Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Articles

  • 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 68, 1

    Indo-Iranian Journal 68, 1

    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.

  • Locating al-Qadisiyyah

    Deadman, W.M. et al. 2024. Locating al-Qadisiyyah: Mapping Iraq’s most famous early Islamic conquest site. Antiquity, FirstView, 1–8.

    The Darb Zubaydah (DZ) is a Hajj pilgrimage road stretching from Kufa in Iraq to Mecca in Saudi Arabia (Al-Rashid Reference Al-Rashid1977; Peterson Reference Petersen1994). As part of the ‘Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa’ project (EAMENA), a remote sensing survey of the Iraqi section of this tentative World Heritage Site was carried out. Two previously unlocated DZ waystations, al-Qadisiyyah and al-’Udhayb, were identified during this survey (Figure 1). These historic sites are best known from texts describing one of the most famous battles of the early Islamic conquests.

    Introduction

  • Male Homoerotic Practices in Achaemenid Persia

    Treuk Medeiros de Araujo, Matheus. 2024. Male homoerotic practices in Achaemenid Persia: An overview. Archai 34, e03415.

    Descriptions of Ancient Persian male homoeroticism come mainly from Classical sources, which, however, seem to present divergent testimonies regarding this practice. Some authors apparently provide proof for its widespread acceptance, whereas others, particularly later authors, emphasized its prohibition. Considering the many difficulties involved in the reconstruction of Persian history through the eyes of classical Greeks and Romans, this article aims to provide a brief overview of the subject, with some clues to the question of the origin, form, and tolerance of same-sex love in Achaemenid Persia. We agree that homoerotic practices were attested and likely accepted at some level in Achaemenid Persia. However, we believe that the evidence available to us is not enough to obtain a full understanding of this phenomenon. It is also stressed that not every Greek or Roman reference to Persian male homoeroticism should be taken at face value, as some are distorted and fictitious or lack firsthand knowledge. Finally, we briefly address the image of eunuchs as sexual partners of Achaemenid kings.

  • Zoroastrian theories on earthquakes

    Azarnouche, Samra. 2024. Tectonique des mythes. Croyances et théories zoroastriennes sur le tremblement de terre. Revue de l’histoire des religions 241(2). 275–297.

    Anselm Kiefer, Le Croissant fertile, 2010

    While the earthquake is primarily a cosmogonic act provoked by the intrusion of Evil into Ohrmazd’s world, the Zoroastrian accounts describing the phenomenon also bear witness to a striking confluence of myth, mechanistic theories and biological analogies. The tradition conveyed by the texts (Bundahišn 21e, Dēnkard III.93 and Dādestān ī Dēnīg 69) attributes the earthquake sometimes to the demon Čišmag and his atmospheric acolytes, sometimes to the sorcerer Frāsyāb, two figures who also have in common that they are associated with drought. Some episodes featuring them also include a mysterious appearance by Spandarmad, the Earth goddess. These elements indicate that the Zoroastrian aetiology of earthquakes was far more narratively complex than the texts handed down to us give us to understand.

    Abstract

    The above article is part of an issue dedicated to earthquakes:

    Azarnouche, Samra, Muriel Debié & Vassa Kontouma (eds.). 2024. Quand la terre tremble: apprivoiser le choc des séismes dans les temps anciens. Revue de l’histoire des religions 241(2).

  • Eschatologia Iranica I:

    Rezania, Kianoosh. 2024. Eschatologia Iranica I: From Zoroastrian cosmos to Abbasid Madīnat al-Salām: A journey through utopia and heterotopia. Religions 15(10).

    The history of imperial dynasties in West Asia is replete with examples of remarkable urban foundations. Two notable instances are the Sasanian Ardašīr-xwarrah and the Abbasid Madīnat al-Salām, which can be classified as cosmic cities or heterotopias. This article examines the utopian foundations of these heterotopias. To this end, it analyzes four religious and imperial spaces: the representation of the earth and sky in the Zoroastrian cosmography, Yima’s Vara according to the Avestan texts, Ardašīr-xwarrah, and finally, Madīnat al-Salām. This investigation aims to ascertain the extent to which the spatial characteristics of each of these spaces have been utilized in the production of the subsequent architectural forms. Similarly, it examines the development of the cosmological and eschatological paradise in relation to the Achaemenian and Sasanian royal gardens. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Michael Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, which has been further developed by Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space. The conceptual metaphor theory offers a cognitive linguistic foundation for elucidating the projections of utopias and heterotopias onto one another. To this end, the article focuses on the conceptual metaphor GOD IS A KING.

    Abstract

  • Lost Turfan Fragments

    Benkato, Adam. 2024. Lost Turfan fragments from the Nachlass of W.B. Henning. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, FirstView. 1–17.

    During the Second World War, a number of manuscript fragments in Iranian languages from the Berlin Turfan collections were lost. Photographs of these fragments preserved in the Nachlass of Walter B. Henning bring to light their contents and fill gaps in the record of Turfan texts. These photographs are published here for the first time, together with a description of the fragments and their contents.

    Abstract