Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Books

  • Alexander in the shadow of Darius

    Alexander in the shadow of Darius

    Briant, Pierre. 2026. Alexandre dans l’ombre de Darius. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

    La conquête de l’Empire perse achéménide par Alexandre le Grand est le sujet de nombreuses publications mettant presque invariablement au centre la figure du roi macédonien. Cet ouvrage démontre que, loin d’être une aventure personnelle uniquement dictée par la recherche de la gloire et la prise de risques inconsidérés, l’entreprise macédonienne était fondée sur une connaissance approfondie de l’administration territoriale achéménide. Ces conclusions sont le fruit d’une relecture attentive des narrations hellénistico-romaines, menée en lien étroit avec l’exploitation de l’importante documentation proprement achéménide qui a été publiée au cours du dernier quart de siècle.

    Après avoir exposé les limites de l’historiographie actuelle, l’auteur montre que, loin d’être menacés au cœur de leur pouvoir par des populations de « brigands » et de « pirates », les Grands rois maintenaient leur emprise sur les voies de communication. Il montre également qu’Alexandre ne fut victorieux qu’en raison de l’utilisation qu’il sut faire de l’organisation logistique sophistiquée achéménide, faite de greniers et de magasins disposés régulièrement, qui lui offrirent l’accès à des réserves de nourriture et d’autres produits, y compris sur les confins nord-orientaux de l’Empire.

    La lecture de ce livre fait apparaître avec évidence qu’une histoire globale des conquêtes macédoniennes ne saurait être écrite sans intégrer pleinement le monde de Darius.

  • Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context

    Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context

    Moore, James D. 2026. Aspects of Judean Life. Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context. Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns.

    Aspects of Judean Life focuses on Elephantine during the fifth century BCE, developing a comprehensive model of Achaemenid Persian imperial governance in Egypt and situating the Judean colony within that framework. It reconsiders the colony at Elephantine not as a band of foreign mercenaries living private lives but as colonial state dependents embedded within Achaemenid systems of land-for-service taxation and imperial administration. Far from isolated, the Judeans emerge as active participants in—and beneficiaries of—the structures of empire.

  • Studies on the maritime, economic, and military history of antiquity

    Studies on the maritime, economic, and military history of antiquity

    Reinard, Patrick, Christian Rollinger, Pascal Warnking, Julian Degen & Mateo González Vázquez (eds.). 2026. Kybernetes. Studien zur Seefahrts-, Wirtschafts- und Militärgeschichte der Antike. Festschrift für Christoph Schäfer zum 65. Geburtstag (Muziris 6). Münster: Zaphon.

    Among other interesting contributions, the following articles may interest the readers of Bibliographia Iranica:

    • Julian Degen: Some Notes on Ship Types and Maritime Mobility in Strabo’s Geography and the Periploi
    • Clemens Steinwender: Überlegungen zur Bedeutung der Schifffahrt im sasanidischen Imperium
    • Robert Rollinger: The Aegean Worlds and the Achaemenid-Persian Empire: Imperial Borderlands and the ‘Persian Wars’

  • Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands

    Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands

    Rollinger, Robert & Degen, Julian (eds.). 2026. Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands. 9th Century BCE – 9th Century CE and Beyond (Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond 1). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    The first volume of the new series Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond comprises a collection of papers whose overarching topic pertains to the study of territories situated beyond direct imperial control. Nonetheless, more subtle and elusive traces of imperial impact can be detected in this geographical area.

    The purpose of this collection is to introduce this expanse as “imperial borderlands”. In addition, it includes a variety of contributions from experts in selected fields. With its broad temporal and geographical scope, ranging from the 1st millennium BC to the end of antiquity and beyond, covering the Afro-Eurasia worlds, the volume presents the first concentrated study on the phenomenon of imperial borderlands.

    For free open access to the volume, click here.

  • The Pahlavi Codex MK

    The Pahlavi Codex MK

    Hintze, Almut & JamaspAsa, Kaikhusroo Minocher. 2026. The Pahlavi codex MK: Facsimile edition (Iranica 36). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    The manuscript MK of the family collection of Dastur Dr Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa, is the oldest extant Pahlavi codex. Written in 1322 by the Zoroastrian priest and scribe Mihraban Kayhusraw, it offers 38 texts, most of which form part of the genre of Andarz, or Wisdom, literature, while others, such as the Book of Deeds of King Ardashir, the founder of the Sasanian royal dynasty, belong to Middle Persian court literature.
    This volume, edited by Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa and Almut Hintze, offers an Introduction with a detailed description of the physical condition of the manuscript and a survey of its contents. The main part consists of facsimiles of the entire manuscript, with headings and marginal notes identifying individual texts and paragraphs. The book concludes with an index of texts and a bibliography.

    The table of contents is here.

  • 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.