Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Articles

  • The Frontier Pushes Back

    The Frontier Pushes Back

    Garosi, Eugenio. 2025. The frontier pushes back: From local languages to imperial substrate(s) in scribal practices in 8th-century Central Asia. Iranian Studies FirstView. 1–15.

    This article draws on documentary texts from multilingual archives of early Islamic Central Asia to illustrate connections between the Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal world. Here, I contend that some lesser-known evidence from Sogdia contributes new elements to current debates on the contact between Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal traditions and provides a measure of “intensity” of Arab rule in the region more generally. In particular, ostraca from various Transoxanian administrative centers provide documentary confirmation that a class of biliterate Arabic-Sogdian scribes was active in the local bureaucracy as early as the mid-8th century. When viewed in dialogue with archives from coeval Iran and Iraq, the Transoxanian evidence helps lead to a more nuanced understanding of the so-called “Pahlavi diplomatic substrate” model.

    Abstract
  • An Early Judeo-Persian Rabbanite Text

    An Early Judeo-Persian Rabbanite Text

    Bernard, Chams Benoît. 2025. An Early Judeo-Persian Rabbanite Text: Vat. Pers. 61, Its Linguistic Variety, Its Arabic Vocabulary, and the Targum Onqelos. Journal of Jewish Languages 1–55.

    Vat. Pers. 61, found in the Vatican library, is a Judeo-Persian translation of the Torah. It has been variously described as a 13th, 14th, or 15th century text. This study aims to more accurately pinpoint its age and establish whether it is a direct translation of the Masoretic Text or whether it is based on Targum Onqelos. Based on a limited corpus of this manuscript (the Decalogue and a few other verses), this study also provides a more detailed description of the language variety of the manuscript and discusses the Aramaic and Arabic loanwords found in it. The study concludes that Vat. Pers. 61 is largely based on Targum Onqelos, and the language of the text is found to be generally pre-Mongolian Early Judeo-Persian, which is rare for a religious Rabbanite text.

  • Authority, Assimilation and Afterlife of the Epilogue of Bīsotūn (DB 4:36–92)

    Authority, Assimilation and Afterlife of the Epilogue of Bīsotūn (DB 4:36–92)

    Barnea, Gad. 2025. Imitatio Dei, Imitatio Darii: Authority, Assimilation and Afterlife of the Epilogue of Bīsotūn (DB 4:36–92). Religions 16(5), 597.

    The Bīsotūn inscription of Darius I (DB) is a masterpiece of ancient literature containing descriptions of historical events, imperial propaganda, cultic statements, ethical instructions, wisdom insights, blessings and curses, and engagements with posterity. It was disseminated far and wide within the empire and left a lasting impression on the cultures with which it came into contact. However, a specific section of this royal inscription (DB 4:36–92), carefully crafted to address future audiences in the second person, stands out sharply from the rest of the text. This passage has made a striking, profound, and durable impression on future generations—which extended over the longue durée in both time and space. This article focuses on the decisive cultic theme undergirding DB in general and its fourth column in particular namely, the king’s profound sense of imitatio dei in the cosmic battle against “the Lie,” complemented by his appeal to an imitatio Darii by all future audiences of his words. The impact of this call can be traced in later literature: in a DB variant found at Elephantine and, most notably, a hitherto unknown exegetical legend found in Qumran, which seeks to explain this portion of DB through an Achaemenid court tale.

  • New Readings in Seven Middle Persian Documents

    New Readings in Seven Middle Persian Documents

    Asefi, Nima. 2025. New readings in seven Middle Persian documents from the archive of Hastijan with an edition of Berk. 19. Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology 3(5). 1-19.

    This article proposes new readings and interpretations for parts of seven Middle Persian documents first published by Dieter Weber, namely: Berk. 80, Berk. 95, Berk. 43B, Tehran B, LA1, Berk. 149, and Berlin 28. It also provides the editio princeps of Berk. 19.

    Abstract
  • Greek Citizenship under Arsacid Rule

    Greek Citizenship under Arsacid Rule

    Nabel, Jake. 2025. The verb empoliteuō and Greek citizenship under Arsacid rule. Classical Journal 120(3). 249–276.

    The primary translation for the ancient Greek verb ἐμπολιτεύω in several dictionaries is “to be a citizen, have civil rights.” That definition is untenable. The connotations of ἐμπολιτεύω for citizen status are usually indeterminate, but where they are clear, the verb has the opposite meaning and refers to non-citizens rather than citizens. This sense is crucial to the study of Greek citizenship in the Arsacid empire, because ἐμπολιτεύω appears twice in a key passage from Josephus on Greco-Babylonian relations in the poleis of Arsacid Mesopotamia. The verb’s dictionary definition has led some historians to the conclusion that non-Greeks were citizens of these poleis. Along with local evidence in Akkadian, a review of ἐμπολιτεύω‘s appearances in literature and epigraphy suggests the opposite.

    Abstract

  • Medieval Georgian Manuscripts of Shahnameh Translations

    Giunashvili, Helen. 2025. Medieval Georgian Manuscripts of Shahnameh Translations with Miniatures at the National Centre of Manuscripts of Georgia (“Rostomiani”). Digitalorientalist.

    The Georgian manuscript tradition and book art have a 16-century-long history. Their origin (the most ancient Georgian handwritten monuments are dated from V-VI cc AD) and subsequent transformation relate to many aspects of the development of civic life in Georgia: religion and political orientation, social relations, educational trends, development of artistic thought, and material culture.  

    Abu’l-Qāsem Ferdowsi’s (940-1020) monumental poem “Shahnameh” was well-known for Georgian intellectuals of the time the poem was created. Presumably, it was translated into Georgian rather early (probably at the 12th century), but this translation has not reached us. Only the 15th-18th century Georgian versions of the ‘Shahnameh’, both written in prose and poetry, are recognized today.

  • Middle Persian Documents

    Benfey, Thomas. 2025. Middle Persian documents and the making of the Islamic fiscal system: Problems and prospects. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 87(3). 395–420.

    This article charts a new course for the study of the Middle Persian documents from early Islamic Iran, which takes their early Islamic context into account more fully than has hitherto been done. This approach and its potential fruits for the study of early Islamic history are illustrated through an in-depth treatment of four seventh-century documents from the Qom region (previously edited and discussed by Dieter Weber), each of which contains a fiscal term that is apparently otherwise unattested in the documentary corpus. I show that the existing interpretations of these documents anachronistically project the fiscal terminology and structures of a later time into early Islamic Iran, and that these documents, considered in aggregate, suggest a certain course of development for the Islamic fiscal system in the post-Sasanian territories in the decades following the initial conquests: from broad and relatively unspecific impositions to more targeted exactions, based on increasingly detailed assessments.

    Abstract

  • The Tomb of Two Priestesses?

    Wicks, Yasmina & Gian Pietro Basello. 2024. The tomb of two priestesses? The late Neo-Elamite Jubaji Tomb in a religious-royal context. Asia Anteriore Antica. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures 6: 107-143.

    This article revisits one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in southwest Iran in recent decades, a rich early-mid 6th century BCE tomb of two women, unearthed near the village of Jubaji on the Ramhormoz plain in 2007. Based on the sumptuous grave assemblages and the inclusion of a gold ceremonial ‘ring’ inscribed with the name of a late Neo-Elamite king, Šutur-Nahunte son of Intata, the tomb’s excavator, Arman Shishegar, reasonably interpreted the women – one aged under 17 years, the other 30-35 years – as princesses. Here it is argued that the women may have been important figures in a religious institution based on a combination of the context of the tomb, which seems to have been in an association with a monumental structure, and certain elements of the assemblages. While none of the individual items is significant in isolation, when put together they are highly suggestive of a cultic environment. These include several semiprecious stone beads, including two inscribed eye-stones, that were already very ancient when deposited, special ritual paraphernalia, the bronze coffins that held the women’s remains, the inscribed gold ‘ring’ naming Šutur-Nahunte son of Intata, and an inscribed gold object (perhaps a bracelet) of a cult officiant. This is not to say that the roles of princess and priestess were by any means mutually exclusive, but it is the religious aspect that has yet to be investigated. A reassessment here of the significance of the inscribed objects from the Jubaji tomb in a religious context is taken as an occasion to publish new transliterations, translations, and analyses of the inscriptions by Gian Pietro Basello.

  • Indo-Iranian Journal

    Indo-Iranian Journal

    Indo-Iranian Journal volume 68, issue 1 (Feb 2025) has been published. Three articles are more closely related to our work:

    Fattori, Marco. 2025. Old Persian mav‑ and the evolution of the inchoative suffix in Iranian. Indo-Iranian Journal 68(1). 1–14.

    Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2025. Further Old Khotanese texts in ‘Metre B’. Indo-Iranian Journal 68(1). 15–33.

    Gethin, Rupert. 2025. Playing with formulas. Indo-Iranian Journal 68(1). 35–56.

  • Five earthenware Mandaic incantation bowls

    Šafiʿī, Ibrāhīm. 2025. Five earthenware Mandaic incantation bowls in Ābgīne Museum, Tehrān. Journal of Semitic Studies 70 (1): 1-30.

    ĀM. 1 from three perspectives; Photo by ĀM

    This article presents the editio princeps of the Mandaic texts of five incantation bowls housed in Ābgīne Museum, Tehrān (627–S, 626–S, 110–S, 109–S and 108–S). Presumably dated to the 6th-7th centuries, the texts include protective formulae and name of the clients for whom they were written. The texts of 627–S and 626–S are written in a spiral manner, 110–S and 109–S are written in four segments and 108–S, which includes some of the earliest attested evidence of šapta ḏ-pišra ḏ-ainia, with the text arranged as a spoke, like sunrays.