Author: Arash Zeini

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Books

Iranian Art

Blair, Sheila, Jonathan M. Bloom & Sandra Williams (eds.). 2024. Iranian art from the Sasanians to the Islamic Republic. Essays in honour of Linda Komaroff (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Introduces Iranian art from classical to contemporary media, showing how art can be a source for history and politics

  • Takes a broad view of the Persianate world
  • Opens a traditional field in new directions
  • Presents a combination of senior scholars and younger voices, and includes perspectives from Asia, Europe and the USA
  • Combines views from the academy, the museum and the laboratory, ranging from the practical to the theoretical
Categories
Books

The Afterlife of Avestan Manuscripts

Gholami, Saloumeh. 2023. The afterlife of Avestan manuscripts: Colophons and marginal notes. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.

The book is also available as open access e-book.

This study investigates the role of paratext in Zoroastrian scribal tradition, with a focus on the Avesta manuscripts. It examines how paratexts, such as colophons and marginal notes, contribute to organizing and interpreting the content of these manuscripts. These elements not only structure the knowledge but also reflect the roles and activities of individuals involved in the manuscript’s lifecycle, from creation to reception. Additionally, the study explores how paratexts facilitate access to the main text, acting as a bridge that documents the history of each manuscript, its actors, and interaction with society. The analysis includes a diverse range of colophons and marginal notes, examining their structure, content, and relationship to their respective manuscripts.

Short summary
Categories
Events

Topographies of Rhetoric

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, University of Oxford, will deliver four public lectures at the École Pratique des Hautes Études:

Topographies of Rhetoric and Moral Reasoning in Sasanian and Post-Sasanian Zoroastrianism

Continue reading “Topographies of Rhetoric”
Categories
Books

Iranian Syntax in Classical Armenian

Meyer, Robin. 2023. Iranian syntax in classical Armenian: The Armenian perfect and other cases of pattern replication (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics 53). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A corollary of this linguistic analysis are new insights into the historical social dynamics between Armenian and Parthian speakers: the latter disappear from the region almost without any documentary trace after the fall of the Parthian Empire in 224 CE. This fact and a study of the historical data from surrounding cultures strongly suggest that the Parthians, who made up the ruling class in the Armenian Kingdom for almost four centuries, over the course of time identified with the Armenians and gave up their native tongue.

Abstract
Categories
Journal

Ricerche Linguistiche

Ricerche Linguistiche is a new journal, giving new life to an older version of itself. It is published annually and aims to provide ‘a venue for contributions in the fields of diachronic and historical linguistics concerning all levels of linguistic analysis, with a special focus on ancient Indo-European and Semitic languages, as well as Romance languages and varieties’. You can read more about the journal, its history and goals here. Sadly, the journal does not seem to be open access.

It’s first issue has two articles of interest:

Categories
Articles

The ezāfe-like construction in Old Iranian

Gentile, Simone. 2024. The ezāfe-like construction in Old Iranian: A reassessment. Ricerche Linguistiche 1.

This paper addresses the origins of the (proto-)ezāfe in Old Iranian, challenging traditional analyses that have classified the ‘ezāfe’-like structures in Avestan and Old Persian as adjectival formations. This hypothesis is primarily based on the case agreement between the relative pronoun and the head noun. This paper presents
an alternative interpretation, proposing that these constructions should be viewed as relative clauses (RCs) with omitted copulas. From this perspective, the omission of the copula triggers the so-called attractio relativi, a phenomenon observed in various Indo-European languages, thus challenging prior claims. The idea that
RCs may have served as precursors to the Persian ezāfe and potentially contributed to the formation of definite articles in some Middle Eastern Iranian languages remains compelling. However, in earlier stages, these structures are best understood as reduced RCs, lacking an explicit copula.

Abstract
Categories
Articles

New remarks on §70 of the Bisotun Inscription

Fattori, Marco. 2024. New epigraphic and exegetical remarks on paragraph 70 of the Bisotun inscription, Old Persian version (DB/OP IV ll. 88–92). Ricerche Linguistiche 1. 105–133.

The preprint of the article is available from the author’s Academia page.

This paper aims to provide a new edition of paragraph 70 of the Old Persian version of the Bisotun inscription (DB/OP IV ll. 88-92). Although this badly preserved passage received an enormous scholarly attention, only a few researchers could directly examine the inscription, and their editions differ significantly from one another. In absence of good published photographs, it is currently impossible to critically evaluate the reliability of these editions and propose new readings based on a first-hand inspection of the stone. To overcome this inconvenience, this article includes a full photographic documentation of the passage and a detailed discussion of each reading. Since this new examination of the inscription resulted in the improvement of several readings, the edition is followed by a commentary where a possible interpretation of the newly read words is offered.

Abstract
Categories
Articles Journal

On the Etymology of pourušaspa-

Volume 28, Issue 1, of Iran and the Caucasus has been published. We would like to point out Mehrbod Khanizadeh’s contribution in the issue:

Khanizadeh, Mehrbod. 2024. On the etymology of the Avestan personal name pourušaspa-. Iran and the Caucasus 28(1). 72–86.

This article discusses the formation and meaning of the Avestan personal name of Zarathuštra’s father, pourušaspa-. Taking side with the current scholarly view on the etymology and meaning of the word, i.e., *pourušāspa– → pourušaspa– ‘one who has grey horses’, it is argued here that the shortening of the vowel can be explained by an analogical model in Wištāsp Yašt 1.2, where pourušaspa– m. is described as pouru.aspa– ‘having many horses’. The article also challenges the view that Wištāsp Yašt 1.2 is a recent text.

Abstract
Categories
Articles

The Xorde Avesta and the structuring of time

König, G. 2024. The Xorde Avesta and the structuring of time. Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology 2(4). 1–21.

The Xorde Avesta is considered a collection of shorter Zoroastrian liturgies. Until recently, neither the architecture of the manuscripts in which the Xorde Avesta was handed down was analyzed in detail, nor was the relationship between manuscript and practice adequately described. This article develops the thesis that the representation of the Xorde Avesta in manuscripts and liturgical practice can be understood from the point of a ritual structuring of circular units of time.

Abstract
Categories
Articles

Beyond the theosophical paradigm

Errichiello, Mariano. 2024. Beyond the theosophical paradigm: Ilme kṣnum and the entangled history of modern Parsis. Journal of Persianate Studies. Brill 1–25.

In the early twentieth century, an esoteric interpretation of Zoroastrianism known as Ilme kṣnum became popular among the Parsis of India. Although research on the subject is scant, most scholars suggest that Ilme kṣnum draws largely upon the ideas promoted by the Theosophical Society in India. By examining primary sources in Gujarati, the present article illustrates the interpretation of the Zoroastrian cosmology proposed by Ilme kṣnum. Through a comparative analysis of its main concepts and terms, Ilme kṣnum is historicized in the context of the relations of the Parsi community with the Persianate and Western worlds. By framing Ilme kṣnum as a reconciliation between Persianate and Western forms of knowledge, the present article looks at historical entanglements as resources for the Parsi quest for religious authenticity, placing Zoroastrianism in global religious history.

The Abstract

This is an open access publication ahead of the print.