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Books

Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea, volume 5

Porten, Bezalel & Ada Yardeni. 2023. Textbook of Aramaic ostraca from Idumea, volume 5. Dossiers H–K: 485 ostraca. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Since the early 1990s, about two thousand Idumean Aramaic ostraca have found their way onto the antiquities market and are now scattered across a number of museums, libraries, and private collections. This fifth and final volume of the Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea completes the work of bringing these ostraca together in a single publication.

Volumes 1–4 published some 1,600 ostraca that gave us insight into agriculture, economics, politics, onomastics, and scribal practices from fourth/third-century BCE Idumea and Judah. The ostraca in volume 5 come from the same milieu, but the information they provide is entirely new and different. This volume presents 485 ostraca, including 99 land descriptions, 168 uncertain texts, and 218 assorted remains, scribal exercises, and forgeries, along with useful indexes and tables and a comparative list of entries. The land descriptions—which record local landmarks, ownership boundaries, and land registration—provide rich complementary material to the rest of the Idumean ostraca. The “uncertain texts” are fragmentary, in poor condition, or contain other abnormalities. As the TAO corpus becomes better understood and as imaging techniques improve, these texts will help to fill gaps in knowledge. The final section includes the remains of scribal practices and forgeries, important because they help to show the authenticity of the other two thousand pieces.

A unique collection of documentary sources for fourth/third-century BCE Idumea—and, by extension, Judah—this multivolume work will be a powerful resource for those interested in onomastics and social and economic history.

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Articles

Neo-Elamite Grain Procurement

Gorris, Elynn. 2023. “Don’t Let the Boats Pass!” Neo-Elamite Grain Procurement in Times of Famine and Drought. Iranian Studies 56(3), 439-456.

This article is concerned with interregional trade dynamics between Elam and Mesopotamia in the early to mid-first millennium BC. During the seventh century BC, two great famines in the Neo-Elamite kingdom, of which climatological changes were a major cause, were documented in the textual records. An era of megadrought made grain procurement from the neighboring regions essential to feed the Neo-Elamite lowland population. This article further explores the impact of the two Neo-Elamite famines and “drought of the century” on the commercial and political mechanisms in the Upper Persian Gulf region.

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Articles

Fulayj: A Sasanian to Early Islamic Fort in the Sohar Hinterland

Priestman, Seth, Nasser Al-Jahwari, Eve MacDonald, Derek Kennet, Kawther Alzeidi, Mark Andrews, Vladimir Dabrowski, Vladimer Kenkadze, Rosalind MacDonald, Tatia Mamalashvili, Ibrahim Al-Maqbali, Davit Naskidashvili & Domiziana Rossi. 2023. Fulayj: A Sasanian to Early Islamic Fort in the Sohar Hinterland. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 52 (2023): 291–304.

Fulayj fort: an oblique aerial view looking across the structure to the north‑east (photograph by Davit Naskidashvili)

Fulayj fort is located on the fertile al-Bāṭinah plain of Oman, 12 km inland from Ṣaḥam and 32 km south-east of the key urban centre and major medieval port of Sohar (Ṣuḥār). The chance discovery of the site by Nasser Al-Jahwari in 2012 provided an important breakthrough in our potential understanding of the late pre-Islamic and initial Islamic period occupation in Oman. Finds collected during the first survey of the site were inspected by Derek Kennet and identified as likely to be of late Sasanian or very early Islamic date. Following further recording in 2014, a broad, multidisciplinary archaeological investigation was launched in 2015. Two seasons were completed by a joint British-Omani team in 2015 and 2016. Following a break in operations, a third season of fieldwork was completed in 2022.1 These investigations have confirmed the initial dating of the fort and substantially enhanced our understanding of all aspects of its planning, construction, history of occupation, internal organization, nature of use, etc. It is possible that Fulayj formed part of a wider defensive military cordon protecting the commercial and agricultural potential of the fertile coastal strip and urban centre of the Sohar hinterland. These wider aspects will be returned to again for further consideration below.

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Journal

Historia i Świat (12)

Issue twelve of Historia i Świat (2023) has been published. Contributions to this issue relate to Iranian archaeology.

  • Zohreh OVEISI-KEIKHA, Hosseinali KAVOSH: The Investigation of residential architecture in the Bronze Age. Tape Yal, Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran
  • Sepideh JAMSHIDI YEGANEH: Cremation in Elamite period (Sukkalmah): Hirbodan site
  • Alireza ASKARI CHAVERDI: Achaemenid Settlement in Shiraz Plain: Tol-e Sefid Sadra
  • Morteza KHANIPOUR, Hamed MOLAEI KORDSHOULI: Cairn Burial of the historical period around Khansaar dam, Toujerdi district of Fars province, Iran
  • Ehsan KHONSARINEJAD, Reza RIAHIYAN GOHORTI, Sahar TAVAKOLI: Arrowheads in the cultural-historical property repository of the Administration of Cultural Heritage of Kerman. An Introduction
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Books

The Image of the Iranian World in the Roman Poetry of the Republican and Augustan Ages

Babnis, Tomasz. 2022. The Image of the Iranian World in the Roman Poetry of the Republican and Augustan Ages. Cracow: Księgarnia Akademicka.

The present book is dedicated to the image of the Iranian world emerging from the extant Roman poetry written in the Republican and Augustan Ages. The scope of the source material stretches thus from the comedies of Plautus to the Ovidian exile poetry, covering over 200 years of the great development of Latin literature. My aim is to investigate which motifs were referred to by Roman poets, which patterns could be noticed in those texts, which elements were mentioned most often, what relations can be observed between these references and historical, geographical, social or religious realities, and finally, what the function of these references is within the scope of entire poems or parts of texts extracted from the works of a greater size. I am also interested in the “genealogy” of these motifs: their origin and way of exploitation by the poets of subsequent periods. I aim at examining how consistent the overall image created from references scattered throughout the works of various authors was and how it changed in the course of time.

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Books

Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn. 2023. Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Yale: Yale University.

The book of Ezra is a remarkable testament to a nation’s ability to survive and develop a distinctive identity under imperial rule. But Ezra is far more than a simple chronicle; it constitutes a new biblical model for political, religious, and social order in the Persian Empire.

In this new volume, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi illustrates how the book of Ezra envisions the radical transformation that followed reconstruction after the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. The extensive introduction highlights the book’s innovations, including its textualization of the tradition, as well as the unprecedented role of the people as chief protagonists. The translation and commentary incorporate evidence from ancient and contemporaneous primary sources from Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Persia, along with new archaeological studies of Judah. With great care and detail, Eskenazi demonstrates how the book of Ezra creates a blueprint for survival after destruction, shaping a new kind of society and forging a new communal identity.

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Journal

Iran, Volume 61, Issue 1 (2023)

The table of contents of the latest issue (61/1) of the journal Iran:

  • Ali Khayani & Kamal Aldin Niknami: More Early Bronze Age Seal Impressions from Chogha Maran, Western Central Zagros
  • Yasmina Wicks: Probing the Margins in Search of Elamite Children
  • Davide Salaris: The Equestrian Relief of Hung-e Azhdar: A Historical Memory for the Dynastic Lineages of Elymais
  • Esmaeil Sharahi, Hossein Sedighian & Meisam Nikzad: Excavation at Tahyaq – A Subterranean Rock-Cut Architecture Complex in Khomein, Markazi Province, Iran
  • Saeed Amirhajloo & Hossein Sedighian: Recent Archaeological Research in South Iran: Excavation at the Old City of Sirjan (The Site of Qal’eh Sang)
  • Marc Czarnuszewicz: Challenging Narratives of “Missionary” Ismaʿilism in Buyid Iran: Reconsidering the Sira of al-Muʾayyad fī al-Din al-Shirazi through Socio-economic Contextualisation
  • Denis Hermann & Fabrizio Speziale: Scientific Knowledge and Religious Milieu in Qajar Iran: Negotiating Muslim and European Renaissance Medicine in the Subtleties of Healing
  • Kioumars Ghereghlou: A Forgotten Money Heist: The 1746 Mission of Nadir Shah’s Chief Merchant in Russia Revisited
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Books

Deciphering Assyria

Mattila, Raija, Robert Rollinger & Sebastian Fink (eds.). 2023. Deciphering Assyria: A Tribute to Simo Parpola on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday (Melammu Workshops and Monographs 9). Münster: Zaphon.

Among other interesting contributions offered to this volumes, a Tribute to Simo Parpola, are two individual papers that correspond to ancient Iranian history:

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Books

Susa and Elam II

Tavernier, Jan, Elynn Gorris & Katrien De Graef (eds.). 2023. Susa and Elam II: History, language, religion and culture (MDP 59). Leiden: Brill.

Susa and Elam II: History, Language, Religion and Culture presents 16 contributions on various topics, all related to the history of Susa and Elam, both situated in the southwest of modern-day Iran. More specifically, the volume is the proceedings of an international conference held at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) from 6 to 9 July 2015. There are four main sections (history, language, religion, and culture) containing articles by Belgian and internationally renowned researchers, as well as some young scholars, specialized in Susian and Elamite studies. The contributions cover various themes such as royal names, diplomatic history, Elamite weights, and socio-environmental history among others.

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Books

The Persian Empire, the Greeks and Politics

Tourraix, Alexandre. 2022. L’empire perse, les Grecs et le politique. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté.

L’empire perse achéménide fascine les Grecs, qui le perçoivent de façon très déformée, et qui comprennent mal son fonctionnement. Au ve siècle avant J.-C, son observation alimente leur réflexion politique, parallèlement à la stasis, terme par lequel ils désignent les conflits internes de leurs cités. Dans ce double exercice, Hérodote, les Tragiques et les Sophistes pensent le politique, et ils préparent la naissance de la théorie politique au siècle suivant. Le débat sur la meilleure constitution en procède : Hérodote le projette sur les conjurés perses de 522 (III, 80-82). La crise qui éclate cette année-là dans l’empire perse tient à ce que la succession de Cyrus, mort en 530 avant J.-C., n’était pas réglée, bien qu’il ait désigné son fils Cambyse pour lui succéder. Ce dernier a probablement compromis lui-même ce processus, en faisant éliminer son frère Bardiya, en dévoyant à cette fin le rituel originellement babylonien du substitut royal, ignoré des Grecs en tant que tel, mais transformé par eux de façon totalement inconsciente sur le mode du dédoublement et de la ressemblance. L’instrument de cette machination, le mage Gaumāta, était devenu Bardiya, en vertu même du rituel, et il a prétendu régner à la place de Cambyse avant même sa mort, survenue selon toute apparence de façon accidentelle. Darius, probable cousin de Cambyse, a renversé le mage avec 6 conjurés, pour régner à son tour, en prétendant restaurer la légitimité dynastique. Le débat constitutionnel qui précède son avènement chez Hérodote est fondé sur une arithmétique élémentaire opposant constamment le petit nombre, réduit jusqu’au chiffre un, un effectif un peu plus important, mais qui demeure restreint, et le grand nombre. Cette distinction se retrouve entre la monarchie, pouvoir d’un seul, l’oligarchie, pouvoir d’une minorité, et la démocratie, pouvoir du grand nombre. Les Grecs l’appliquent au champ du politique, alors que le monde indien répartissait les fonctions duméziliennes selon le même critère. L’historiographie grecque des rois mèdes et perses est fondée sur une typologie d’inspiration tout aussi tri-fonctionnelle, qui réserve à chacun d’entre eux un rôle : roi fondateur et organisateur, roi guerrier, souverain lié à la Troisième Fonction. Cette typologie n’est pas un carcan rigide, et elle s’adapte à chacun des règnes, et à chacun des monarques.