Bibliographia Iranica

Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

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  • Hybrid Judeo-Persian and Arabic Correspondence

    Hybrid Judeo-Persian and Arabic Correspondence

    Haim, Ofir, Andreas Kaplony, Maximilian Kinzler & Ludwig Paul. 2025. Hybrid Judeo-Persian and Arabic correspondence. Eight documents from the Cairo Genizah (Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik 92). Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

    The more than 300,000 documents discovered in a storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo in the late 19th century, now housed in the collections in St. Petersburg, Cambridge, and Paris, are known as the Cairo Genizah. These documents, which span a wide array of subjects, are invaluable sources for understanding the history of medieval Judaism, as well as for the social and economic landscape of the Mediterranean from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Among them are thousands of private and commercial letters written in Arabic (in both Hebrew and Arabic scripts), alongside some 25 documents in Judeo-Persian—Persian written in Hebrew script. Due to the considerable challenges posed by their interpretation, only a small fraction of these texts has been published thus far.   This volume presents editions of eight previously unpublished documents dated to around the turn of the millennium (991–1002 CE) and mentioning key places such as Baghdad and Basra. Included are two pages from a merchant’s notebook, written in both Jewish-Persian and Arabic, along with several letters. Of particular interest are two letters, one in Judeo-Persian and its near-literal Arabic translation, highlighting the fluidity between these two languages. The blending of Judeo-Persian and Arabic in all eight texts offers a compelling reason to publish them together. This linguistic fusion underscores the fact that the authors of these letters were part of a broad network of Jewish merchants, notably including the Tustarī and Ibn ʿAwkal families.

    Table of Content.

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    04/04/2025
  • The Great King’s Word under AhuraMazdā’s Protection

    The Great King’s Word under AhuraMazdā’s Protection

    Aliyari Babolghani, Salman. 2024. The Great King’s word under AhuraMazdā’s protection: Trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions of Susa I (Dariosh Studies III/1) (Ancient Iranian Series 17). Leiden: Brill.
    This volume presents part of the author’s research on the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions recovered in the ruins of the Achaemenid palaces in Susa, conducted within the framework of the DARIOSH-Louvre Project. It offers a new study of several fragmentary inscriptions in Old Persian, Achaemenid Elamite, and Achaemenid Babylonian, currently designated as DSe, DSt, DSb, DSl, DSa, DSk, DSi, DSp, D²Sb, DSj, A²Se, DSs, ‘Inc. Sb’, and others. The book provides a new edition of each inscription based on both published and unpublished fragments. Additionally, it introduces some new lexicons and cuneiform signs in the Old Persian language and script.

    Table of Contents (PDF)

    Part 1: Some Fragments of a Foundation Stone Table Inscription

    1 AhuraMazdā Protected the Great King’s “Written Word” 

    Fresh Old Persian Lexicon in Newly Discovered Fragments of DSe 

    Part 2: Terracotta Brick Inscriptions

    2 “AhuraMazdā Belongs to Me” 

    Inscriptions DSa, DSb, DSk, DSl, and DSae 

    Part 3: Some Threshold Inscriptions

    3 “I Did All Superior” 

    4 A Marvelous Palace Built by a Righteous King 

    DSj Inscription 

    Appendix 1: Persian Translations of the Inscriptions

    Appendix 2: Revised List of Old Persian Logograms 

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    28/03/2025
  • Contributions on History and Culture of Elam and its Neighbouring Regions

    Contributions on History and Culture of Elam and its Neighbouring Regions

    Mofidi-Nasrabadi, Behzad (ed.). 2024. Contributions on History and Culture of Elam and its Neighbouring Regions (Elamica 14). Hildesheim: Franzbecker.

    The new book in the series Elamica is out and it contains three contributions:

    • T. Brandes & D. Prechel: Keilschrifttexte aus Haft Tappeh (KHT) der Ausgrabungen zwischen 2005 und 2012. Teil 3
    • B. Mofidi-Nasrabadi: Supplementum zu den Tontafeln der rezenten Ausgrabungen in Haft Tappeh
    • B. Rafiei-Alavi & M.-A. Emami: A Diachronic View of Copper-Alloys in the Elamite Metallurgy, A Reassessment of Susa Copper-Based Metal

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    24/03/2025
  • Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue

    Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue

    Kallas, Nathalie (ed.). 2025. Bridging the gap: Disciplines, times, and spaces in dialogue. Vol. 2. Oxford: Archaeopress.

    This volume gathers the papers presented at sessions 3, 7 and 8 from the conference Broadening Horizons 6, held at the Freie Universität Berlin, 24–28 June 2019, and is available in open access.

    The second volume compiles papers presented in three enlightening sessions: Session 3 – Visual and Textual Forms of Communication; Session 7 – The Future of the Past. Archaeologists and Historians in Cultural Heritage Studies; and Session 8 – Produce, Consume, Repeat. History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Economies. Within this volume, the 20 papers traverse diverse topics spanning multiple periods, from the 5th millennium BCE to the Roman Empire, and encompass a wide array of geographical regions within the Near East.

    Among other relevant contributions, the following papers deal with aspects of ancient Iranian history and culture:

    • Delphine Poinsot: Sexuation of animals’ bodies in the bullae from Qasr-I Abu Nasr
    • Olivia Ramble: Generations of Writing: The Secondary Inscriptions of Darius’ tacara at Persepolis
    • Takehiro Miki: Deciphering the Skills of the Prehistoric Painting Technique: Case Study of the Painted Pottery of the 5th Millennium BCE from Tall-e Bakun A (Fars province, Iran)
    • Yazdan Safaee: Persian Female Weavers in the Persepolis Economy

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    22/03/2025
  • New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    Friday 21 March

    5:30pm-7:00pm

    Nicholas Sims-Williams, Ancient India & Iran Trust; SOAS University of London

    New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    Further details: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/new-epigraphic-discoveries-ancient-bactria

    Booking is required for this talk. To book a place, email info@indiran.org

    Bactria is the Greek name for the area around the city of Bactra, modern Balkh in northern Afghanistan. During most of the first millennium CE, the principal language of this region was Bactrian, a language related to modern Persian and Pashto but written in a local adaptation of the Greek alphabet. This language was almost unknown until the discovery over the past 30 years or so of a large body of Bactrian documents written on parchment, together with a few important inscriptions carved on stone. In this talk I will discuss some of the most recent discoveries, concentrating on what they contribute to our understanding of the history of the region. The earliest, an inscription of the Kushan king Vima Taktu discovered in Tajikistan in 2022, dates from the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Although very short, it has made possible the partial decipherment of an accompanying text in a previously undeciphered script and language. The latest, the inscription of Jaghori in southern Afghanistan, is dated in the mid-8th century and records a battle between a local and an Indian prince, possibly a prelude to the replacement of the dynasty of the ‘Turk Shahis’ by that of the ‘Hindu Shahis’. In between these two extremes comes a still unpublished collection of letters written on birchbark, which seems to be the archive of a local ruler who was a vassal of the Sasanian kings of Iran in the late 4th century.

    Nicholas Sims-Williams is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS University of London, and Chair of the Ancient India & Iran Trust.

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    21/03/2025
  • Norouz 1404

    Norouz 1404

    We wish our followers, colleagues and friends a joyful Norouz 1404! As nature awakens with the arrival of spring, may this renewal bring you health, hope and happiness.

    Thank you for your continued support and engagement—we truly appreciate it. May the spirit of Norouz inspire a bright and fulfilling year ahead!

    نوروز شاد و پیروز!

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    20/03/2025
  • Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    Pourdavoud Lecture Series

    Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9

    Wednesday, April 2, 2025 at 4:00pm Pacific
    Royce Hall 306

    Hybrid Zoom option available
    Registration required

    Speaker: Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

    The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9 is a commentary on the ‘Old Avesta’ of the 2nd millennium BCE produced in Pahlavi (Zoroastrian Middle Persian) in the Sasanian (224–651 CE) and early Islamic centuries. This commentary is a value-laden, ideologically motivated discourse that displays a rich panoply of tradition-constituted forms of allegoresis. It mobilizes complex forms of citation, allusion, and intertextuality from the inherited Avestan world of myth and ritual in order to engage with and react to the profound changes occurring in Iranian society. Despite its value and importance for developing our nascent understanding of Zoroastrian hermeneutics and the self-conception of the Zoroastrian priesthood in Late Antiquity, this primary source has attracted scant scholarly attention due to the extreme difficulty of its subject matter and the lack of a reliable translation. This 2-volume work represents the first critical edition, translation, and commentary of this formidable text which will contribute to the philological, theological, and historiographical study of Zoroastrianism in a pivotal moment in its rich and illustrious history. Reading the Sūdgar Nask is a hermeneutic process of traversing texts, genres, and rituals in both the Avestan and Pahlavi corpora, thus activating nodes in a web or network of textual and meta-textual relations that establish new forms of allegoreses or meaning making. It is argued that this entire hermeneutical complex of weaving a ‘new’ text composed of implicit proof text and explicit commentary renews, extends, and, ultimately, makes tradition.

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    20/03/2025
  • Emamzadeh Yahya

    Emamzadeh Yahya

    The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine

    امامزاده یحیی ورامین‌: نمایشگاهی آنلاین از زیارتگاهی ایرانی

    This project website was brought to our attention by its curator, Keelan Overton. While it falls outside the scope of our work, we present it here for its innovative approach and valuable contributions to the field. We encourage you to explore the bilingual website to discover its diverse range of content. ~AZ

    The Emamzadeh Yahya shrine complex is simultaneously the sacred tomb of Emamzadeh Yahya (d. 869–70), a destination for ziyarat (pious visitation), an architectural monument of the Ilkhanid period (1256–1353), the main community center and cemetery of the Kohneh Gel neighborhood, a cultural heritage site, and the source of luster tiles displayed in around fifty museums worldwide. In this exhibition, which is also an exhibition catalog and an academic edited volume, we trace the complex’s many looks, functions, users, and stories over seven hundred years. Through our detailed study of one site, we offer a general exploration of Persian art and Iranian culture from the medieval period to the present.

    We invite you to explore the exhibition’s Six Thematic Galleries and read the Introduction by curator Keelan Overton.

    EYV poster, with QR code, March 2025Download

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    17/03/2025
  • Cyrus the Great

    Cyrus the Great

    The BBC’s podcast In Our Time explores Cyrus the Great in this fascinating episode.

    Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was born in the sixth century BCE in Persis which is now in Iran. He was the founder of the first Persian Empire, the largest empire at that point in history, spanning more than two million square miles.

    His story was told by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, and in the Hebrew bible he is praised for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylon.

    But the historical facts are intertwined with fiction.

    Cyrus proclaimed himself ‘king of the four corners of the world’ in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, one of the most admired objects in the British Museum. It’s been called by some the first bill of human rights, but that’s a label which has been disputed by most scholars today.

    With Lindsay Allen, Mateen Arghandehpour, and Lynette Mitchell.

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    14/03/2025
  • The Bible in its Ancient Iranian Context

    The Bible in its Ancient Iranian Context

    An international conference convened by:
    M. Rahim Shayegan, UCLA
    William Schniedewind, UCLA
    Catherine Bonesho, UCLA

    March 13-14, 2025 | 306 & 314 Royce Hall
    UCLA

    Co-sponsored by:
    The Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World
    The Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies

    Although there has been renewed interest in the Persian period in biblical scholarship, the profound impact of the ancient Iranian world on the biblical books of Esther and Daniel has often been taken for granted. From their dynamic portraits of foreign kings and Jewish communities in the imperial court to their use of Iranian institutions and literary traditions, it is impossible to disentangle the books of Esther and Daniel from their ancient Iranian contexts. This conference foregrounds the influence of the ancient Iranian world on Esther and Daniel and its lasting impact on ancient Jewish communities.

    In organizing this conference, we hope to offer a truly interdisciplinary analysis of Esther, Daniel and ancient Iranian Studies by inviting speakers specializing in subjects related to Second Temple Judaism, Hebrew Bible, and the Achaemenid Empire. Topics explored at the conference include Jewish constructions of the diaspora and Persian court, Achaemenid religions, Aramaic scribalism, and imperial ideology and hybridity.

    Zoom Webinar Link

    Download the Conference Program

    Download the Abstract Booklet

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    13/03/2025
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Bibliographia Iranica

Bibliographia Iranica

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