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.
Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2025. A numismatic history of Barikot (Veröffentlichungen zur Numismatik 69). Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. With a contribution by Luca M. Olivieri.
This volume offers a ‘catalogue and analysis of the coin finds from the excavations at Bīr-koṭ-ghwaṇḍai (Barikot), Swāt, Pakistan (1984–2022)’.
The present volume explores the coins unearthed during the excavations at the ancient city of Barikot (Swāt Valley, northern Pakistan) between 1984 and 2022. The excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission at Barikot have revealed numerous settlement phases from the prehistoric to the Islamic times. Of particular significance are over 500 coin finds, which are placed in their historical context in this volume to draw a clear picture of the monetary circulation in the Swāt Valley (Uḍḍiyāna) throughout antiquity and the early Islamic period. The chronological framework of the coin finds spans from the third century BCE to the twelfth century CE, i.e., from the Indian Maurya dynasty to the Ghaznavids. The majority of the coin finds are from the Kušān period (first to fourth century CE). Various historical, typological, metrological, and topographical aspects of the coinage and monetary circulation of each period are addressed in separate chapters. The finds from Barikot are also compared with those from other documented sites in Uḍḍiyāna, Gandhāra, and adjacent regions in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. What should be highlighted is the stratigraphic documentation of the find contexts, which, based on the radiocarbon analyses, makes it possible to bring the coins into relation with other types of archaeological artifacts. This subject is discussed in an archaeological contribution by the director of the excavations, Luca M. Olivieri.
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.
Der vorliegende Band dokumentiert acht Schatzfunde spätkushanischer und kushano-sasanidischer Kupfermünzen aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Neben der Vorstellung des Materials werden unterschiedliche Themen wie Prägeherren, Münzstätten, Metrologie und Beizeichen im Detail besprochen. Vor allem aber wird zum ersten Mal seit Robert Göbls Studien aus den Jahren 1984 und 1993 der Versuch unternommen, auf der Grundlage einer umfassenden Rekonstruktion des Prägesystems die kushano-sasanidischen AE-Münzen in den historischen Kontext der spätantiken Geschichte Ostirans einzuordnen, wobei auch die immer noch umstrittene Frage nach der Datierung des Jahres Eins des Kushankönigs Kanishka I. behandelt wird. Dies ist der zweite Band der Reihe „Fundmünzen aus Usbekistan“.
SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies and Department of Religions and Philosophies (SOAS) in collaboration with the World Zoroastrian Organisation
Kutar Memorial Lecture Series
Sogdian fire-worship: between Zoroastrianism and Buddhism
Professor Pavel Lurje
St Petersburg
Thursday, 1 May 2025, 6pm
Location: Khalili Lecture Theatre SOAS Main Building Russell Square London, WC1H 0XG
This is a public lecture. However, registration is essential for both in-person and online attendance. Please visit this link to register.
In this lecture, Prof. Lurje will attempt to summarise what we know of fire worship in Sogdiana (the land in present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) which was inhabited by eastern Iranian people. These groups, being active traders on the Eurasian tracks, developed a sophisticated culture in the pre-Islamic period. The images on mural paintings and other media, archaeological discoveries, and the few references in the written texts show that worship in front of a fire was a significant part of the ritual practices of Sogdians. However, some ritual features that relate to the kindling of fire can be questioned. In some cases, the fire rituals depicted or described have a direct link to Zoroastrian practices spanning from Sasanian Iran to the present day. In many other cases, however, they have an unmistakable relation to the Buddhist incense burning known in Gandharan, Serindian and Chinese contexts of the first millennium CE. These later instances, however, could be a heritage of the worship practices of the pre-Buddhist population of the Indo-Iranian frontier region.
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.
A while ago, I introduced two memoirs—one by Peter Brown and the other by Averil Cameron. Reflecting on the past and the origins of our discipline is as important as reading about the trajectories of our respected colleagues and teachers. We now have two volumes reflecting ‘lost’ social and academic histories that also relate to our discipline.
The tale of a legendary scholar, an unsolved murder, and the mysterious documents that may connect them
In early 1991, Ioan Culianu was on the precipice of a brilliant academic career. Culianu had fled his native Romania and established himself as a widely admired scholar at just forty-one years of age. He was teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he was seen as the heir apparent to his mentor, Mircea Eliade, a fellow Romanian expatriate and the founding father of the field of religious studies, who had died a few years earlier.
But then Culianu began to receive threatening messages. As his fears grew, he asked a colleague to hold onto some papers for safekeeping. A week later, Culianu was in a Divinity School men’s room when someone fired a bullet into the back of his head, killing him instantly. The case was never solved, though the prevailing theory is that Culianu was targeted by the Romanian secret police as a result of critical articles he wrote after the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
What was in those mysterious papers? And what connection might they have to Culianu’s death? The papers eventually passed into the hands of Bruce Lincoln, and their story is at the heart of this book. The documents were English translations of articles that Eliade had written in the 1930s, some of which voiced Eliade’s support for the Iron Guard, Romania’s virulently anti-Semitic mystical fascist movement. Culianu had sought to publish some of these articles but encountered fierce resistance from Eliade’s widow.
In this book, author Bruce Lincoln explores what the articles reveal about Eliade’s past, his subsequent efforts to conceal that past, his complex relations with Culianu, and the possible motives for Culianu’s shocking murder.
„Semitische Wissenschaften“ – Der Ausdruck geht zurück auf den Althistoriker Helmut Berve, der damit 1934 unzweideutig den Stellenwert der Fächer Ägyptologie und Altorientalistik in einer Diktion, die den Ungeist nationalsozialistischer Weltanschauung widerspiegelt, relativieren wollte, Herausgeber und Beiträger dieses Sammelbandes beleuchten die Entstehung und Wirkungsgeschichte des Begriffs kritisch. Die Auffassung von „semitischer“ Wissenschaft ist vielschichtig: Zum einen geht sie zurück auf eine lange Tradition zunächst sprachwissenschaftlicher und schließlich auch völkisch-rassenkundlicher Forschungsdiskurse, deren Ursprünge sich bereits in das 18. Jahrhundert zurückverfolgen lassen. Weiterhin offenbart sich in dem Ausdruck eine Zuschreibung an solche Wissenschaftler, die im Rahmen nationalsozialistischer Weltanschauung als „semitisch“, also jüdisch eingestuft wurden. Die „semitischen Wissenschaften“ bilden somit einen Gegenbegriff zu dem völkischen ‚arischen‘ Wissenschaftsverständnis Berves. Darin enthalten ist nicht nur eine Ablehnung oder Kritik des bis dahin in den Altertumswissenschaften gepflegten Positivismus, sondern auch eine Absage an eine „rationale“ Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit. Der Sammelband geht zurück auf einen vom 26. bis 28. November 2021 von Göttingen aus ‚digital gehosteten‘ Workshop von Vertretern unterschiedlichster Disziplinen, vorrangig – aber nicht ausschließlich – der altorientalischen Fächer und der Geschichtswissenschaft.
Uesugi, Heindio & Adam Alvah Catt (eds.). 2024. Old Avestan dictionary (Asian and African Lexicon, 67). Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.
The Old Avestan Dictionary (OAD) is an attempt at a lexicographic synthesis of Old Avestan studies since the Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904) by Christian Bartholomae (1855-1925) with a particular focus on aiding the elucidation of the Gāthās based on the line of analysis laid down by Helmut Humbach (1921-2017). The dictionary is accompanied by a new annotated translation of the Gāthās to further facilitate the general reader in discerning the sense behind the respective terms and passages when reading, reciting, or studying the original Avestan texts.
The book is freely available for download as an open-access resource.
Contents
Part I: Dictionary Acknowledgements Preface Symbols and Abbreviations Introduction to Part I References Dictionary
Part II: Text and Translation Symbols and Abbreviations Introduction to Part II Yasna 27.13-15: Three Sacred Formulas Yasna 28-34: Ahunauuaitī Gāϑā Yasna 43-46: Uštauuaitī Gāϑā Yasna 47-50: Spəṇtā.mainiiū Gāϑā Yasna 51: Vohu.xšaϑrā Gāϑā/HāitiGāϑā/Hāiti Yasna 54.1: Ā Airiiə̄mā Išiiō
In this work, readers are introduced to the first Italian translation of the main Pahlavi source of the legend of Zarathustra, Chapter VII of the Dēnkard. This fundamental text of Zoroastrian literature, dating back to the early Islamic period (7th–10th century CE), narrates the biography of the Iranian “prophet” within the framework of the universal history of creation. The guiding thread of this account is the miracles performed by the divine word throughout the centuries, up until the end of time. The work, edited by Massimiliano Vassalli, contextualizes the Iranian text and its protagonist within the historical and cultural background of the period in which it was written and provides an Italian version accompanied by philological, historical, and literary explanatory notes.
