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Literacy and Orality in Achaemenid Iran

Kolb, Anne (ed.). 2018. Literacy in ancient everyday life. Berlin ; Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
The purpose of the conference proceedings is to investigate the importance of literacy in the daily lives of ancient people. In addition to the intended utilization of writing and written material, the circumstances of usage as well as various types of users are the focus of the analyzes. The concept of a diversified literacy of different levels of literacy, literacy and numeracy makes it possible to differentiate the usage of everyday writing according to types or categories of uses and to recognize different functions of literacy.
Two chapters from the first part are of special interests for Iranian and Achaemenian Studies:
Josef Wiesehöfer: “Anmerkungen zu Literalität und Oralität im teispidisch-achaimenidischen Iran” (pp 99-112)
The contribution aims at pointing out the impact of language(s) and writing system(s), not least of Elamite, Old Persian and Aramaic, in Teispid-Achaemenid Iran in the context of royal pronouncements and administration, and at putting them in relation to those of the neighbouring cultures. In this context, it is also trying to find out which forms of language acquisition and communication can be proven and whether there has been such a thing as a Persian language policy. On the other hand, the fact that Iran has seen decidingly oral cultures up to Late Antiquity and even beyond, apart from the official contexts, raises the question of the media of communication and the afterlife of Teispids and Achaemenids in Iran’s ‘historical’ traditions.
Irene Madreiter: “Der Raum alltäglicher weiblicher Literalität im Achaimeniden-Reich” (pp. 113-142)
The article examines the place of female literacy within general everyday literacy in the Achaemenid period. Whereas the Achaemenid heartland lacks of sources written by women, we have abundant private correspondence from the other satrapies of the empire (Babylonia, Egypt, Bactria etc.). Therefore the lacuna from the Persis-region is not coincidental but resulting from the specific social structure of the empire with its dominant hegemonic manliness. This prevented a wider spread of literacy and the Achaemenid heartland remained an orally dominated culture with a functional literacy limited to the elite and higher levels of society.
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Articles

A Watchtower of the late Sasanian Period on the outskirts of Veh Ardashir

Messina, Vito. 2018. A watchtower of the late Sasanian period on the outskirts of Veh Ardashir (Coche). In Paolo de Vingo (ed.), Le archeologie di Marilli. Studi in memoria di Mariamaddalena Negro Ponzi Mancini (Mnème. Documenti, culture, storia del mediterraneo e dell’oriente antico 12), 95–104. Torino: Edizioni dell’Orso.
In 1964 the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l’Asia started field research at Seleucia on the Tigris, the Babylonian capital of Seleucid Asia, built in an area where other important capitals such as Parthian Ctesiphon and Sasanian Veh Ardashir were founded, and which is still called in Arabic al- Madā’in (the cities). The city, founded at the end of the 4th century BC, appears to have been the main centre of inner Asia in the Seleucid period and maintained its pivotal role even during the Parthian age (half of the 2nd century BC – beginning of the 3rd century AD), being progressively abandoned from the last quarter of the 2nd century AD, for the nearby bourg of Ctesiphon, grown in importance in the AD centuries as the Parthian capital of the region. Afterwards, during the reign of Ardashir I (AD 224-241), the new Sasanian capital, Veh Ardashir (Coche), vied with Ctesiphon for regional dominance and finally prevailed.
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Books

The Military History of the Third Century Iran

Syvänne, Ilkka & Katarzyna Maksymiuk. 2018. The Military History of the Third Century Iran. Siedlce: Scientific Publishing House of Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities.

The book The Military History of the Third Century Iran is the result of several years of collaboration between the authors who undertake daily research on the history of pre-Islamic Iran. The present work is primarily addressed to students of history who acquire their first experiences in exploring the history of the Near East. We hope that it will help readers with a fascinating topic and will encourage them to continue their studies on ancient military.

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Books

Sasanian Iran in the context of Late Anitquity

Daryaee, Touraj (ed.). 2018. Sasanian Iran in the context of Late Anitquity: The Bahari lecture series at the Oxford University (Ancient Iran Series VI). Irvine: Jordan Center for Persian Studies.
The essays in this volume discuss various aspects of the Sasanian Empire, presented on the occasion of the inauguration of the Bahari Chair in Sasanian Studies at Oxford University in 2014.
  • Michael Alram: “The Numismatic Legacy of the Sasanians in the East”
  • Matthew P. Canepa and Johnathan W. Hardy: “Persian Palace Architecture, Garden Design and Digital Archaeology”
  • Touraj Daryaee: “The Tripartite Sasanian Vision of the World”
  • Antonio Panaino: “Books without Ritual – Ritual without Books”
  • Giusto Traina: “The Rise of the Sasanians”
  • Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina: “A Father, a Daughter, and a Son-in-Law in Zoroastrian Hermeneutics”
  • Arash Zeini: “The King in the Mirror of the Zand“
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Articles Journal

Looking East: Iranian History and Culture under Western Eyes

Looking East: Iranian History and Culture under Western Eyes

The latest issue of journal Electrum features  Electrum, with the issue gathering the contribution of the workshop “Looking History: Iranian History and Culture under Western Eyes” held at 2016 in Ravenna, Italy.

Electrum, Volume 24 (2017)

  • Paolo Ognibene: “Sguardi incrociati greco-scitici”
  • Christopher Tuplin: “War and Peace in Achaemenid Imperial Ideology”
  • Francesca Gazzano: “The King’s speech. La retorica dei re persiani fra Eschilo, Erodoto e Tucidide”
  • Federicomaria Muccioli: “Peucesta, tra lealismo macedone e modello persiano”
  • Omar Coloru: “Potere e territorio. Gli Achemenidi nei Geographikà di Strabone”
  • Leonardo Gregoratti: “Corbulo versus Vologases: A Game of Chess for Armenia”
  • Eran Almagor: “Plutarch and the Persians”
  • Edward Dąbrowa: “Tacitus on the Parthians”
  • Tommaso Gnoli: “Mitrei del Vicino Oriente: una facies orientale del culto misterico di Mithra”
  • Giusto Traina: “L’Armenia di Ammiano Marcellino”
  • Andrea Piras: “Persianao, mago e guerriero. Note sulla caratterizzazione di Mani e dei manichei nelle fonti greco-latine del IV secolo”
  • Antonio Panaino: “Iranica nella Disputatio de Christo in Persia”
  • Andrea Gariboldi: “Pratiche economiche e monetali nei documenti pahlavi del Tabaristān (VIII sec.)”
  • Reviews

 

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Articles

A Zoroastrian Funerary Building of Ancient Chorasmia

Minardi, Michele & Shamil Amirov. 2017. The Zoroastrian Funerary Building of Angka. Topoi 21. 11–49.
This paper presents the results of the 2016 field campaign of the Angka-kala Archaeological Expedition (AGKE) at Angka Malaya (“Small Angka”), a particular site of which the original function is here assumed to have been of funerary nature. The ruins of Angka Malaya (27 km north of the modern city of Turktul) stand close by the larger stronghold of Angka-kala in today’s Republic of Karakalpakstan (northern Uzbekistan), a territory once part of the antique Iranian polity of Ancient Chorasmia.
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Articles

On Yaakov Elman

Perpetual Motion: Shai Secunda on Yaakov Elman, who passed away on July 29, 2018.

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Books

Zoroastrian Mythology: Cows and Bulls in Ancient Iran

Pirart, Eric. 2018. Mythologie zoroastrienne: vaches et taureaux en Iran. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan.
Éric Pirart rassemble ici les données de l’eschatologie générale mazdéenne. La rigueur philologique et la mythologie comparée sont les deux outils mis en oeuvre dans l’approche de la tradition zoroastrienne qui est fragmentaire. L’examen des mythes grecs qui mettent en scène un taureau fournit-il ainsi quelques clés dans l’interprétation de textes iraniens singulièrement lapidaires. Vaches et taureaux, chez les peuples conducteurs de troupeaux, étaient au centre de l’imaginaire et de la métaphysique.
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Journal

Afghanistan: A new journal

Afghanistan is a refereed journal published twice a year in April and October. It covers all subjects in the humanities including history, art, archaeology, architecture, geography, numismatics, literature, religion, social sciences and contemporary issues from the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. Articles are not restricted to the present borders of Afghanistan and can include the surrounding regions, but must relate to Afghanistan.

It’s first issue (Volume 1, Issue 1) is now out.

Table of contents:

  • Thomas Barfield: Introduction: The American Institute of Afghanistan Studies
  • Francesca Fuoli: Incorporating north-western Afghanistan into the British empire: experiments in indirect rule through the making of an imperial frontier, 1884–87
  •  Nile Green: From Persianate pasts to Aryan antiquity. Transnationalism and transformation in Afghan intellectual history, c.1880–1940
  • Elisabeth Leake: Afghan internationalism and the question of Afghanistan’s political legitimacy
  •  Zafar Paiman: Le monastère de Qol-e-Tut à la lumière des fouilles archéologiques
  • Jürgen Paul: Alptegin in the Siyāsat-nāma
  • Claude Rapin and Frantz Grenet: How Alexander entered India. With a note on Ortospana (the ancient name of Ghazni?)
  • Paul Wordsworth: The hydrological networks of the Balkh Oasis after the arrival of Islam: a landscape archaeological perspective
  • Recent books relating to Afghanistan

The website of journal is available here.

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Articles

Dating the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes

Gertoux, Gérard. 2018. Dating the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. In Pascal Attinger et al, (eds.), Text and Image Proceedings of the 61e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Geneva and Bern, 22–26 June 2015. 179-206. Leuven – Paris – Bristol, CT: Peeters.

The pivotal date of 465 BCE for the death of Xerxes has been accepted by historians for many years without notable controversy. However, according to Thucydides, a historian renowned for his high chronological accuracy, Themistocles met Artaxerxes, who had succeeded Xerxes, his father, just after the fall of Nexos  which occured after the fall of Skyros dated at the beginning of the archonship of Phaedo in 476 BCE, according to Plutarch (Life of Theseus §§35,36). Thus, the meeting with Themistocles would have occurred soon after 475, not 465. The present Achaemenid chronology comes mainly from official Babylonian king lists which ignore coregents and usurpers. This official version is contradicted by contracts dated in “year, month, day” proving the existence of frequent co-regencies and usurpers. In addition, according to the astronomical tablet referenced BM 32234 the death of Xerxes is dated 14/V/21 between two lunar eclipses, one dated 14/III/21 (26 June 475 BCE), which was total, and a second dated 14/VIII/21 (20 December 475 BCE), which was partial. Thus the death of Xerxes has to be dated 24 August 475 BCE. Likewise, the death of Artaxerxes I is fixed precisely by Thucydides just before a partial solar eclipse (21 March 424 BCE) which would imply an absurd co-regency of Darius II with a dead king for at least one year! In fact, Plutarch and Justinus have effectively described a long co-regency of Artaxerxes but with his first son Darius B (434-426), not Darius II, and afterward two shorts reigns: Xerxes II for 2 months then Sogdianus for 7 months, which occurred before the reign of Darius II. The title of Xerxes (496-475) in Egypt and the data of Diodorus confirm the co-regency of 10 years with Darius, as do Elephantine papyri with many double dates both in civil and lunar calendars.