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Religious Appropriation of National Symbols in Iran: Searching for Cyrus the Great

Merhavy, Menahem. 2015. Religious Appropriation of National Symbols in Iran: Searching for Cyrus the Great. Iranian Studies. 48(6), 933-948.

In this article I examine the debate over the character of Cyrus the Great in Iran during the last four decades, using it as a prism to view the struggle over the desired balance between religious and ethnic components of Iranian identity. Heated polemics over the historical figure of Cyrus and his legacy reveal undercurrents of Iranian identity dilemmas as well as different and conflicting views of Iranian identity. Beyond a mere historical or religious controversy, the debate over the “right” memory of Cyrus presents an interesting case of shifting emphasis on identity and sources of political inspiration in Iranian society from the late 1960s to the present. Moreover, putting the debate over the ancient king in perspective, there emerges a wider picture of religious adaptation and embrace of what once seemed pagan or secular.

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Ethics of War and Peace in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi

Mahalati, Mohammad Jafar Amir. 2015. Ethics of War and Peace in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Iranian Studies. 48(6), 905-931.

 

This article provides an overview of the ethics of war and peace in the most important and normatively influential work of epic literature known in the eastern lands of Islam, namely the shahnameh of Ferdowsi (d. 1020 CE). As one of the greatest sources of the Iranian cultural identity for over a millennium, Shahnameh (lit. The book of kings) defines normative ideals in the ethics of war and peace within narratives that connect the ancient history of Iran to its mythical eras and in effect to both the medieval time of the epic’s authorship and modern Iranian identity. By identifying limits, standards and legitimacy for war and peace in Shahnameh, this article aims to facilitate an Iranian contribution to the global literature and practice on peacemaking that has deep roots in the Islamo-Persian tradition.

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Approaches to Social Complexity in Kura-Araxes Culture

Alizadeh, Karim, Hamed Eghbal, and Siavash Samei. 2015. Approaches to Social Complexity in Kura-Araxes Culture: A View from Köhne Shahar (Ravaz) in Chaldran, Iranian Azerbaijan, Paléorient. 41(1),37-54.

Due to increasing investigations and studies of the Kura-Araxes cultural communities, our information about this enigmatic
archaeological culture has increased in many respects. Its interactions and regional variations in terms of cultural materials have been analyzed by many scholars. However, our knowledge about its societal variations is still very limited. We do not yet know much about social dynamics behind its material culture that spread out through vast regions in the Caucasus and the Near East. Indeed, there are some fundamental questions about the Kura-Araxes cultural communities that need further investigation. To address these questions, we focus on data collected from Köhne Shahar, a Kura-Araxes site in the Chaldran area of the Iranian Azerbaijan. We concentrate on two major features of the site that we have explored during the past three years: the fortification wall and the stratigraphy. Analysis of the site’s large fortification wall suggests that external threat and conflict could have played a role in the development of political complexity at Köhne Shahar. We further argue that there is a great potential at Köhne Shahar for addressing social complexity and suggest that further investigations at the site may shed more light on social dynamics in the Kura-Araxes cultural communities.

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Epigraphic practices in Persia and the ancient Iranian world

Canepa, Matthew P. 2015. Text, image, memory, and performance: epigraphic practices in Persia and the ancient Iranian world. In Antony Eastmond, Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, 10-35. Cambridge University Press.

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Merv, an archaeological case-study from the northeastern frontier of the Sasanian Empire

Simpson, St John. 2014. Merv, an archaeological case-study from the northeastern frontier of the Sasanian Empire. Journal of Ancient History. 2(2), 1-28.

This paper re-examines some of the latest archaeological evidence from Merv, beginning with the oasis, followed by the city and finally with aspects of the urban economy. It concludes with a brief exploration of how this cumulative evidence matches that from some other regions of the Sasanian Empire, including frontier regions such as Gorgan, and the Mesopotamian heartlands, and argues that cross-regional archaeological comparison throws new light on how the
Sasanian state effectively managed its resources.

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Judæo-Iranian Languages

Torat Adonai, Constantinople: Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino, 1546 Detail. The right column contains Jacob Tavusi’s Judeo-Persian translation (BL Or. 70.c.10) © The British Library

Borjian, Habib. 2015. Judeo-Iranian Languages. In Lily Kahn & Aaron D. Rubin (eds.), Handbook of Jewish Languages, 234–296. (Brill’s Handbooks in Linguistics). Leiden: Brill.

Judeo-Iranian languages referring mostly to a group of Jewish variants of Iranian languages, many of them dialects of Persian, spoken or written with the Hebrew script by Jews in greater Iran over a period of more than a millennium. The corpus of Judeo-Iranian literature is very important for both linguistic and literary reasons, as it includes some of the earliest documents of New Persian, and because it constitutes a sizable literature written by Persian Jews.

 

About the Handbook of Jewish Languages

This Handbook of Jewish Languages is an introduction to the many languages used by Jews throughout history, including Yiddish, Judezmo (Ladino) , and Jewish varieties of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Malayalam, Occitan (Provençal), Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Syriac, Turkic (Karaim and Krymchak), Turkish, and more. Chapters include historical and linguistic descriptions of each language, an overview of primary and secondary literature, and comprehensive bibliographies to aid further research. Many chapters also contain sample texts and images. This book is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in Jewish languages, and will also be very useful for historical linguists, dialectologists, and scholars and students of minority or endangered languages.

Habib Borjian is a scholar of Iranian lingustic, comparative historical philology and typology in Center for Iranian Studies at the  Columbia University as well as the senior assistant editor of Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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Babylonian kingship in the Persian period

Waerzeggers, Caroline. 2015. Babylonian Kingship in the Persian Period: Performance and Reception. In J. Stökl & C. Waerzeggers (eds.), Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context, 181-222. Berlin: De Gruyter.

The Persian conquest of Babylon set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to the partial return of Judah’s exilic community and to the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem. Despite Cyrus’ prominent role in the biblical narrative  about these events – and despite the historical reality of Yehud’s place within the Persian Empire – the Hebrew Bible constructs the context of the return as a kingless arena which required a profound reworking and re-interpretation of the traditional alignments between the Davidic king and Yahweh.¹ In this paper, I will contextualize these reflections by asking how Babylonian audiences responded to their loss of indigenous kingship following the Persian conquest – for, even  though the institution of ‘King of Babylon’ with its rituals and symbols survived into the Persian period, there is evidence of profound change during the Empire’s two hundred years of existence. After an introduction, the first part of this paper deals with contemporary responses to Persian rule in Babylonia; the second part moves on to a discussion of the reception of Persian period kingship by later generations of Babylonians.

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Achaemenid Religion

Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. 2014. Achaemenid Religion. Religion Compass.  8(6), 175-187.

Achaemenid religion” was the religion of the rulers of Iran in the second half of the first millennium BCE and the local form of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of the Iranians. The earliest form of Zoroastrianism is known from the Avesta, their sacred texts, which probably originated in the last half of the second and first half of the first millennium BCE, but were transmitted only orally until priests began writing them down in the seventh century. The “Achaemenid religion” is known from cuneiform inscriptions in the local Iranian language, Old Persian, and from tablets in Elamite found at Persepolis, as well as from other sources. It was a dualist religion, postulating the existence of good and evil from the beginning, as well as a polytheistic religion, but with one god, Ahura-Mazdā, outranking the others. Scholarly discussion has centered on the question whether the Achaemenids were real Zoroastrians, in the sense of following the reformed teachings of the historical Zarathustra. As the assumed historicity of Zarathustra and his reform are increasingly being questioned, scholars are now focusing on the interpretation of the inscriptions, notably from the point of view of the orality of Iranian traditions and their relationship with the Avesta, but also increasingly on the editing of the Elamite tablets and mining them for information.

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Zoroastrian Embroidery

Parsi Zoroastrian Embroidery © UNESCO Parzor
Parsi Zoroastrian Embroidery © UNESCO Parzor

Cama, Shernaz. 2014. Parsi Embroidery: An Intercultural Amalgam. In Zhao Feng, Marie-Louise Nosch & Lotika Varadarajan (eds.), Global Textile Encounters, 263–274. (Ancient Textiles Series). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

From early history, textiles have woven together the tapestry of humanity. The Parsi Zoroastrians, now a tiny minority of under 65,000 individuals in India, have saved, in their cupboards and trunks, this proof of our world’s multicutural history. Cpmplex roots and routes lie behind what we call “Parsi Embroidery” today. The tradition grew  from Achaemenian Iran, travelled through the Silk Route into China and then came back with Indian and European influences, to its originators, the Parsi Zoroastrians of India.
Shernaz Cama is asociate professor at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, India.
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Zoroastrian Manuscripts in Russia

Kolesnikov, Aly Ivanovich. 2015. The Zoroastrian Manuscript in the Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS (Short Reference and Structure). Written Monuments of the Orient 1(1). 38–47.

The article introduces unique Persian manuscripts in the collection of the IOM, RAS specially devoted to Zoroastrian matters. In short Zoroastrian scriptures composed in New Persian during the 12th–17th centuries, were not literal translations from the Pahlavi, but free interpretations of the old sources, adapted to the changing circumstances of life.

The artcile is available to download here.

Aly Ivanovich Kolesnikov is Leading Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences.