Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Udjahorresnet and His World

    The latest issue of Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections (vol. 26) is dedicated to the research about the famous Egyptian physician: Udjahorresnet.

    This volume, edited by Melanie Wasmuth and Pearce Paul Creasman, is open access (see here).

    Table of Contents:

    • Melanie Wasmuth and the other contributors to this volume: Introduction: Udjahorresnet and His World: a Key Figure of Cross-regional Relations Reconsidered
    • Alex Ilari Aissaoui: Diplomacy in Ancient Times: The Figure of Udjahorresnet: An International Relations Perspective
    • Reinhold Bichler: Herodotus’s Perspective on the Situation of Egypt in the Persian Period from the Last Saite Kings to Xerxes’ First Years
    • Henry P. Colburn: Udjahorresnet the Persian: Being an Essay on the Archaeology of Identity
    • Francis Joannès: Les Soutiens de Cambyse en Babylonie, de 539 à 522 av. è. c. (The Supports of Cambyses in Babylonia, from 539 to 522 BCE)
    • Ivan Ladynin: Udjahorresnet and the Royal Name of Cambyses: The “Derivative Sacrality” of Achaemenids in Egypt
    • Francesco Lopez: Udjahorresnet, Democedes, and Darius I: The Reform of the House of Life as Consequence of the Egyptian Physicians’ Failure to Heal the Achaemenid ruler
    • Nenad Marković : Udjahorresnet’s Family and His Social Background
    • Alison McCoskey: Fight the Power: Udjahorresnet and Petosiris as Agents of Resistance
    • Cristina Ruggero: Udjahorresnet’s Naoforo Vaticano: Acquisition and Exhibition
    • Alexander Schütze: On the Originality of Udjahorresnet’s Biographical Inscriptions
    • Květa Smoláriková and Ladislav Bareš: The Shaft Tomb of Udjahorresnet at Abusir
    • Marissa Stevens: Neith as Legitimator: Persian Religious Strategy and Udjahorresnet
    • Melanie Wasmuth: The Statues of Udjahorresnet as Archaeological Artifacts

  • A History of Ancient Persia: The Achaemenid Empire

    Brosius, Maria. 2020. A History of Ancient Persia: The Achaemenid Empire. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

    A History of the Achaemenid Empire considers archaeological and written sources to provide an expansive, source-based introduction to the diverse and culturally rich world of ancient Achaemenid Persia. Assuming no prior background, this accessible textbook follows the dynastic line from the establishment and expansion of the empire under the early Achaemenid kings to its collapse in 330 BCE. The text integrates the latest research, key primary sources, and archaeological data to offer readers deep insights into the empire, its kings, and its people.

    Chronologically organized chapters contain written, archaeological, and visual sources that highlight key learning points, stimulate discussion, and encourage readers to evaluate specific pieces of evidence. Throughout the text, author Maria Brosius emphasizes the necessity to critically assess Greek sources—highlighting how their narrative of Achaemenid political historyoften depicted stereotypical images of the Persians rather than historical reality. Topics include the establishment of empire under Cyrus the Great, Greek-Persian relations, the creation of a Persian ruling class, the bureaucracy and operation of the empire, Persian diplomacy and foreign policy, and the reign of Darius III. This innovative textbook:

    * Offers a unique approach to Achaemenid history, considering both archaeological and literary sources
    * Places primary Persian and Near Eastern sources in their cultural, political, and historical context
    * Examines material rarely covered in non-specialist texts, such as royal inscriptions, Aramaic documents, and recent archaeological finds
    *Features a comprehensive introduction to Achaemenid geography, Greek historiography, and modern scholarship on the Persian War


    Part of the acclaimed Blackwell History of the Ancient Worldseries, A History of the Achaemenid Empire is a perfect primary textbook for courses in Ancient History, Near Eastern Studies, and Classical Civilizations, as well as an invaluable resource for general readers with interest in the history of empires, particularly the first Persian empire or Iranian civilization.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 The Arrival of the Persians on the Iranian Plateau
    • 3 The Establishment of Empire: Cyrus the Great
    • 4 A Worthy Successor: Cambyses II
    • 5 From Bardiya to Darius I
    • 6 The Face of Empire
    • 7 The Organization of Power
    • 8 Taking Up the Baton: Diplomacy and Foreign Policy from Xerxes I to Artaxerxes II
    • 9 A Whole New Ballgame: The Reigns of Artaxerxes III and Artaxerxes IV
    • 10 A Good King in the End: Darius III
    • 11 Epilogue

     

     

     

     

     


    TABLE OF CONTENTS



    1 Introduction

    2 The Arrival of the Persians on the Iranian Plateau

    3 The Establishment of Empire: Cyrus the Great

    4 A Worthy Successor: Cambyses II

    5 From Bardiya to Darius I

    6 The Face of Empire

    7 The Organization of Power

    8 Taking Up the Baton: Diplomacy and Foreign Policy from
    Xerxes I to Artaxerxes II

    9 A Whole New Ballgame: The Reigns of Artaxerxes III and
    Artaxerxes IV

    10 A Good King in the End: Darius III

    11 Epilogue

  • The Bīsotūn Inscription – A Jeopardy of Achaemenid History

    Ahmadi, Amir. 2020. The Bīsotūn Inscription – A Jeopardy of Achaemenid History. The Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History 27. 3–56.

    Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC)
    Behistūn Relief

    According to the currently favoured view among historians of the Persian Empire, the Bīsotūn Inscription is a deceitful piece of propaganda whose purpose was to resolve Darius’s legitimacy problem. To this effect, Darius cobbles a family relation with Cyrus and fabricates the story of a magus who impersonates Smerdis, son of Cyrus, and usurps the throne. This view, however, contradicts not only the Bīsotūn Inscription but also the ancient Greek testimonies. This article examines the arguments historians have given for their position. Since allviews of the two issues in question are necessarily interpretations of the relevant sources that rely on argumentation, reasons and inferences must stand up to critical scrutiny.

  • Human History, Its Aims and Its End, according to the Zoroastrian Doctrine of Late Antiquity

    Panaino, Antonio. 2020. Human History, Its Aims and Its End, according to the Zoroastrian Doctrine of Late Antiquity. In Tilo Schabert & John von Heyking (eds.), Wherefrom Does History Emerge?, 97–122. Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Zoroastrianism offers a remarkable presentation of the origin of humankind, its present condition, and its final destiny. Human history is considered to be the result of a cosmological strategy enacted by god himself, Ohrmazd, in order to compel his direct and primordial antagonist, the evil Ahreman, to engage battle in our world. Eventually, the forces of darkness will be completely destroyed at the conclusion of a chiliadic temporal cycle. The most important battle in order to defeat Ahreman is fought by humankind. The importance of history in this teleology accounts for the emphasis put by it on the political dimension. We evoke the Sasanian period, in which the Persian kings assumed the status of a kosmokrátor, i.e. of a universal king, charged with achieving victory over evil. We offer in this article an overview of the intellectual contribution of the Pre-Islamic Iranian world to the idea of history.

  • Mithradates II

    Sinisi, Fabrizio, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Magub Alexandra, Pendleton Elisabeth Joy & Hopkins Edward C. D. Mithradates II. Sylloge Nummorum Parthicorum Vologases I. – Pacorus II. (Denkschriften Der Philosophisch-Historischen Klasse 520).

    The second volume of “Sylloge Nummorum Parthicorum” examines the history and culture of the reign of Mithradates II (c. 122/1¬‒91 BC), who consolidated and expanded the Parthian state. In addition to his coinage, the present volume draws on other primary sources, such as cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia, in order to illuminate an otherwise poorly known and documented period of ancient Iranian history. This publication by Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Alexandra Magub, Elizabeth J. Pendleton and Edward C. D. Hopkins is an essential tool not just for numismatists, but also for historians and art historians, presenting various aspects of Parthian coinage: chronology, mint identification, the iconography within a broader Iranian context, typology and metrology. The catalogue offers a complete record of coin production under Mithradates II, illustrating and describing 1,996 coins from leading international institutions and other sources.

  • Zoroastrian Laws of Ritual Purity

    Moazami, Mahnaz. 2020. Laws of Ritual Purity. Zand ī Fragard ī Jud-Dēw-Dād (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widēwdād) (Iran Studies 19). Leiden: Brill.

    Laws of Ritual Purity: Zand ī Fragard ī Jud-Dēw-Dād (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widēwdād) describes the various ways in which Zoroastrian authorities in the fifth-sixth centuries CE reinterpreted the purity laws of their community. Its redactor(s), conversant with the notions and practices of purity and impurity as developed by their predecessors, attempt(s) to determine the parameters of the various categories of pollution, the minimum measures of polluted substances, and the effect of the interaction of pollution with other substances that are important to humans. It is therefore in essence a technical legal corpus designed to provide a comprehensive picture of a central aspect of Zoroastrian ritual life: the extent of one’s liability contracting pollution and how atonement/purification can be achieved.

  • Assyriology in Iran?

    Daneshmand, Parsa. 2020. Assyriology in Iran? In Agnès Garcia-Ventura & Lorenzo Verderame (eds.), Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 266–282. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns.

    Forṣat-od-Dowle Šīrāzī (1854-1920)

    The title of this paper might be one fraught with difficulties. For one thing, there is hardly a field of study in Iran at the present time that can be labelled as Assyriology; instead, there are scattered individual efforts, self-studied research, and erratic workshops run by a small number of genuine specialists. Although Iran is the birthplace of cuneiform decipherment, Iranian universities offer no courses in Assyriology, nor is any local academic institute qualified to run a degree program in cuneiform studies.

  • Repetition of Preverbs in the Avesta

    Forssman, Bernhard. 2020. Wiederholung von Präverbien im Avesta. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 170(2). 361–370.

    The paper discusses the strange repetition of preverbs, well known from Old Avestan (e.g. nī. aēšəmō. nī.diiātąm. Y 48,7a), which seems to go back to the Proto-Indo-European language.

  • Der Islam 97 (2)

    Among other interesting papers published in the latest issue of Der Islam, 97 (2), two contributions fall in the scope of Iranian Studies:

    • Sebastian Bitsch: Sengende Hitze, Eiseskälte oder Mond? Zum Echo zoroastrischer eschatologischer Vorstellungen am Beispiel des koranischen zamharīr

    Abstract: This article discusses eventual Qurʾānic allusions to Zoroastrian texts by using the example of zamharīr (Q 76:13). In the early tafsīr and ḥadīth-literature the term is most commonly understood as a piercing cold, which has frequently been interpreted as a punishment in hell. This idea, it is argued, has significant parallels to the concept of cold as a punishment in hell or to the absence of cold as a characteristic of paradise in the Avestan and Middle-Persian literature. In addition, Christian and Jewish texts that emphasize a similar idea and have not been discussed in research so far are brought into consideration. The article thus aims to contribute to the inclusion of Zoroastrian texts in locating the genesis of the Qurʾān – or early Islamic exegesis – in the “epistemic space ” of late antiquity.

    • Gregor Schoeler: The “National Amnesia” in the Traditional History of Iran

    Abstract: It is well known that the pre-Islamic “national history” of Iran (i. e., the indigenous secular historical tradition, transmitted orally over many centuries) knows nothing at all, or as good as nothing, about the dynasties and empires of the Medes, Achaemenids, Seleucids, and Parthians (ca. 700 BCE–226 CE). It is first with the Sasanians (226‒651 CE) that Iran’s “national history” evinces more detailed knowledge. Instead of reports on the historical Medes and Achaemenid dynasties, accounts of mythical and legendary dynasties, the Pīšdādians and Kayānians, are found.

    In this essay, an attempt will be made to explain this “gap” in the pre-Islamic historical tradition, this “strange historical (or national) amnesiaˮ (Ehsan Yarshater) in the cultural memory of the Iranians, with the help of a theory on the structure and modality of oral tradition, based on field research, by the Belgian historian and anthropologist Jan Vansina. The structure in question concerns a tripartite perception of the past: a wealth of information about antiquity (traditions of origin or creation and reports on culture heroes) – plenty of information, too, on the recent and most recent times – and lying between them, a “gap” in the accounts. Vansina described this phenomenon as the “hourglass effect.” This is exactly the narrative structure of Iranian national history; it is evident that the Achaemenids and the other pre-Christian dynasties fall into the “gap” described by Vansina.

    The same phenomenon can also be detected on the level of Sasanian history. We find there a plethora of information on the founder of the dynasty, Ardašīr (reigned 226‒241 CE); meanwhile, very few details are known of the kings following Ardašīr, and it is only as of Kavād I (reigned 488‒496 and 499‒531 CE) that we have outstanding historical information.

  • The Sogdians

    The exhibition, The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads, explores Sogdian art through existing material culture. It focuses on the golden age of the Sogdians, from the fourth to the eighth centuries CE. Various dimensions of Sogdian culture, from art, music, and feasting to religious and funerary practices, are presented in this digital exhibition. New 3-D models of metalwork objects, photographs of archaeological sites, high resolution images and international scholarship reveal new details about this period.

    In 2019 the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery lunched a digital exhibition devoted to the Sogdians, major traders of the ancient Silk Roads, organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s Asian art museums in collaboration with the State Hermitage Museum, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (NYU), XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement (NYU), the Bard Graduate Center, and the Association Sauvegarde Peinture Afrasiab.