A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies
Potts, Daniel. 2014. On some early equids at Susa. In B. Cerasetti (ed.), ‘My life is like the summer rose’ Maurizio Tosi e l’Archeologia come modo di vivere. Papers in honour of Maurizio Tosi for his 70th birthday (BAR International Series 2690), 643–647. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Read the article here.
Agostini, Domenico. 2014. Eschatological seers and otherworldly travellers in Zoroastrianism. Journal Asiatique 302(1). 47–73.
Benkato, Adam. 2015. Sogdian Bibliography.
This provisional bibliography restricts itself to works focused mostly on the Sogdian language and its linguistic analysis or editions of texts. Comments, corrections, and further entries are most welcome.
Kiel, Yishai. 2015. Abraham and Nimrod in the shadow of Zarathustra. Journal of Religion 95(1). 35–50.
Bausi, Alessandro & Pier Giorgio Borbone, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, Paola Buzi, Jost Gippert, Caroline Macé, Marilena Maniaci, Zisis Melissakis, Laura Parodi, Witold Witakowski (eds.). 2015. Comparative Oriental manuscript studies: An introduction. COMSt.
The present introductory handbook on comparative oriental manuscript studies is the main achievement of the Research Networking Programme ‘Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies’ (COMSt), funded by the European Science Foundation from June 2009 to May 2014. Within the framework of the five-year programme, several hundred scholars from ‘central’ as well as ‘marginal’ fields related to manuscript study and research had the opportunity ofexchanging ideas and discussing diverse approaches, looking for common ground and a better understanding of the others’ reasons and methodology in manuscript studies: from codicology to palaeography, from textual criticism andscholarly editing to cataloguing as well as conservation and preservation issues, and always taking into account theincreasing importance of digital scholarship and the natural sciences.
Alberto Cantera and Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst discuss in this volume Zoroastrian manuscripts and the Turfan fragments.
An important article by Daneshmand and Abdoli about a previously unidentified Elamite king:
Daneshmand, Parsa & Meysam Abdoli. 2015. A new king of Susa and Anshan. Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin 2015:1.
Brock, Sebastian. 2014. The Martyrs of Mount Ber’ain (Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac: Text and Translation 4). Gorgias Press. With an introduction by Paul C. Dilley.
Smith, Kyle. 2014. The martyrdom and history of blessed Simeon bar Sabba’e (Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac: Text and Translation 3). Gorgias Press.
Around the year 339 CE, Simeon bar Sabbae (the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the Tigris) was killed by the Persian king Shapur II. Simeon was arrested for refusing to collect taxes from his flock, and he was beheaded for disobeying the king’s order to worship the sun. The bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was no minor figure. In fact, Simeon’s martyr acts proclaim that he was the leader of the Christians of Persia and the protomartyr of Shapur’s forty-year persecution. Curiously, however, two very different versions of Simeon’s death exist. Each is presented here with an accompanying translation and notes.
Simeon’s Martyrdom and History are fundamental sources for chronicling the history of Christianity in Sasanian Persia. Together, these texts testify to the centrality of martyrdom literature in late ancient Syriac Christianity, and they show how Persian Christians forged their own political and religious identities amidst the ongoing Christianization of the Roman Empire.
McCollum, Adam Carter. 2013. The story of Mar Pinhas (Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac: Text and Translation 2). Gorgias Press.
