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New issue of Indiran

The latest issue of Indiran, the newsletter of the Ancient India & Iran Trust, is now online.

Established in 1978, the Ancient India & Iran Trust occupies a unique position as an independent charity concerned with the study of early South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, promoting both scholarly research and popular interest in the area.

From About Us

An archive of past issues of Indiran, is available here.

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Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran

The Pourdavoud Center at the UCLA operates the Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran, a great resource which we think should be more widely known.

The Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran: An Online Encyclopedia of Iranian Archaeological Sites

The Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran is a research tool for scholars in all branches of humanities, including anthropology, art history, and history, but more specifically for those working on the archaeology of Iran and the ancient Near East. The Gazetteer is a free, open access resource and will be hosted and maintained by the University of California, Los Angeles, which will ensure its up-to-date, long-term use and availability.

From the Introduction
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Events Online resources

The 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures

Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the final three Ratanbai Katrak Lectures this autumn in Oxford.

These lectures are convened by Prof. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina for the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

The talks will also be on Zoom.

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Events Online resources

The 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures

Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures 101 years after the inauguration of the Ratanbai Katrak Lecturership at the University of Oxford.

Convened by Prof. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina for the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

‘With which Yasna shall I worship you (kana θβąm yasna yazāne)?
Zoroastrian Rituals in the Antique and Late Antique Iranian world’

Please use this link to attend the lectures on Zoom.

Lecture 1: Manuscripts and Rituals: The Written Transmission of the Zoroastrian Rituals
11 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD

Lecture 2: The Questioned Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Rituals: Their Reception in Western Academia
18 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD

Lecture 3: The Ritual System: Modularity and Productivity
25 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Ertegun House, 37A St. Giles’, Oxford OX1 3LD

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Derbent: What Persia Left Behind

Derbent: What Persia Left Behind, is a documentary directed by Pejman Akbarzadeh. For more information, including a timeline and screening schedules, visit derbentonline.com.

Trailer

Registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 6th-century Derbent (Darband) fortification complex is considered the largest defensive structure of Sasanian Persia (Iran) in the Caucasus.
Derbent: What Persia Left Behind”, also explores the unique architecture of the massive fortress, and how it has been preserved for some fifteen centuries by Persian, Arab, Turkish and Russian rulers. Built strategically in the narrowest area between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, the fortification includes the northernmost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) inscriptions in the world, which are in danger of destruction. The 42-km defence wall of the complex that extended toward the Black Sea had already been destroyed in the Soviet era.

From the film’s website
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Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief

This year, we missed to announce the ‘Zoroastrianism Summer Course‘, which is offered by the ‘Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies‘ and takes place at the Norwegian Institute in Rome.

But we would like to take this opportunity to mention ‘Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief‘, which has been designed by Dr Sarah Stewart and Dr Céline Redard and is offered as a free online course (MOOC).

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2022 Society of Scholars of Zoroastrianism Conference

This is an online event (3 hours): The History of Zoroastrian Priesthood, The bond between the Avesta and Persian Literature & The Forgotten Sources of Medieval Zoroastrianism

Sat, November 19, 2022, 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM CST

Morning Session – Scholarly Symposium

9:30 – Opening Address: – Prof. Dan Sheffield introduced by Zal Taleyarkhan

10:00 – Dr. Kerman Daruwalla The History of Training Zoroastrian Priests in India

10:45 – Dr. Benedikt PeschlZoroastrian Middle Persian Literature and its Relation to the

Avesta: current research perspectives

11:30 – Prof. Dan SheffieldThe Pahlavi Book of Religious Decrees: a Forgotten Source for the

History of Medieval Zoroastrianism

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The Multimedia Yasna

The interactive film of the Performance of the High Zoroastrian Ceremony of Yasna

Open Access to the full film of the performance of the most solemn Zoroastrian ceremony the standard Yasna with the dedicatory of Mīnō Nāwar (the version edited by Geldner), the film is prepared in the frame of the multi-disciplinary Multimedia Yasna project (MuYa), based at SOAS, University of London and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with an Advanced Investigator Grant (2016-2022), which had as its focus the Yasna – the core ritual of the Zoroastrian religion:

“You can watch the film at different speeds by moving the dot on the speed line below the Chapter and Stanza & Subsection tabs. The recording of this film was made in November 2017 at the Dadar Athornan Institute in Mumbai. The two priests, who performed the ceremony are the late Ervad Asphandiarji Dadachanji and Ervad Adil Bhesania.”

The Multimedia Yasna (MUYA)

The Multimedia Yasna (MUYA) examines the performance and written transmission of the core ritual of the Zoroastrian tradition, the Yasna, whose oldest parts date from the second millennium BCE. Composed in an ancient Iranian language, Avestan, the texts were transmitted orally and not written down until the fifth or sixth century CE. The oral tradition continues to be central to the religion, and the daily Yasna ceremony, the most important of all the rituals, is recited from memory by Zoroastrian priests. The interpretation of the Yasna has long been hampered by out-dated editions and translations of the text and until now there has been no documentation and study of the performance of the full ritual. The project MUYA examines both the oral and written traditions. It has filmed a performance of the Yasna ritual and created a critical edition of the recitation text examining the Yasna both as a performance and as a text attested in manuscripts. The two approaches have been integrated to answer questions about the meaning and function of the Yasna in a historical perspective.

Combining models and methodologies from digital humanities, philology and linguistics, the project has produced a subtitled, interactive film of the Yasna ritual, an online platform of transcribed manuscripts, editorial tools, digital transcriptions of manuscripts and digital editions with a text-critical apparatus, and with print editions, translations and commentaries of the Yasna. Information which was formerly restricted to students of Iranian philology and practising Zoroastrians has now become accessible to a world-wide audience through digital humanities. The project, based at SOAS, University of London and funded by the European Research Council, ran from October 2016 to September 2022. It was headed by Professor Almut Hintze and included an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, India and Iran.

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Articles Online resources

Orodes II

Olbrycht, Marek. 2021. Orodes II. In Encyclopædia Iranica Online, edited by Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York.

ORODES II (r. 58/57-37 BCE), king of Parthia, son of Phraates III (r. 70-57 BCE), and father of Phraates IV (q.v.). During his reign, the empire of the Arsacids (q.v.) reached the zenith of its power and scored significant victories against Rome.

From the entry
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Zoroastrianism: History, Religion, and Belief

SOAS is offering an online course that explores ‘the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, its languages, and the challenges faced by Zoroastrian communities today’. The course is taught by Dr Sarah Stewart and Dr Celine Redard.

یک دوره چهار هفته‌ای برای آشنایی با دین زرتشتی، زبان‌های وابسته و چالش‌هایی که جوامع زرتشتی امروز با آنها روبرو هستند.