsa Daneshmand: An Inscription of Hammurapi in the National Museum of Iran
- Kiumars Alizadeh: From Hanni to Kidin-Hutran the son of Kurluš: a new look into the Arjān bowl
- Wouter Henkelman: Tacara- and *tacarana-: Palatial terminology in a new exemplar of A2Sde and in the Persepolis Fortification archive
- Fahimeh Homayoun; Siroos Zare; Younes Zare; Hamid Fadaei: The Newfound Footprints of a Discrete Decoration Type on the Column Capitals at Persepolis: An Outline
- Zahra Alinezhad: A Review of Coin Finds From Ernst Herzfeld’s Excavations at Persepolis in the National Museum of Iran
- Sepideh Qaheri: Aegyptiaca of Achaemenid Persia: re-examination of the documentation from Iran
- Lena Ohrstrom; Natascha Bagherpour Kashani; Roger Seilera; Beata Bode; Abolfazl Aali; Sara Khalifeh Soltani; Shapour Shirani; Gabriela Ruß-Popa; Thomas Stöllner; Frank Rühli: Paleopathological assessment of the ancient Iranian salt mummies #1, #7 and #X, Chehrābād salt mine of Douzlākh, Iran
- Ali Aarab; Leila Khamooshi; Bahareh Salimian Rizi; Ali Shojaee Esfahani; Yimin Yang: The Origin of Cobalt: A Review of Blue Glazed Ceramics in Iran and China from the 12th to the 17th Centuries CE
- Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani; Andrej Vladimirovich Gromov: An Analysis of the Arms and Armor of the Battle Scene titled “the battle of Yerevan” (National Museum of Iran)
- Ali Tarmigh: Seismic Risk Mitigation of Art Objects in Museums
- Naghmeh Hosein Qazvini: Museum and the sublime (Based on Kantian sublime)
Bibliographia Iranica
A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies
