Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Sasanian Studies: Late Antique Iranian World

    Farridnejad, Shervin & Touraj Daryaee (eds.). 2022. Sasanian studies: Late antique Iranian world | Sasanidische Studien: Spätantike iranische Welt. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    The first issue of theSasanian Studies: Late Antique Iranian World is now published. The Sasanian Studies is a refereed journal that publishes papers on any aspect of the Sasanian Empire and ist neighboring late antiquity civilizations. The journal welcomes essays on archaeology, art history, epigraphy, history, numismatics, religion and any other disciplines which focuses on the Sasanian world. This annual publication focuses especially on recent discoveries in the field, historiographical studies, as well as editions and translations of texts and inscriptions. We aim to facilitate dialogue and contact among scholars of Sasanian Studies around the world.

    Table of Contents (PDF):

    (more…)

  • An Early Judeo-Persian Letter from the Cairo Genizah

    Paul, Ludwig. 2021. The early Judeo-Persian letter L3 from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library T-S 18J3.16). Journal of Jewish Languages 9(1). 77–99.

    Detail of the Early Judeo-Persian letter L3 from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library T-S18J3.16), recto

    The article presents the edition and translation of an Early Judeo-Persian (EJP) private-commercial letter that was probably written around the late 10th or early 11th century C.E. It is the best-preserved and, with 51 lines, the longest from the ca. 25 EJP documents that were found in the Cairo Genizah. It is written in a cursive form of the Hebrew script and shows typical EJP archaic and dialectal features, as compared to the contemporaneous Early New Persian works that were written in Arabic script. Today, the letter is kept in Cambridge University Library as part of the Taylor-Schaechter collection.

  • How Did the Ancient Iranians Coordinate Space?

    Kianoosh Rezania: “How Did the Ancient Iranians Coordinate Space? On the Old Iranian Absolute Frame of Reference”

    Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series

    For verbal expression and nonverbal cognitive processing of spatial relations between two objects, the speakers of a language use different frames of reference. (Psycho)linguistics classifies these into three main groups: intrinsic, relative, and absolute. This lecture aims to identify the old Iranian absolute frame of reference. After a short explanation of different frames of reference, the presentation will examine four sorts of evidence to this end: Avestan and Old Persian textual testimonies, the direction of Zoroastrian ritual in the Old Iranian period, and the direction of some significant Achaemenid architectural constructions. The lecture will show that the ancient Iranians did not use the four geocentric cardinal points of east, west, south and north as the cardinal directions of their absolute frame of reference, as research has implicitly taken for granted so far. The evidence, conversely, suggests that the old Iranian absolute frame of reference was constituted by the sunrise and sunset points of the winter and summer solstices.

    Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series

    Date: February 23; Time: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

  • Faster than the Arrow of Ārash: the Long Journey of the Narratives in Iran

    Norozi, Nahid (ed.). 2021. Come la freccia di Ārash: il lungo viaggio della narrazione in Iran : forme e motivi dalle origini all’epoca contemporanea (atti del V CoBIran, 22-23 ottobre 2020) (Indo-iranica et orientalia). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni.

    The narrative in the multi-millennial Iranian culture has taken many forms in prose and verse and, just as the famous arrow of the Iranian hero-archer Ārash – which according to the myth covered an unusual space flying from the Alborz mountains south of the Caspian Sea to Marv in Central Asia – comes to us miraculously traveling beyond all boundaries in space and time, because the word is “faster in traveling than the arrow of Ārash”. The present volume contains the articles, presented at the “V Convegno Bolognese diIranistica (V CoBIran)” dedicated to “Forms and motives of narration in Iran, from the origins to the contemporary era”.

    Table of Contents

    1. Aliasghar Mohammadkhani: “Excursus sulla narratologia in Iran”

    2. Antonio Clemente Domenico Panaino: “Ǝrəxša’s Death or Self-sacrifice: The Ancient Iranian Saga of the Archer”

    3. Ezio Albrile: “Guerre tra Angeli e Demoni. Le origini dello gnosticismo tra Babilonia e Iran”

    4. Paolo Ognibene: “L’iscrizione di Dario a Bīsutūn: al di l. dell’interpretazione storico-filologica”

    5. Andrea Piras: “La luna di Mani e la luna di al-Moqannaʿ: miracoli carismatici e loro usi politici”

    6. Gianfilippo Terribili: “Fabbricazione storiografica e definizione identitaria. La genesi della malvagia religione secondo i teologi zoroastriani (DkIII 227, 229, 288)”

    7. Matteo Compareti: “Tipologie eroiche nell’arte narrativa sogdiana e nell’epica persiana: il caso di Rustam e di Isfandyār”

    8. Simone Cristoforetti: “La storia del villaggio distrutto e poi riedificato nello Shāhnāma: un brano di polemistica antimazdakita?”

    9. Francesco Omar Zamboni: ‘”Avicenna e l’allegoria filosofica – “Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān”’

    10. Nahid Norozi: “Il “Vis e Rāmin” di Gorgāni e il “Bahman-nāme” di Irānshāh: aspetti intertestuali anche in relazione con il “Khosrow e Shirin” di Neẓāmi”

    11. Carlo Saccone: “Forme della narrazione dell’Altro nelle lettere persiane, da Ferdowsi a Sa‘di e Nasimi”

    12. Hasan Zolfagari: “Analisi narratologica del racconto “La Fata Verde e la Fata Gialla”

    13. Fabio Tiddia: “Il motivo “qalandar” nella letteratura mistica persiana”

    14. Maurizio Silvio Pistoso: “Guerre del Golfo in salsa safavide. I poemetti persiani dell’enigmatico “Qadri”

    15. Stefano Pellò: “Atmosfere indo-persiane: cumulonembi, bolle e avatāra monsonici in Mīrzā ‘Abd al-Qādir Bīdil (1644-1720) e nella sua scuola”

    16. Bianca Maria Filippini: “La “spaventosa Tehr.n”: alcune riflessioni sulla rappresentazione della citt. come metafora delle derive della modernit. in Iran”

    17. Adone Brandalise: “Sguardo e narrazione nel cinema iraniano”

    18. Faezeh Mardani: “Recente letteratura persiana sulla “guerra imposta” con particolare riferimento a tre romanzi tradotti in italiano”

    19. Anna Vanzan: “La fortuna di un testo. In margine alle traduzioni de Il Pesciolino Nero di Samad Behrangi”

  • Individuals and Institutions in the Ancient Near East

    Gabbay, Uri & Shai Gordin (eds.). 2021. Individuals and Institutions in the Ancient Near East: A Tribute to Ran Zadok (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 27). Berlin: De Gruyter.

    This volume honors Ran Zadok’s work by focusing on his sustained interest in Mesopotamian social history. It brings together a rich array of scholarship on ancient names, deities, individuals, and institutions, from Persepolis to the Levant. Building on Zadok’s intellectual concerns, this book includes contributions that expand our understanding of the diverse tapestry of the peoples who inhabited the Ancient Near East.

    Among the other interesting contributions, those in the first section of the volume (“The Persian Period”) stand in the discipline of studies related to the history of ancient Iran:

    • Matthew W. Stolper: Numbered Tablets in the Persepolis Fortification Archive
    • Caroline Waerzeggers: The Day Before Cyrus Entered Babylon
    • Stefan Zawadzki: Contribution to the Persian Nobility in Babylonia

    See the full table of contents in publisher’s website.

  • Current Trends in Avestan Studies

    This lecture discusses the major progress made in our understanding of the Avestan corpus/texts in the last years. Based on her recent publication co-written with Jean Kellens, L’introduction à l’Avesta, Céline Redard introduces the new vision of the Avesta, leading to the new editions currently undertaken. The important ritual aspect will also be underlined, with some concrete examples taken from her books The Srōš Drōn – Yasna 3 to 8, and The Gujarati Ritual Directions of the Paragnā, Yasna and Visperad Ceremonies (co-written with Kerman Daruwalla).

    From the lecture’s poster

    This lecture is scheduled for 16 February 2022. For more details, see the poster of the lecture.

  • Studia Iranica 49 (2)

    The second issue of Studia Iranica 49 (2020) is out. For a table of contents and access to individual articles, see below or visit this page.

    • Enrico G. Raffaelli: Day-Name Titles, Content Titles, Mixed Titles. The Different Appellations of the Avestan Yašts 5, 8, 9, 15, 18 and 19
    • Jaime Martínez-Porro: The Written Transmission of the Vištāsp Yašt Ceremony
    • Paola Orsatti: The New Persian Perfect of the kard-astam Type. Materials for a Historical-Linguistic Interpretation
    • Willem Floor: The Gates of Isfahan in the Safavid and Qajar Periods
    • Christian Bromberger: Le statut des femmes au Gilān. Un sujet controversé
    • Comptes rendus

  • Annales Islamologiques

    The latest volume of Annales Islamologiques (vol. 54) is dedicated to the theme “acts of protection in Early Islamicate societies.” It includes a number of papers that fall in the scope of Iranian studies as well.

    • Said Huseini: Acts of Protection Represented in Bactrian Documents
    • Arezou Azad, Pejman Firoozbakhsh: “No One Can Give You Protection”. The Reversal of Protection in a Persian Decree Dated 562/1167
    • Dieter Weber: Living Together in Changing Iran. Pahlavi Documents on Arabs and Christians in Early Islamic Times
    • Etienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Ḏimmī. Religious and Political Protection in Early 8th Century Central Asia

    Papers are open-access and accessible (click here).

  • Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies

    Volume 21(1) of the Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies, published in 2021, has a number of articles related to Christianity and Sasanian Iran.

    Jcsss 21 (2021) contains six articles that were presented online at the University of Ottawa, Department of Classics, on November 14, 2020. The symposium theme was the Christians within the Sassanian period. I am thankful to Professor Geof-frey Greatrex for leading this symposium in his Department and to George Amanatidis-Saadé for his great help in this symposium. I am also thankful to both of them for editing the papers published here. Two more papers were submitted by members of the CSSS, one on ancient bronze lamps and another, a note on Corpus Juris of Īshō‛-bokht.

    From the Editor

  • Iranianate and Syriac Christianity

    Barbati, Chiara & Vittorio Berti (eds.). 2021. Iranianate and Syriac Christianity (5th‒11th Centuries) in late antiquity and the early Islamic period (Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik 87). Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

    It is by now widely acknowledged that between late antiquity and the first centuries of Islam, Syriac-speaking Christian communities were more than just scattered minority communities with little impact in geographical areas strongly shaped by the Iranian element. “Iranianate and Syriac Christianity” bridges across different specialized disciplines, first and foremost Iranian Studies and Syriac Studies and the History of Christianity, and assembles a range of authoritative voices on the subject. The 14 contributions are arranged in two sections: Mission, Conversion and Power and Languages, Texts and Concepts, representing a wide range of approaches and reflecting the complexity of the religious, political and cultural history of the Christian communities in the Eurasian area up to the year 1000 and beyond.

    Abstract from the website