Author: Yazdan Safaee

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The Cults of Alexander the Great in the Greek Cities of Asia Minor

Kholod, Maxim. 2016. “The Cults of Alexander the Great in the Greek Cities of Asia Minor“. Klio. Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 98(2), 495-525.

 

The paper deals with the cults of Alexander the Great in the Greek cities of Asia Minor (on the coast and the nearby islands). The author argues that although some cults in these cities could be set up after the Macedonian king’s death, at least most known to us (or supposed) cults of Alexander in them were instituted still in his lifetime, in all likelihood, in 324-323 BC. It seems that the cults of the king were established only in a certain, probably far from overwhelming, number of the Greek cities of Asia Minor in this period. In turn, it should be believed that the do ut des principle played an important role when these cities introduced such cults. At the same time, their institution was also caused by a sense of gratitude of the inhabitants of the Greek cities of Asia Minor to Alexander for the liberation of them from the unpopular power of both the Persians and pro-Persian oligarchs or tyrants and, in addition, for those general and particular benefactions that were given by the Macedonian king to the communities.

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Women in Mongol Iran

De Nicola, Bruno. 2017. Women in Mongol Iran: The Khātūns, 1206–1335. Edinburgh University Press.

Bruno De Nicola investigates the development of women’s status in the Mongol Empire from its original homeland in Mongolia up to the end of the Ilkhanate of Iran in 1335. Taking a thematic approach, the chapters show a coherent progression of this development and contextualise the evolution of the role of women in medieval Mongol society. The arrangement serves as a starting point from where to draw comparison with the status of Mongol women in the later period. Exploring patterns of continuity and transformation in the status of these women in different periods of the Mongol Empire as it expanded westwards into the Islamic world, the book offers a view on the transformation of a nomadic-shamanist society from its original homeland in Mongolia to its settlement in the mostly sedentary-Muslim Iran in the mid-13th century.

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The history of the Parthians in the Geography of Strabo

Dabrowa, Edward . 2015. “L’ histoire des Parthes dans la Geographie de Strabon“, Studi Ellenistici 29, 285-303.

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The Hellenistic Worlds

Michel Balard, Philippe Clancier, Omar Coloru & Gilles Gorre. 2017. Les mondes hellénistiques. Du Nil à l’Indus, Paris: Hachette.

 

The Hellenistic Worlds (323-31 BC) stretch from Anatolia to Indus and from Armenia to Egypt. These territories share the common feature of not belonging to the Greek cultural area and of hosting populations of different origins and cultures. The study of the societies pre-existing the Macedonian conquest provide an important element for the comprehension of the functioning of the new powers, of their structure and administration, and the creation of cultural transfers between communities. The sources corresponding to the area of expertise of each author, and the historiographical debate they engender are at the heart of this manual. After a chronological table, the chapters address issues concerning the administration of these territories, their economy, the role played by local shrines, and cultural aspects.

To see table of contents click here.

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Signaling Theory and Dress in Period IVb at Hasanlu Iran

Cifarelli, Megan. 2017. Costly choices: Signaling theory and dress in period IVb at Hasanlu Iran. Cifarelli, Megan & Laura Gawlinski (eds.), What shall I say of clothes? Theoretical and methodological approaches. Boston: The Archaeological Institute of America.

A growing body of work on dress in antiquity has probed more deeply the embodied experience of wearers, the relational aspect of the way dress communicates, and the role of dress as an active element in, rather than a passive reflection of, the construction of identity. It remains challenging, though, to interpret material evidence that shows abrupt changes in
dress practice. This article explores the potential of costly signaling theory, borrowed from evolutionary archaeology, for interpreting the gendered, militaristic dress-related artifacts introduced in the burials of the early first millennium B.C.E. at Hasanlu, Iran, a period of external threatand internal upheaval. Rather than characterizing these changes as simply evidence of “militarization” in a time of crisis, this article argues that a seemingly unwearable type of dress item participated in an effective, mutually beneficial form of communication by which men and women negotiated identity and power at the site.

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Archaeology and Globalization

Hodos, Tamar (ed.) 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. Routledge.

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A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire

Nicholas Elliott’s translation of Briant’s 2012 Alexandre des Lumières: Fragments d’histoire européenne has been published:

Briant, Pierre. 2017. The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The exploits of Alexander the Great were so remarkable that for centuries after his death the Macedonian ruler seemed a figure more of legend than of history. Thinkers of the European Enlightenment, searching for ancient models to understand contemporary affairs, were the first to critically interpret Alexander’s achievements. As Pierre Briant shows, in the minds of eighteenth-century intellectuals and philosophes, Alexander was the first European: a successful creator of empire who opened the door to new sources of trade and scientific knowledge, and an enlightened leader who brought the fruits of Western civilization to an oppressed and backward “Orient.”

In France, Scotland, England, and Germany, Alexander the Great became an important point of reference in discourses from philosophy and history to political economy and geography. Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Robertson asked what lessons Alexander’s empire-building had to teach modern Europeans. They saw the ancient Macedonian as the embodiment of the rational and benevolent Western ruler, a historical model to be emulated as Western powers accelerated their colonial expansion into Asia, India, and the Middle East.

For a Europe that had to contend with the formidable Ottoman Empire, Alexander provided an important precedent as the conqueror who had brought great tyrants of the “Orient” to heel. As The First European makes clear, in the minds of Europe’s leading thinkers, Alexander was not an aggressive militarist but a civilizing force whose conquests revitalized Asian lands that had lain stagnant for centuries under the lash of despotic rulers.

Table of contents

  • Preface to the English-Language Edition
  • Introduction: Fragments of European History
  • I. A Critical History
    • 1. History, Morals, and Philosophy
    • 2. Alexander in Europe: Erudition and History
  • II. The Conqueror-Philosopher
    • 3. War, Reason, and Civilization
    • 4. A Successful Conquest
    • 5. Affirming and Contesting the Model
  • III. Empires and Nations
    • 6. Lessons of Empire, from the Thames to the Indus
    • 7. Alexander in France from the Revolution to the Restoration
    • 8. German Alexanders
  • IV. The Sense of History
    • 9. After Alexander?
    • 10. Alexander, Europe, and the Immobile Orient
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
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Semiramis’ Legacy

Stronk, Jan p. 2016. Semiramis’ Legacy: The History of Persia According to Diodorus of Sicily (Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia). Edinburgh University Press.

There are only a few detailed histories of Persia from Ancient Greek historiography that have survived time. Diodorus of Sicily, a first century BC author, is the only one to have written a comprehensive history (the Bibliotheca Historica or Historical Library) in which more than cursory attention is paid to Persia. The Bibliotheca Historica covers the entire period from Persia’s prehistory until the arrival of the Parthians from the East and that of Roman power throughout Asia Minor and beyond from the West, around 750 years after Assyrian rule ended.

Diodorus’ contribution to our knowledge of Persian history is therefore of great value for the modern historian of the Ancient Near East and in this book Jan Stronk provides the first complete translation of Diodorus’ account of the history of Persia. He also examines and evaluates both Diodorus’ account and the sources he used to compose his work, taking into consideration the historical, political and archaeological factors that may have played a role in the transmission of the evidence he used to acquire the raw material underlying his Bibliotheca.

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Proto-Elamite writing in Iran

Desset, François. 2016. “Proto-Elamite writing in Iran“, Archéo–Nil 26, 67-104.

In the Near East, the most ancient writing systems currently known in the world appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC: the proto-cuneiform writing in Southern Mesopotamia and the proto-elamite writing on the Iranian Plateau. Both used for administrative and accounting purposes, these writing systems displayed important parallels, such as the numerical systems and the numerical value signs, and dissimilarities since most of their signs differed from each other. Because of the apparent break in the scribal tradition on the Iranian Plateau around 2800 BC, the proto-elamite writing did not give birth to any offspring which could have helped us in its decipherment, contrary to the proto-cuneiform writing and its heir, the cuneiform writing. For this reason, although it is known for more than one century thanks to the French excavations in Susa, the proto-elamite writing remains still largely undeciphered and only the shared elements with the proto-cuneiform writing (such as the numerical systems) are finally well understood.

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Iranian and Jewish Apocalyptics

Agostini, Domenico. 2016. On Iranian and Jewish apocalyptics, again. Journal of the American Oriental Society 136 (3). 495–505.

The relations between the Iranian, in particular Zoroastrian, and Jewish apocalyptic literature as well as their mutual influences have, since the beginning of the twentieth century, constituted a rich and exciting battlefield for the scholars of
these respective traditions. This article aims to present some topics concerning the definition of Iranian apocalyptics and its relation with its Jewish counterpart, as well as to establish an updated starting point for a new scholarly debate.