Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis

    Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis

    Raja, Rubina & Eivind Heldaas Seland. eds. 2025. Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis: Zooming in and Scaling up from the Evidence. Stuttgart: Steiner.

    The third century is often seen as a period of crisis in the Roman world, marked by political upheaval, violence, war, religious strife, hyperinflation, climatic instability, pandemics, and border incursions. These troubled times, however, coincided with the peak of Palmyra’s prosperity. They encompassed the Syrian city’s drift towards centralized rulership and short-lived political hegemony in the Near East, as well as its reach for imperial power and downfall in the years 270–272 CE.

    How can this discrepancy between metropolitan crisis and peripheral prosperity be explained? Along with experts on different aspects of Palmyra, this volume gathers contributions from leading scholars working with the Roman Empire, and with neighboring regions inside and beyond the imperial borders. Highlighting parallels, discrepancies, connections, and disconnections between developments in Palmyra and other parts of the world with which Palmyra interacted, the aim is a more critical, detailed, and nuanced understanding of the situation in the Roman Near East in the third century CE.

    Table of contents: click here.

  • Sasanian Law in its Social Context

    Sasanian Law in its Social Context

    Macuch, Maria. 2025. Sasanian law in its social context (Iranica 34). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    Sasanian law has remained largely an unknown entity outside the specific field of Iranian Studies due to the immense difficulties involved in understanding the relevant legal sources. Sasanian Law in its Social Context by Maria Macuch is the first attempt to reconstruct the legal system of Sasanian Iran (224–651 CE), systematically and in detail, covering all areas of law as far as they can be reconstructed on the basis of the available material.
    Macuch focuses mainly on Middle Persian sources and original documents in the Pahlavi cursive script, but also makes extensive use of other significant legal texts mentioning Sasanian law, including the Babylonian Talmud, Syriac, Arabic and New Persian sources. Besides describing the basic institutions in all legal fields, the work aims to understand fundamental legal concepts reconstructed from the dispersed, often fragmentary and enigmatic material, and to explain the main functions of the vast network of intertwined legal constructions in the field of family and property law. It is argued that this specific complex of characteristic institutions, unique to the Sasanian legal system, only makes sense within the framework of a strictly hierarchical social system that granted considerable privileges to its aristocratic and religious elite. The significant impact of Sasanian law on other legal systems is discussed throughout the work and specifically in the last chapter. Numerous Middle Persian texts with new editions and translations by the author are assembled in the appendices. Pahlavian legal terms and phrases are clarified in the glossary.

  • The Achaemenid-Zoroastrian Background of the Burning Bush Pericope

    Barena, Gad. 2025. ʾAhyh ʾAšr ʾAhyh: The Achaemenid-Zoroastrian Background of the Burning Bush Pericope. Revista Pistis & Praxis 17(3), 384–402.

    Various types of impact, assimilation, and engagement of certain redactional layers of the Hebrew Bible with Achaemenid-era Zoroastrianism have long been noted by biblical scholars and by researchers of ancient Iranian cultic practices. Both disciplines, however, are facing similar challenges regarding the problem of the transmission history of their sacred texts, which is complex, perplexing, and vigorously debated. Thus, due caution must be taken when considering latent echoes of one tradition within the corpus of the other. The following article focuses on one particular, intricate, and very well-known biblical story often associated to various degrees with the so-called “P(riestly) source”—namely, the “Call of Moses” (CoM) in the initial portions of the famous scene at the “Burning Bush” on Mt. Horeb (here defined as Exod 2:23–3:15)—examined in relation to Achaemenid-era Zoroastrianism. I begin with an assessment of the relevant cultic elements that can be securely dated to that timeframe or to its later evolution—especially those that can be shown to have impacted Yahwists at the time. This preliminary study then serves as a foundation to examine the passage in question in a more systematic manner. The conclusion points to a deep familiarity and assimilation of Zoroastrian fire veneration practices by the Priestly author/redactor.

  • Near Eastern Archaeology (vol. 88)

    In two issues of volume 88 of Near Eastern Archaeology, several articles address topics in Iranian archaeology. The following list compiles all Iran-related contributions:

  • Indo-Iranian Journal 68, 3

    Indo-Iranian Journal 68, 3

    Indo-Iranian Journal volume 68, issue 3 (November 2025) has been published (as always h/t @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social‬). Sims-Williams has an open access article on Bactrian:

    Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2025. Bactrian in two scripts: Greek and Kushan. Indo-Iranian Journal. Brill 68(3). 185–214.

  • Like dust on the Silk Road

    Like dust on the Silk Road

    Bernard, Chams Benoît. 2025. Like dust on the Silk Road: On the earliest Iranian and BMAC loanwords in Tocharian (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 27). Leiden: Brill.

    This volume is open access. Follow the link above.

    “How did the Tocharians reach China?” “Who did they meet on the way?” are some of the most intriguing questions in Indo-European studies. This book is zooming in on a specific part of the question: on their way to China, Tocharians were in contact with an Iranian people living in the south Siberian Steppes, and with a people related to the Oxus Civilization (BMAC). This Iranian people spoke a specific language, called here “Old Steppe Iranian”. They gave Tocharians many words, such as mañiye ‘servant’, etswe ‘burden-carrying horse’ or ‘mule’, pāke ‘portion, share’. The BMAC-related people gave the Tocharians other words such as etre ‘hero’ and kercapo ‘donkey’. This book reconstructs features of the language of both these peoples, and examines how they influenced the Tocharians. Based on the latest archaeological findings, it also suggests a reconstruction of the chronology and the way the Tocharians followed before entering the Tarim Basin.

  • The Formation of the Sasanian Empire: Administration and Elites in Comparison with the Roman Empire

    The Formation of the Sasanian Empire: Administration and Elites in Comparison with the Roman Empire

    Purwins, Nils. 2025. Der Aufbau des Sasanidenreiches: Administration und Eliten im Vergleich zum Römischen Reich (Ancient Iran Series 18). Leiden: Brill.

    The work provides in two volumes the first comprehensive overall concept of the administrative and social structure of the Sasanian Empire (5th-7th century). In more than 1.000 contemporary leather documents, seals, ostraca, inscriptions and texts, which are brought together here for the first time, the subjects of the king of kings report in words and pictures on their lives in the various provinces of the empire, on the organisation of the military, civil and religious administration and on the circles of power at the court of their ruler. At the same time, this work offers the first systematic structural comparison with the Eastern Roman Empire, so that the organisations of two ancient empires are treated here with a wealth of supporting illustrations, diagrams and maps. The aim is nothing less than to answer the question of the extent to which Ērānšahr and the Imperium Romanum really were the “two eyes that illuminate the world from above”, as the Great King Husraw II is said to have once claimed (Theophylaktos).

  • The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.)

    Hackl, Johannes. 2025. The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.). Iraq. Published online 2025:1-20. doi:10.1017/irq.2025.10033

    This article revisits the editorial history of the Babylonian (Akkadian) version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB) to establish the extent of the surviving text in light of a re-examination of the inscription at Mount Bīsotūn (Behistun). Questions arising about the reliability of the standard edition presented in Von Voigtlander (1978) prompted a critical review of her new readings, which significantly expand the text by approximately two-thirds compared to what previous commentators recorded and what is visible on the rock face today. The article focuses on the results of this scrutiny, supported by information from Von Voigtlander’s correspondence with George G. Cameron and Matthew W. Stolper, highlighting the implications of their discussions.

  • The Academic Research Segment

    The Academic Research Segment

    The Society of Scholars of Zoroastrianism presents The Academic Research Segment.

    The Academic Research Edition of the Society of Scholars of Zoroastrianism presents ‘a deep dive into the newest discoveries in the world of Zoroastrianism’. This is an online event taking place on 15 November 2025 from 3:30 to 6:30pm GMT.

    Please visit this link for further details.

    The participants are:

    • Dr. Michael Shenkar: The Cult of Fire in Sogdiana; New Evidence from Sanjar Shah
    • Dr. Miguel Andres Toledo: The Poetry of Ahura Mazdā’s Creation: Metrical Philosophy in Dēnkard 3
    • Dr. Henkelman: The Achaemenids and Central Asia. The Evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive
    • Dr. Garrison: The Zoroastrian Question in Achaemenid Fārs. Insights from the Persepolis Fortification Archive
  • Manichaeism and Church History

    Manichaeism and Church History

    Toft, Lasse Løvlund, Mattias Sommer Bostrup & René Falkenberg (eds.). 2025. On the Matter. Studies on Manichaeism and Church History Presented to Nils Arne Pedersen at Sixty-Five (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum – Analecta Manichaica 4). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.

    The anthology consists of twenty-nine studies on Manichaean texts in Coptic, Syriac, Chinese, and Iranian languages, as well as on broader Church History including texts from the Nag Hammadi Codices, Coptic and Syriac heresiology and Early Modern religious polemics. Of interest to all scholars of Manichaeism and Late Antique and Medieval Eastern Christianity, and to scholars working on the phenomenon of heresiology and doctrinal polemics within the churches at large. The anthology is a Festschrift for Nils Arne Pedersen at Aarhus University.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Manichaean Texts, Imagery, and Terminology

    • Jean-Daniel Dubois, About the Use of the Term Pistos in Coptic Manichaean Writings
    • Iain Gardner, Who Was Salmaios and What Was His Lament?
    • Jason BeDuhn, Rethinking Manichaean Asceticism
    • Samuel N.C. Lieu, Database of Manichaean Texts – Past, Present, and Future
    • Claudia Leurini, Secret Messages: Traces of Cryptography in the Middle Persian Manichaean Hymns to the Church
    • Iris Colditz, Eine Parabel in einer Homilie Manis in parthischer Sprache
    • Yutaka Yoshida, Middle Iranian Fragments in Sogdian Script from the St. Petersburg Collection – The Fourth Section of the Manichaean Daily Prayers in Parthian and Some Other Middle Iranian Texts
    • Nicholas Sims-Williams, On the Sources of the Manichaean Sogdian Religious Terminology
    • Enrico Morano, A Manichaean Middle Persian Text on the Descent of the Holy Spirit and the Beginning of Mani’s Church (M788)
    • Gunner Mikkelsen, Pearl Imagery in a Chinese Manichaean Hymn
    • John Møller Larsen, Ligatures in the Syriac Manichaean Texts from Kellis
    • Erica C.D. Hunter, Hunting Manichaean Syriac Incantation Bowls
    • Sebastian P. Brock, Imagery Shared and Imagery Avoided: The Manichaean Psalms and Syriac Religious Poetry

    Nag Hammadi, the Bible, and Early Heterodoxy

    • Einar Thomassen, Manichaeans and Gnostics on the Creation of Humanity
    • Hugo Lundhaug, A Luminous Soul in the Likeness of God: Dispensing with the Psychic God in Paul’s Prayer for Revelation in Nag Hammadi Codex I
    • Anders Klostergaard Petersen, The Gospel of Truth as Fully-Fledged Christ Religion
    • Peter Nagel (†), Das Gleichnis vom viererlei Acker in den synoptischen Evangelien und im Thomasevangelium (Logion 9)
    • Mogens Müller, Traces of Marcion in the New Testament?

    Eastern Orthodoxies in Formation

    • Jan Dochhorn, Acherusischer See und Paradies im Zauberpapyrus London, Brit. Libr. Or. 5987, l. 13–24
    • Lasse Løvlund Toft, Virgin Mary as a Heavenly Power in Egypt: Doctrinal Polemics and Theological Diversity in Coptic and Copto-Arabic Homiletic Apocrypha on the God-bearer
    • David G.K. Taylor, Eschatological Rivers of Fire and Purgatorial Purification in Sixth-Century Syriac Texts
    • Flavia Ruani, Le catalogue d’hérésies de Jacques bar Šakko (XIIIe s.) :Livre des trésors II. De l’Incarnation du Verbe, ch. 1
    • Paul-Hubert Poirier (†), Une traduction latine inédite du Contra Manichaeos de Titus de Bostra
    • Henning Lehmann, Eusebius of Emesa Interpreting Exod. 3:14f: Some Remarks on Recent Eusebius Studies

    Churches, and Theologies in Early Modern and Modern Northern Europe

    • Per Ingesman, ‘In Principio Erat Error, Et Error Erat Apud Lutherum’: Paulus Helie on Luther and His Adherents in the Danish Reformation
    • Rasmus H.C. Dreyer, Between Danish and German: A First-Generation Danish Reformer as Lutheran Superintendent (1541–1561)
    • Carsten Bach-Nielsen, Theme and Variations: Lazarus and the Rich Man. Iconography of a New Testament narrative in an age of Reform, c. 1500–1640
    • Kim Arne Pedersen, Grundtvig, the Greeks, and Heresy
    • Mattias Sommer Bostrup, The Life and Afterlives of Bishop Fredrik Nielsen (1846–1907): Social Functions of Church History at the Fin de Siècle