Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Olive cultivation in the heart of the Persian Achaemenid Empire

    Djamali, Morteza, Matthew D. Jones, Jérémy Migliore, Silvia Balatti, Marianela Fader, Daniel Contreras, Sébastien Gondet, Zahra Hosseini, Hamid Lahijani, Abdolmajid Naderi, Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh, Margareta Tengberg & Lloyd Weeks. 2015. Olive cultivation in the heart of the Persian Achaemenid Empire: New insights into agricultural practices and environmental changes reflected in a late Holocene pollen record from Lake Parishan, SW Iran. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (August 2015), 1–15.

    This is an Online First Article and has not been assigned to an issue of the journal.

    Ancient Persia witnessed one of its most prosperous cultural and socio-economic periods between 550 bc and ad 651, with the successive domination of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian Empires. During this period agricultural activities increased on the Iranian plateau, as demonstrated by a remarkable arboricultural expansion. However, available data are not very informative about the spatial organization of agricultural practices. The possible links between climate conditions and agricultural activities during this millennium of continuous imperial domination are also unclear, due to the lack of parallel human-independent palaeoclimatic proxies. This study presents a new late Holocene pollen-based vegetation record from Lake Parishan, SW Iran. This record provides invaluable information regarding anthropogenic activities before, during and after the empires and sheds light on (i) spatial patterning in agricultural activities and (ii) possible climate impacts on agro-sylvo-pastoral practices during this period. Results of this study indicate that arboriculture was the most prominent form of agricultural activity in SW Iran especially during the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian periods. Contrary to the information provided by some Greco-Roman written sources, the record from Lake Parishan shows that olive cultivation was practiced during Achaemenid and Seleucid times, when olive cultivation was significant, at least in this basin located close to the capital area of the Achaemenid Empire. In addition, pollen from aquatic vegetation suggests that the period of the latter centuries of the first millennium bc was characterized by a higher lake level, which might have favoured cultural and socio-economic prosperity.

    A PDF of the paper is available here.

  • Turks and Iranians: Interactions in Language and History

    Csató, Éva, Lars Johanson, András Róna-Tas & Bo Utas (eds.). 2016. Turks and Iranians: Interactions in language and history (Turcologica 105). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    The contributions by an international group of leading scholars discuss the historical and cultural relations of old and modern Turkic and Iranian languages. A main topic is how contacts of spoken and written languages from pre-Islamic times until various periods of the Islamic era have influenced the emergence and development of Iranian and Turkic varieties. The purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of the interrelations between cultural-historical contacts and linguistic processes, and to stress the necessity of cooperation between experts of Turkic and Iranian studies.

    -See the Table of the Contents here

  • Iranian Studies in Honour of Éva M. Jeremiás

    Szántó, Iván (ed.). 2015. From Aṣl to Zā’id: Essays in honour of Éva M. Jeremiás (Acta et Studia XIII). Pilis-csaba: The Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
    Cove­ring a wide range of subjects within the general field of Iranian studies, this collec­tion of essays consists of contri­bu­tions by twenty scho­lars. Most arti­cles concen­t­rate on Persian lingu­istics.
    A number of further essays discuss Persian lite­ra­ture, histo­rio­graphy; reli­gion, science ; and art. The volume contains nume­rous illu­s­t­ra­tions, mostly in colour, and it includes a compre­hen­sive biblio­graphy of Éva M. Jere­miás up to 2015.
    Table of Contents:
    • C. EDMUND BOSWORTH: The poet ‘Asjadī and early Ghaznavid history
    • MÁRIA GÓSY: Similarities and differences in the early acquisition of grammar by Persian and Hungarian children
    • ELA FILIPPONE: The so-called Old Persian ‘potential construction’ (being Text production strategies and translation strategies in the Achaemenid documentation, III)
    • BERT G. FRAGNER: Orientalismus in Abenteuererzählungen aus der frühen Sowjetunion
    • CARINA JAHANI: Complex predicates and the issue of transitivity: The case of Southern Balochi
    • ANNA KRASNOWOLSKA: The Sarmatian myth and Poland’s nineteenth-century Orientalism
    • PAUL LUFT: Authenticity and identity of Qājār poetry on stone and paper
    • MARIA MACUCH: Precision orientated legal language in the Sasanian law of inheritance
    • ÁGNES NÉMETH: How do young Iranians speak?
    • PAOLA ORSATTI: Spoken features in classical Persian texts: subordinate conditional clauses without a conjunction
    • ANTONIO CLEMENTE DOMENICO PANAINO: Jesus’ trimorphisms and tetramorphisms in the meeting with the Magi
    • ADRIANO V. ROSSI: Diglossia in Persian
    • CHRISTINE VAN RUYMBEKE: Sir William Jones and the Anwār-i Suhaylī. Containing a fortuitous but nevertheless essential note on the Orient Pearls
    • ‘ALI ASHRAF SADEGHI: Rare forms of personal endings in some Classical Persian texts
    • NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS: Rustam and his zīn-i palang
    • IVÁN SZÁNTÓ: Bahāʼ al-Dīn al-‘Amilī and the visual arts
    • KATALIN TORMA: Georgius Gentius and the early reception of the Gulistān in Hungary
    • ZIVA VESEL: Les figures astrologiques dans les traités persans
    • SIBYLLE WENTKER: A visit of the Shah. Vienna and the false Rūznāma of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah

    About the Editor:

    Iván Szántó (PhD 2009) is a scholar of Art History with special focus on Iranian Art and staff member of  The Institute of Iranian studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

  • New issue of Electrum

    The latest issue of Electrum features a number of articles relevant to Iranian Studies. 

    Electrum, Volume 22 (2015).
    Table of Contents:
    • Frank L Holt, Alexander the Great at Bactra: A Burning Question, 9–15.
    • Laurianne Martinez-Sève, Ai Khanoum and Greek Domination in Central Asia, 17–46.
    • Pierre Leriche, La découverte de l’Ancienne Termez, métropole de la Bactriane du Nord, 47–85.
    • Antonio Panaino, Ὁμόγλωττοι παρὰ μικρον?,  87–106.
    • Touraj Daryaee, Soodabeh Malekzadeh, King Huviška, Yima, and the Bird: Observations on a Paradisiacal State, 107–114.
    • Carlo Lippolis, Niccolo Manassero, Storehouses and Storage Practices in Old Nisa (Turkmenistan), 115–142.
    • Vito Messina, Mehr Kian, Lasser-scanner Survey at Kong-e Yār ‘Alīvand. Research of the Iranian-Italian Joint Expedition in Kūzestān, 143–154.
    • Alain Chenevier, Crépuscule de l’Empire parthe – Les dernières drachmes, 155–158.
    • The Syriac Book of the Laws of the Countries, Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, and the Clementine Recognitions: Early Witnesses for Christianity in Central Asia?, 159–171.
    • Omar Coloru, I Am Your Father! Dynasties and Dynastic Legitimacy on Pre-Islamic Coinage between Iran and Northwest India, 173–199.
    • Fabrizio Sinisi, The Deities on the Kushano-Sasanian Coins, 201–225.
    • Nikolaus Schindel, Sakastan in the Fourth and Fifth Century AD. Some Historical Remarks Based on the Numismatic Evidence, 227–248.
    • Paul J. Kosmin, Review: Paul J. Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA–London 2014, pp. 423, b/w ill., 9 maps, ISBN 978-0-674-72882-0 (Edward Dąbrowa).

     

    Electrum has been published since 1997 by the Department of Ancient History at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow as a collection of papers and monographs. In 2010 it starts as journal with one issue per year.
     

  • New issue of the Silk Road

    The latest issue of The Silk Road features a number of articles relevant to Iranian Studies. The full journal and individual articles can be accessed online:

    The Silk Road, vol. 13, 2015.

  • Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar

    Gholami, Saloumeh. 2014. Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar (Gottinger Orientforschungen, III. Reihe: Iranica 12). Harrassowitz Verlag.

    Bactrian, the only Iranian language written in the Greek alphabet, was spoken in ancient Bactria in northern Afghanistan. It is an intermediary Middle Iranian language, possessing the characters of both Eastern and Western Iranian groups, and thus playing a very important role in the dialectology of Iranian Languages.
    Saloumeh Gholami’s study deals with various relatively unknown phonological, morphological and syntactical features of Bactrian and includes the following topics: historical phonology of Bactrian; the syntactical position of different kinds of nouns and their relationship in a sentence; the different types of pronouns and their syntactical properties; the function and syntactical position of prepositions and postpositions; adverbs and their formation; proximate and remote deixis adverbs as well as their different syntactic positions; various kinds of conjunctions and their functions; selected aspects of the verb; word order in clauses with transitive or intransitive verbs, and an investigation of double object constructions; as well as the different types of compounds.

    For more information see the ToC of this volume.

  • Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns

    Shokri-Foumeshi 2015Shokri-Foumeshi, Mohammad. 2015. Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns. Edition, Reconstruction and Commentary with a Codicological and Textological Approach Based on Manichaean Turfan Fragments in the Berlin Collection. (Religions and Denominations 155). Qom: The University of Religions and Denominations.
    This doctoral thesis with the title “Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns: Edition, Reconstruction and Commentary with a Codicological and Textological Approach Based on Manichaean Turfan Fragments in the Berlin Collection” deals with the fragments of Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg hymns (The hymn of the Gospel) discovered in the Turfan Oasis in the early 20th century, preserved in the Berlin Turfan Collection. 25 fragments have been studied in this work. Some of these fragments have already been published by other scholars, but only the work presented here aims at finalizing the work begun by others, as I was able to identify new fragments and with their help, was able to complete the fragments available. The combination of the new fragment M5439 with the previously published M17, the former completing the latter, proved to be one of the most important examples for my research on the Middle Persian version of Mani’s Gospel. I was able to reconstruct and conclusively join two of the already published fragments of the Ewangelyōnīg hymns with the help of two new fragments. I have also attempted in the scope of this work, to present an identification of several other fragments that were probably part of Mani’s Gospel. To accomplish this, I have analyzed all the Gnostic-Christian and Iranian sources in depth, and contrasted them with the Manichaean documents, both Iranian and non-Iranian. Thus I was able to present new suggestions and was likewise able to prove or disprove prior assumptions made by others about Mani’s Gospel. To ensure a deeper understanding of the Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg hymns, I have added a few explanatory chapters and paragraphs to this dissertation that mainly deal with the inner and outer structure of the Gospel and serve, as I hope, in establishing a comprehensive relation between the Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg hymns. Further research on the Manichaean sources, e.g. the Greek version of the Gospel and the Coptic Synaxeis on the one hand, and the Greek anti-Manichaean sources and accounts by Muslim writers on the other hand, served to deepen our understanding of the content of the Gospel greatly. By incorporating a study of these sources into this dissertation, I was able to close some of those gaps that impeded our understanding of the Gospel. Some important questions pertaining to the alphabetic structure of the chapters of the Gospel and the abecedarian order of the Parthian (Ewangelyōnīg) hymns, I was able to answer in this work. For some hapax legomena I was able to present a reasonable etymology in this dissertation. This doctoral thesis was not only designed to enlarge our understanding of the Turfan texts by presenting the new texts and reconstructions, moreover the new proposed codicological and textological approaches applied to the texts may serve to facilitate or at least simplify further research in this field.
    For more information read the author’s introduction to this volume.
    A PDF of this Volume is free accesable for download here.
    Table of Contents:

    Chapter One. Introduction

    • Aim
    • Material and Content of the Living Gospel and Ewangelyōnīg
    • Hymns
    • Outline of the Study
    • History of Prior Research

    Chapter Two. Mani and his Gospel

    • The Living Gospel and Manichaeism
    • Position of the Gospel among the Canonical Writings
    • Names and Epithets
    • Composition Date
    • Chapter Order of the Living Gospel

    Chapter Three. Living Gospel and Doubtful Fragments

    • Mani and the New Testament
    • Sayings of Jesus in Tatian’s Διà τεσσάρων and the Nag Hammadi
    • Codices
    • Double-edged Sword: Similarities and Differences
    • Possible Quotations of the Living Gospel in other Sources: An
    • Overview
    • The Paraclete as a Main Point of Issue in the Living Gospel
    • Not Near but not Far: Jesus’ Sayings and Acts
    • Citations of the Living Gospel: Some Tentative Suggestions

    Chapter Four. Manichaean Turfan Texts of the Living Gospel

    • Overview and General Concepts
    • Turfan Fragments of the Living Gospel: Critical Middle Persian
    • Text and its Alternating Sogdian Version
    • Text I: M 17
    • Text II: M 172/I/
    • Text III: M 644
    • Text IV: A Newly Recognized Small Fragment: M 5439 [= T II D67]
    • Text V: An as yet Unpublished Manuscript Page in Sogdian Script
    • Return to the Verso Side of M 644
    • Unified Middle Persian Text of the Living Gospel
    • Commentary
    • Content of the Living Gospel According to an Unpublished Parthian Manuscript page

    Chapter Five. Living Gospel Based on the Non-Iranian Manichaean Codices: Structure and Content

    • Greek Version
    • First Fragment: CMC 65, 23-68, 5
    • Second Fragment: CMC 68, 5-69, 8
    • Third Fragment: CMC 69, 9-70, 10
    • A Textological Commentary
    • Coptic Synaxeis
    • Chapter Titles
    • Plain Text
    • First Discourse (logos)
    • Other Discourses

    Chapter Six. The Gospel in the Non-Manichaean Heritage

    • Accounts of the Greek Anti-Manichaean Writings
    • Arabic and Classical New Persian Testimonia
    • Testimonies
    • Commentary

    Chapter Seven. Ewangelyōnīg Hymns

    • General Observations
    • Abecedarian System in the Parthian Hymns
    • Texts
    • Text I
    • Text II
    • Text III
    • Text IV
    Chapter Eight. Miscellaneous Scraps: Living Gospel and Ewangelyōnīg Hymns
    • Fragment I
    • Fragment II
    • Fragment III
    • Fragment IV
    • Fragment V
    Chapter Nine. Content of the Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns: An Overview
    • Living Gospel
    • Ewangelyōnīg Hymns
    • Living Gospel in Context of the ‘Hymns of the Gospel’
    • Chapter Ten. Glossary of Turfan Texts in this Work
    • Middle Persian and Parthian
    • Sogdian

    Chapter Eleven. Conclusion

    Mohammd Shokri-Foumeshi (PhD 2014) is a scholar of Manichaean as well as Middle Iranian studies and a lecturer at the The University of Religions and Denominations, Qom (Iran).

  • Happy Holidays

    We wish all our readers happy holidays and a blessed festive season!

    May you be happy, no matter what, where and how you celebrate!

  • The Parthian nobility in Xusrō I Anōšīrvān court

    Maksymiuk, Katarzyna. 2015. The Parthian nobility in Xusrō I Anōšīrvān court. In Piotr Briks (ed.), Elites in the Ancient World (Szczecińskie Studia nad Starożytnością II), 189–198. Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

    Sources rewritten by order of Persian rulers (Pārsīg) in 6th century diminish the role of the Parthians (Pahlav) in the official history of Iran. In Xwadāy Nāmag a method of the Parthian reign recalculation to half of its actual duration was applied. Propaganda forgery of Xusrō I (531–579) so called Nāma-ye Tansar, shows Iran before power takeover by the Sasanian dynasty as a decentralized and corrupted state but even as “heretical” one. Contrast to the weak power of the Arsacid royal house had to be kingship of Šāhānšāh Ardašīr (224–242) who centralized administration relying on the Mazdean.
    This paper is aimed at showing dominant role of the Parthian nobility in Persian government system. This is also attempt to answer the question whether administrative reforms initiated by Kawād I (488–496,498–531) and continued by his son Xusrō I Anōšīrvān were directed against status of the Parthian noblemen in Iran.

  • The Pahlav-Mehrān family faithful allies of Xusrō I Anōšīrvān

    Maksymiuk, Katarzyna. 2015. The Pahlav-Mehrān family faithful allies of Xusrō I Anōšīrvān. Метаморфозы истории 6, 163-179.

    The article describes the role of the members of the Parthian Mehrān played from the second half of the 5th century on Sasanian courts. It must be assumed that the Sasanian kings ruled their coun-try with the help of Parthian aristocracy. The reforms of the 6th cen-tury could not be directed against the status of the Parthian noblemen in Iran, because neither Kawād nor Xusrō could carry them without the assistance of Parthian wuzurgān.