Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Iran, Volume 61, Issue 2 (2023)

    The table of contents of the latest issue (61/2) of the journal Iran:

    • Nasir Eskandari, François Desset, Mojgan Shafiee, Meysam Shahsavari, Salman Anjamrouz, Irene Caldana, Ali Daneshi, Ali Shahdadi & Massimo Vidale: Preliminary Report on the Survey of Hajjiabad-Varamin, a Site of the Konar Sandal Settlement Network (Jiroft, Kerman, Iran)
    • Salah Salimi, Mostafa Dehpahlavan & John MacGinnis: A Survey on Parthian Pithos Cemeteries on The Western Bank of The Little Zab River, Sardasht Region, Northwest Iran
    • Tobias Jones: The Objects of Loyalty in the Early Mongol Empire (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries)
    • Sara Mirahmadi: Legitimising the Khan: Rashid al-Din’s Ideological Project from a Literary Aspect
    • Ana Marija Grbanovic: Lost and Found: The Ilkhanid Tiles of the Pir-i Bakran Mausoleum (Linjan, Isfahan)
    • Michael Hope: The Political Configuration of Late Ilkhanid Iran: A Case Study of the Chubanid Amirate (738–758/1337–1357)
    • Shafique N. Virani: An Old Man, a Garden, and an Assembly of Assassins: Legends and Realities of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims
    • Philip Henning Grobien: Modernity, Borders and Maps: Iran’s Ability to Advocate for its Borders During the Reign of Naser al-Din Shah

  • On Middle Persian hassār and hassārīh

    Fattori, Marco. 2023. A note on Pahlavi lexicography: Middle Persian hassār, hassārīh. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 1–12.

    This article deals with the identification and interpretation of two rare Middle Persian words. Firstly, some attestations of the as yet unrecognized word <hs’lyh> hassārīh are discussed, showing that it means “direction”. Then, a semantic analysis of its underived counterpart hassār is carried out, as a basis for an etymological proposal. Finally, it is argued that hassār descends from Old Persian *haçā-sāra- “(having the head) in the same direction”, and a possible reconstruction of the semantic development of the word is provided.

    Article’s abstract

  • Images of power and identities of Christians under Khusro I

    Jullien, Christelle. 2023. Les liens du sol: Images du pouvoir et identités des chrétiens sous Khusro Ier (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 63). Leuven: Peeters.

    The advent of Khusro I (531-579) heralded a brilliant period in the history of the Middle East, during which decisive directions were taken. Throughout his reign of almost fifty years, a period during which this king pursued an ambivalent religious policy, the different Christian communities of the Sasanian Empire developed between cultural conflicts and strategies. The study of this spatio-temporal microcosm reveals their dynamism and confirms their deep investment in Iranian society, that expressed an adaptation to administrative changes and external influences, but also, simultaneously, a capacity for internal reorganization and a powerful spiritual renewal. This development sometimes took place at the expense of identity. It was a half-century of Late Antiquity that decisively shaped the history of the mentalities of the Christian communities in Iranian territory.

  • Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies, vol. 3

    Reden, Sitta von (ed.). 2023. Handbook of ancient Afro-Eurasian economies. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange. Berlin: De Gruyter.

    The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space.

  • Excavations and researches at Shahr-i Sokhta 3

    Ascalone, Enrico & Seyyed Mansur Seyyed Sajjadi (eds.). 2022. Excavations and researches at Shahr-i Sokhta 3. Tehran: Pishin Pazhuh.

    The Iranian-Italian collaboration initiated with the 2016 agreement has, to date, allowed for a deeper understanding of the main historical dynamics of Shahr-i Sokhta, adding new knowledge to the extensive and fruitful excavation campaigns carried out by the Iranian mission between 1997 and 2015. The collaboration has resulted in the publication of three volumes in the series Excavations and Researches at Shahr-i Sokhta that are the fruit of the studies carried out to date.

    This third volume presents the excavation and research activities carried out in Shahr-i Sokhta in 2018 and 2019, with contributions from researchers in the fields that make up the MAIPS core (archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, bioarchaeology and topography).

    To see the table of contents, visit this page.

  • Staging the Body of the Lord of the Sevenfold World

    Canepa, Matthew P. 2023. Staging the Body of the Lord of the Sevenfold World. Methectic Spaces and Chiasmatic Viewing in Sasanian Iran. In Michele Bacci, Gohar Grigoryan & Manuela Studer-Karlen (eds.), Staging the Ruler’s Body in Medieval Cultures: A Comparative Perspective, 25–51. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.

    This chapter explores the visibility and materiality of the body of the sovereign as a technology of power in Sasanian Iran. Through analysis of a broad array of objects, structures, and landscapes that the royal image inflected, including the living king himself, it approaches the king’s body as both a perceptible and conceptual phenomenon that manifested not only corporeally but also through a continuum of visual, material, spatial, and environmental contexts. These range from the interior spaces of palaces to the very landscape of the Iranian Plateau. The Sasanian king’s audience halls and thrones were legendary in the late antique world, and their memory lingered in medieval European and Islamic ecumenes long after the fall of the empire. Appropriately, the theatrical staging of the king’s body in audience halls and on thrones will be an important focus, as will the attendant architectural, ceremonial, and technological supports, which were deployed to shape and augment the experience of the sovereign’s sacred presence. Moreover, we will consider the role of portable objects – such as textiles, precious-metal vessels, as well as mass media like seals and coinage – in bringing the image of the king before the eyes of his power bases and his populace. Our goal, therefore, is not simply to re-examine the evidence of such phenomena but to reconstruct a broader visuality of power centred on the king’s image.

    This is an open access publication and is available for free download on the publisher's website.

  • The Persian World and Beyond

    Garrison, Mark B. & Wouter F.M. Henkelman (eds.). The Persian world and beyond. Achaemenid and Arsacid studies in honor of Bruno Jacobs (Melammu Workshops and Monographs 6). Münster: Zaphon.

    The 17 essays gathered in this festschrift celebrate the scholarship of Bruno Jacobs. While the range of topics in these essays is extensive, most relate to the Achaemenid world. They represent the diversity of Achaemenid studies as a discipline that Bruno Jacobs enriched with his many contributions and sparkling ideas. Some papers move beyond the Achaemenid period, notably the contribution on Parthian and Elymaean countermarks (S.R. Hauser), and acknowledge the breadth of Bruno Jacob’s research interests, which extend from Greece to eastern Iran, span the Mediterranean Bronze Age to the Roman period, and concern the disciplines of history, archaeology, art history, religion, and Iranology. Among others, M.C. Root examines “Medes and Iranian identity in the Achaemenid social imaginary” as represented in the Persepolis Apadana, while J. Wiesehöfer focusses on “Greek exiles in the Achaemenid Empire” and Chr. J. Tuplin on “The place of Cyropaedia in Xenophon’s oeuvre”. The “winged symbol in Persepolitan glyptic” is debated by M.B. Garrison and the roles of gold and wine in Herodotus’ depiction of the Persians by R. Bichler and K. Ruffing.

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  • ‘The Coals Which Were His Guardians…’:

    Vevaina, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw. 2022. ‘The coals which were his guardians…’: The hermeneutics of Heraclius’ Persian campaign and a faint trace of the ‘Last Great War’ in Zoroastrian literature. In Phil Booth & Mary Whitby (eds.), Mélanges: James Howard-Johnston (Travaux et mémoires 26), 467–490. Paris: Association des Amis du centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance.

    We had previously announced the volume. This article is now available from the author’s academia page.

  • The Syriac Script at Turfan

    Galatello, Martina. 2023. The Syriac Script at Turfan. First Soundings (Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik 90). Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

    This is the first book-length palaeographic study of about a thousand fragments in Syriac and Sogdian languages discovered between 1902 and 1914 in the Turfan area on the ancient Northern Silk Roads. This manuscript material, probably dating between the late 8th and 13th /14th centuries, is of utmost relevance for the history of an area that represents a crossroads region of various communities, languages and religions, not least the East Syriac Christian community. Palaeographic factors such as form, modulus, ductus, contrast, spaces between letters and ligatures have been examined. Particularly significant is a peculiar ligature of the letters ṣādē and nūn. One important observation that emerges from this research is the almost total absence of monumental script in favour of mostly cursive forms, most of them East Syriac cursive forms. These represent a valuable source for the study of the history of the East Syriac script due to the paucity of earlier and contemporary East Syriac manuscript evidence from the Middle East, at least before the twelfth century. Moreover, this research sheds light on scribal habits that are highly relevant for a better comprehension of the Sogdian and Syriac-speaking Christian communities, for the history of writing between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and for a greater understanding of the social context in which these and other communities in the same area read, wrote, and shared handwritten texts. This study is part of the FWF stand-alone project “Scribal Habits. A case study from Christian Medieval Central Asia” (PI Chiara Barbati) at the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

    • The book is available for free through open access, and you can download it directly from the publisher’s website.

  • Innovation in Persian Period Judah

    Middlemas, Jill. 2023. Innovation in Persian Period Judah: Royal and Temple Ideology in Its Ancient Near East Setting. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

    This volume provides an overview of the attitude towards the monarchy and the temple in Achaemenid Yehud in a comparative perspective. It provides a thorough overview of a series of discussions about the extent of Persian influence on the ideology of Second Temple Judaism by some of the leading experts in the field.

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