Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Books

  • Sogdian Christians

    Sogdian Christians

    Sheridan, Daniel . 2026. Sogdian Christians. Networks, Books, Homilies, and Medicine. Turnhout: Brepols.

    After centuries of obscurity, the Sogdian people have once again been recognized as the premier long-distance traders of the famed Eurasian trade routes of late antique and early medieval Eurasia, popularly referred to as the “Silk Roads.” Similarily, a previous Christian association with Sogdians and their language had also been all but forgotten until the archeological finds at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, this study explores some of the results of Sogdian Christians having once moved within a confluence of networks, with connections to the wider Christian world and the transcontinental trading networks of the Sogdians. Furthermore, extant evidence shows the once wide-spread currency of the Sogdian language among Christians throughout Central Asia. Through the case studies of book culture, knowledge transmission, and the healing arts, the prominence of the “Sogdian element” in Christian activities outside of the Roman world becomes readily apparent not just for the history of Christianity but also the histories of Central Asia, China, and others.


  • Reassembling knowledge

    Benfey, Thomas. 2026. Reassembling knowledge: Science, medicine, and philosophy in Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq and Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    The scholars of the Sasanian empire—the last antique superpower whose extensive territories encompassed much of Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and the Caucasus—played a pivotal role in world intellectual history. They developed a distinctive synthesis of Indian and Greco-Roman learning, which would have a formative impact on Islamic civilization in the wake of the empire’s fall to Arab armies in the 7th century CE. Drawing on a wide range of texts in languages including Arabic, Middle Persian, Syriac, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, Thomas Benfey closely examines these scholars, their contributions, and the shifting contexts in which they lived and worked. From the court of the sixth-century King of Kings Khusrō I to early Abbasid Baghdad, this book explores key developments in philosophy, medicine, and astral science and the institutional and historical contexts in which they took place. Benfey highlights the distinctive features of this decisive era, tracing intellectual continuity and change into the early Islamic period.

    Book description
  • Judeans in the Land of the Nile

    Judeans in the Land of the Nile

    Ziemba, Kacper & Frederik Poulsen (eds.). 2026. Judeans in the Land of the Nile: Papers on Achaemenid Egypt, Elephantine, and the Hebrew Bible Presented in Copenhagen, August 19–20, 2024 (Ägypten und Altes Testament 136). Münster: Zaphon.

    The significance of Egypt for the history of the Judeans in the 1st millennium BCE is difficult to overestimate. The geographical proximity of the land of the Nile and Judah meant that their political and cultural fates were intertwined. This is evidenced by the attempts of Egyptian rulers to extend their dominance over Judah or, more broadly, Palestine. Egypt was also home to Judeans and communities originating from Judah. Before it became one of the largest centers of the diaspora in the Hellenistic period, there was a Judean community living in Elephantine-Syene on the Nile. This was at a time when Egypt and Judah were under the rule of the Persian Empire. We know of it thanks to an Aramaic archive of papyri and ostraca from the Persian era that originate from this area. These texts – mainly private, legal, and administrative documents – allow us to reconstruct various aspects of the lives of members of this Judean community. Egypt is also the source of Papyrus Amherst 63, a text written in Demotic script in Aramaic and containing certain themes that invite us to link it with the presence of Judeans in Egypt. Moreover, Egypt and its relations with Israelites/Judeans are important topics in the Hebrew Bible. Egypt is not only the land of first exile (the Exodus story) and the topic of prophetic invectives (e.g., Isa 19; Jer 46; Ezek 29–32) but also the country where Judeans could find shelter and prosper (Patriarchal narratives; Joseph Story). It is equally remarkable that biblical authors, unlike Judeans in Babylonia, often do not mention their co-religionists living in Egypt during the Persian period; the negative assessment of Judeans living there (Jer 42–44) underlines this fact. In light of the Elephantine papyri, this silence is even more puzzling.

    These issues were the focus of papers presented at the workshop ‘Judean Diaspora and Biblical Texts in Achaemenid Egypt,’ organized at the University of Copenhagen on August 19 and 20, 2024, as part of the research project Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism. The contributions are organized into three thematic sections: Egypt under Persian rule; Elephantine and Papyrus Amherst 63; and representations of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible.

    Table of contents:

    Ziemba / Poulsen: Introduction: Judeans in the Land of the Nile

    Part I: Egypt under Persian Rule

    Colburn: What Have the Persians Ever Done for Us? The Study of Achaemenid Imperialism in Egypt

    Wasmuth: Persian Period Elephantine/Syene in Context: The Natural, Pharaonic Socio-Cultural, and Persian Period Urban Environment       

    Part II: Elephantine and Papyrus Amherst

    Moore: A Supposed Diaspora Community at Elephantine or How the Persians Reinvented Judean-ness  

    Ziemba: Elusive Soldiers: The Military Nature of the ‘Judean Troop’ at Persian-period Elephantine

    Holm: “I Come from Judah, My Brother Has Been Brought from Samaria” (Aramaic P. Amherst 63): The Judean and Samarian Arrival in Egypt

    Hjelm: What Can Elephantine Teach Us about Ancient Samari(t)ans

    Granerød: “What Indeed Has Papyrus Amherst 63 To Do with Elephantine?” The Amherst Papyrus’s Relevance to the Question of the Elephantine Judean Community’s Historical Background and Identity    

    Part III: Representations of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible

    Poulsen: Defining Diaspora in the Joseph Story

    Youssef: Isaiah 19 and the Persian Period

    Liebermann: Jeremiah and YHWH in Egypt: Divine Presence, Prophetic Pain, and the Presentation of History

    Fry: A Quest for This Historical “Queen of Heaven”: Connecting the Biblical and Non-Biblical in and through Diaspora

  • The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period

    The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period

    Boivin, Odette. 2026. The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period. The Archival Texts (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 33). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period is the third volume of the ADOG sub-series named Babil and dedicated to the study of Babylon. It contains the edition of 86 texts uncovered during the excavations directed by Robert Koldewey and carried out between 1899 and 1917 by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Babylon.

    The cuneiform tablets presented in this volume are primarily everyday archival documents and were uncovered in the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad and east of it (in the northern Merkes area); they belong to the text groups N8 and N9 in O. Pedersén, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon, ADOG 25 published in 2005. The texts are dated to the period between the mid-7th and the 5th centuries BCE. They provide information about the individuals and families who had connections to the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon or were within its sphere of influence. Through an in-depth analysis of the archaeological context of the tablets, the brief history of the temple in this neighbourhood is reconstructed, which provides new insights in the history of Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods.

  • Hybrid Kingships in the East from Alexander to the Sasanians

    Hybrid Kingships in the East from Alexander to the Sasanians

    Cefalo, Generoso & Alessandro Magnani (eds.). Le regalità ibride in Oriente da Alessandro ai Sasanidi. Urbino: Uniurb University Press.

    Il volume propone una riflessione sulle forme della sovranità sviluppatesi nello spazio eurasiatico tra l’età di Alessandro Magno e l’ascesa dell’impero sasanide. Attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare che integra fonti letterarie, epigrafiche, numismatiche, iconografiche e archeologiche, i contributi indagano i processi di interazione, adattamento e rielaborazione che caratterizzarono la costruzione dell’autorità regia in contesti multiculturali.

    Dall’eredità achemenide e macedone ai regni ellenistici dell’Asia centrale, dai sovrani indo-greci e seleucidi fino alle esperienze del mondo romano e sasanide, il volume analizza le strategie di legittimazione del potere e le molteplici forme di autorappresentazione dei monarchi. Ne emerge un quadro dinamico di “regalità ibride”, in cui tradizioni greche, iraniche, romane e locali si intrecciano dando vita a modelli politici e culturali originali, capaci di influenzare profondamente la storia del Mediterraneo e dell’Asia antica.

    This volume is open-access.

  • Linear Elamite Texts from Susa

    Linear Elamite Texts from Susa

    François Desset, Kambiz Tabibzadeh, Gian Pietro Basello and Gianni Marchesi with the collaboration of Laurent Colonna d’Istria. 2026. Linear Elamite Inscriptions and Related Cuneiform Texts I: Linear Elamite Texts from Susa (OrientLab Series Maior 10). Bologna: Ante Quem.

    The present volume is the first of a three-volume series devoted to the publication of the Linear Elamite corpus and related cuneiform texts. It constitutes the natural continuation of our work on the decipherment of Linear Elamite, published in 2022. Two further volumes will follow, containing the remaining Linear Elamite texts (Vol. II) and the corpus of Old Elamite royal inscriptions in cuneiform (Vol. III).

    The book is available for download here.

  • David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East

    David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East

    Maras, Sabrina. 2026. David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Drawn from interviews conducted between 2007 and 2020, this account of the life of renowned archaeologist and former director of the British Institute of Persian Studies, David Brian Stronach, reveals a lost period in international archaeology within Iran, when BIPS was founded and acted as a unique intellectual hub for archaeologists, expats, scholars and foreigners

    It describes the challenges he faced establishing the Institute and his experiences working with some of the 20th century’s most fascinating personalities in archaeology, such as James Mellaart, Max Mallowan, Seton Lloyd and Agatha Christie. It also provides a new account of the effects of the Iranian revolution of 1979 on Stronach’s own life’s work, on the Institute he built, and on the international world of Iranian archaeology.

  • Proto-Elamite

    Proto-Elamite

    Kelley, Kathryn. 2026. Proto-Elamite. Writing and society in early Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Proto-Elamite is one of the world’s earliest scripts and it remains only very partly deciphered. Excavations have uncovered c. 1,700 clay tablets from Iran, dating c. 3300–2900 BCE. The tablets use a complex system involving hundreds of symbols to count commodities, people, and institutions. Despite holding a privileged place in the history of writing, the study of proto-Elamite falls outside modern disciplinary boundaries and has received very limited scholarly attention since its discovery over a century ago. Nonetheless, a handful of scholars have shown that there is much we can learn about proto-Elamite and the people who used it, especially by taking interdisciplinary approaches. The ongoing decipherment project combines mathematics, a range of comparative studies, and a sustained effort to digitize the corpus and apply new tools from computer science.

  • Mobility and Archaeogenetics in Central Asia

    Mobility and Archaeogenetics in Central Asia

    Baumer, Christoph, Mirko Novák & Susanne Rutishauser (eds.). 2026. Mobility and archaeogenetics in Central Asia. People – goods – ideas. 3rd International conference on Central Asian archaeology in Bern, 11th–13th January 2024 (Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie 24). Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz.

    Central Asia is a huge region characterized by a rich variety of ecologies, climates, geographical environments, social systems, languages and cultures. Within this region multiple cultural exchanges took place. At the same time, it engaged in bi-directional exchange with neighboring regions such as the Pontic Steppe, the Near East, the Indian subcontinent and East Asia. Mobility was a key precondition for these multifaceted contacts and exchanges, and it concerned people, goods and products as well as ideas, concepts and innovations. The papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on Central Asian Archaeology focus on how cultural transmission processes developed and what role mobility played in these processes. The time frame is from the Early Bronze Age to the end of the 14th century CE. Special attention will be paid to the added value that archaeogenetics brings to research. Archaeogenetics is an outstanding tool to detect and verify migrations and is rapidly growing in importance. Several papers demonstrate how archaeogenetic and isotopic studies contribute to the detection and understanding of mobility-induced cultural exchange.

  • Pepper, Peach, Paradise

    Pepper, Peach, Paradise

    Paul, Ludwig. Pfeffer, Pfirsich, Paradies: Kleines Lexikon deutscher Wörter persischer Herkunft. München: C.H.Beck.

    Wie ist der Algorithmus aus dem Persischen ins Deutsche gelangt? Warum bezeichnet Diwan sowohl ein Sofa als auch eine Gedichtsammlung? Und was hat unser Schal mit einem indischen Sari zu tun oder die Tulpe mit dem Turban? Ludwig Paul erklärt in rund 140 kurzweiligen Artikeln, wie Wörter aus dem Persischen ins Deutsche gewandert sind. Sein glänzend geschriebenes Buch lädt zum Nachschlagen und Schmökern ein und lässt uns eine erstaunliche Dimension der deutschen Sprache neu entdecken.
    Die persische Sprache war einst von der Türkei bis Indien die Sprache der Gelehrten, Dichter und kultivierten Höfe. Sie hat Einflüsse aus indischen Sprachen und dem Arabischen aufgenommen und ihrerseits andere Sprachen bereichert. Das Lexikon beschreibt, auf welchen oft verschlungenen Wegen zahlreiche Wörter und Namen ins Deutsche gelangt sind. Doch es bietet viel mehr als reine Sprachgeschichte: Ludwig Paul versteht es meisterhaft, immer wieder aufschlussreiche Schlaglichter auf die Geschichte der Kulturen zwischen Indien und Europa zu werfen und zu zeigen, wie eng die Wanderung von Wörtern mit dem Transfer von Dingen – Gewürzen, Früchten, Artefakten – und Ideen zusammenhängt.