Author: Yazdan Safaee

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History of the Caucasus

Baumer, Christoph. 2021. History of the Caucasus, vol. 1: At the crossroads of empires. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region’s history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day.

This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region – the first known human populations outside Africa – to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

Table of Contents:

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The Persians at the court of the great kings

Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (ed.). 2021. Die Perser am Hof der Großkönige. Darmstadt: wbg Philipp von Zabern.

Was zählt, ist der Blickwinkel: wie die persischen Könige sich selbst sahen

Die antiken Griechen hatten auf Grund von Vormachtrivalität in der Ägäis keine positive Meinung von den persischen Großkönigen. Griechische Quellen berichten von Dekadenz und Despotie am achämenidischen Hof. Doch wie sahen sich die Herrscher des ersten Weltreichs der Antike selbst? Ab Herbst 2020 sollte eine Sonderausstellung des Badischen Landesmuseums die Geschichte und das Selbstbild der Könige von Kyros II. bis zu Dareios III. zeigen. Umständehalber wurde der Begleitband zur Ausstellung zu einem Sonderheft der ANTIKEN WELT umgestaltet. Ein Bildband, der Einblicke in das Leben bei Hof gewährt und persische Quellen für sich sprechen lässt.

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Books

The canal of Darius in Egypt

Mahlich, Elena. 2020. Der Kanalbau unter Dareios I. Ein achämenidisches Bauprojekt in Ägypten (Bonner Ägyptologische Beiträge 11). Berlin: EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt.

Aus dem achämenidenzeitlichen Ägypten liegen trotz einer vergleichsweise langen Herrschaft der Perser während der 27. Dynastie, die von der Eroberung Ägyptens durch Kambyses II. bis zum Jahr 404 v. Chr. dauerte und somit mehr als ein Jahrhundert umfasst, nur wenige keilschriftliche Quellen vor. Zu den besonders bemerkenswerten Funden ist das Konvolut der Kanalstelen zu nennen, die Dareios I. zum Anlass der Einweihung eines Kanals aufstellen ließ. Die Stelen berichten über den Bau dieses Kanals, der den Pelusischen Nilarm mit dem Roten Meer verband. Der vollendete Kanal wies eine Länge von 200 Kilometern auf, womit seine Ausmaße mit dem des modernen Suezkanals vergleichbar sind.

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Journal

Archiv für Orientforschung 54

The latest volume of Archiv für Orientforschung (2021) is out and contains several papers dealing with aspects of the history and culture of Babylonia in the Achaemenid times. The following selected list covers the ones that may interest scholars of the Achaemenid empire:

  • Johannes Hackl: The Artaxerxes Conundrum – Diplomatics and Its Contribution to Dating Late Achaemenid Legal Documents from Babylonia
  • Karlheinz Kessler: Zu den spätachämenidischen Urkunden in Uruk zwischen Xerxes und Alexander
  • Yuval Levavi and Martina Schmidl: Diplomatics of Neo-Babylonian and Early Achaemenid Letters
  • Louise Quillien: Diachronic Change of the Tablet Format, Layout and Contents in the Textile Dossier of the Ebabbar Temple of Sippar (End of the 7th to Beginning of the 5th Century BC)
  • [review of] Johannes Haubold, Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Robert Rollinger and John M. Steele (eds.), The World of Berossos. Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on »The Ancient Near East between Classical and Ancient Oriental Traditions« (= Classica et Orientalia 5) (Reinhard Pirngruber)
  • [review of] Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, King and Court in Ancient Persia, 559 to 331 BCE (= Debates and Documents in Ancient History) (Reinhard Pirngruber)
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Books

The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East

Neumann, Kiersten & Allison Thomason (eds.). 2021. The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East. London: Routledge.

Among other interesting subjects offered in this volume, a number of contributions explicitly deal with the material from ancient Iran:

  • Kiersten Neumann: To touch upon – A tactile exploration of the Apadana reliefs at Persepolis
  • Megan Cifarelli: Dress, sensory assemblages, and identity in the early first millennium bce at Hasanlu, Iran
  • Neville McFerrin: A sense of scale – Proprioception, embodied subjectivities, and the space of kingship at Persepolis
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Books

Epic Iran

Curtis, John, Ina Sarikhani Sandmann &Tim Stanley. 2021. Epic Iran: 5000 Years of culture. London: V&A Publishing.

Iran was the home of some of the greatest civilizations of both the ancient and medieval worlds, but these achievements remain poorly known and largely misunderstood outside the country. Epic Iran tells the story of Iran from pre-Islamic through modern times and provides an opportunity to see pieces from key museum and private collections. This book combines the ancient and Islamic periods and continues the narrative into the contemporary world. It shows how civilized life emerged in Iran around 3,200 BC and how a distinctive Iranian identity formed 2,500 years ago has survived until today, expressed in the Persian language and in religious affiliations.

Lavishly illustrated, some 250 images showcase pieces including goldwork, ceramics, glass, illustrated manuscripts, textiles, carpets, oil paintings, drawings, and photographs. Alongside the historical sweep are examples from contemporary artists and makers, demonstrating the rich antecedents still influencing some modern-day practitioners.

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Articles

Medes in the desert

Potts, Daniel. 2021. Medes in the desert: Thoughts on the mounted archer near Taymā’. In: Claudia Bührig et al. (eds.), Klänge der Archäologie: Festschrift für Ricardo Eichmann, 335-342. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Detail of petroglyph of equestrian figure near Tayma’

The equestrian figure engraved on a rock outcrop near Taymā’ is analyzed. Details of the horse and rider are discussed which support the identification of the horse as an Assyrianizing image, and the rider as a Mede. The significance of the image is treated in light of the tradition of rapid overland communication in the Achaemenid empire.

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Books

Iranian names in Nebenüberlieferungen of Indo-European languages

Martirosyan, Hrach. 2021. Iranische Namen in Nebenüberlieferungen Indogermanischer Sprachen (Iranisches Personennamenbuch, 5. 3). Wien: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

The Iranian element is the largest layer of the Armenian borrowed lexicon. It comprises a period of more than 2.500 years starting from pre-Achaemenid times up to the modern period. Also the number of Armenian personal names of Iranian origin is quite large, roughly estimated one quarter of all Armenian personal names. The Armenian evidence is of vital importance for completing the Iranian onomasticon. In many cases, Middle Persian and Parthian namesakes of Armenian personal names are not directly attested. Besides, Armenian helps to determine the exact shape of Iranian names. The present fascicle of the “Iranisches Personennamenbuch” aims to collect and etymologically interpret all the Iranian personal names, which are attested in Armenian texts up to 1300 CE. Occasionally, it also comprises names that are attested at a later stage but are likely to belong to earlier periods, as well as younger forms that are related with older names and are therefore relevant for the philological or etymological discussion of the latter. The volume comprises 872 entries and includes (1) names of Iranian people of various kinds (kings, queens, princes, generals, etc.) that occur in Armenian texts, and (2) names of Iranian origin that were/are borne by Armenian people. It includes a huge range of new etymologies or corrected versions of pre-existing etymologies, as well as new names and corrected forms of names discovered in critical texts and voluminous corpora of inscriptions and colophons of Armenian manuscripts that have not been available for earlier researchers of the Armenian onomastics.

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Books

William Barker, Xenophon’s ‘Cyropædia’

Grogan, Jane (ed.). 2020. William Barker, Xenophon’s ‘Cyropædia’ (Tudor and Stuart Translation 13). Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association.

William Barker’s translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is the first substantial translation from Greek directly to English in Tudor England. It presents to its English readers an extraordinarily important text for humanists across Europe: a semi-fictional biography of the ancient Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great, so generically rich that it became (in England as well as Europe) a popular authority and model in the very different fields of educational, political and literary theory, as well as in literature by Sidney, Spenser and others.

This edition, for the first time, identifies its translator as a hitherto overlooked figure from the circle of Sir John Cheke at St John’s College, Cambridge, locus of an important and influential revival of Greek scholarship. A prolific translator from Greek and Italian, Barker was a Catholic, and spent most of his career working as secretary to Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk. What little notoriety he eventually gained was as the ‘Italianified Englishman’ who told of Howard’s involvement in the Ridolfi plot. But even here, this edition shows, Barker’s intellectual patronage by Cheke and friends, and their enduring support of him, his translations and the Chekeian agenda, can be discerned.

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Articles

The Greeks and Persia

Stronk, Jan P. 2020. The Greeks and Persia. Talanta 52, 71-87.

Plain of Marathon, with some key features (source: Google Earth).

Lack of data has always been one of the main issues in studying antiquity, a theme that on the one hand distinguishes students of antiquity from other scholars, but on the other hand, ideally, should ensure a bond between ‘Altertumswissenschaftler’ all over the world. Nevertheless, there have risen several divisions in this field of scholarship, especially influenced by nineteenth-century authors. Apart from that, there is at present a shocking gap between scholarship and the greater public (and, consequently, public awareness of the relevance of scholarly activities). At present, new roads have been opened in the past twenty to thirty years that may enable us to find new possibilities for research, and might help us to bridge existing differences. The title of my paper is based upon that of the book by A.R.Burn (1962). Like he did, I shall try to make clear what connects – in my case – ancient Greek authors and Persian history.

From the abstract