Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Iranica Antiqua

    Iranica Antiqua

    Volume 59 of Iranica Antiqua has been published:

    • 1 – 24 – Against Cuneiform: The Dawn of Writing in Iran
      DANESHMAND, Parsa
      abstract details
    • 25 – 33 – Cylinder Seals in the National Museum of Iran
      BAGHBIDI, Bahar Rezai, MIRGHADERI, Mohammad Amin, D’ORAZIO, Claudia
      abstract details
    • 35 – 62 – Petrographic and XRF Analysis of the Ceramics of the Achaemenid Period in the Ramhormoz Plain, Southwestern Iran
      AFSHARI, Leila, AKARSU, Rabia
      abstract details
    • 63 – 82 – In Search of the Plains of Gaugamela
      SZYPUŁA, Bartłomiej, GŁOGOWSKI, Piotr, MARCIAK, Michał
      abstract details
    • 83 – 108 – The Statue of the ‘Prince’ of Shami: Parthian Nobleman, Local Ruler or Arsacid King of Kings?
      SINISI, Fabrizio
      abstract details
    • 109 – 128 – Why the Title rāmšahr for Yazdgerd I?
      JALILIAN, Shahram
      abstract details
    • 129 – 151 – Between Dome and Eyvān: Building Techniques, Function, and Symbolism of the Kushk-e Ardashir in Bozpar (Bushehr, Iran)
      LABISI, Guiseppe
      abstract details
    • 153 – 193 – The Dynamics of Anthropogenic Landscape Evolution in the Bozpar Valley (South Iran). A Case Study for Small-Scale Hydraulic Engineering in Antiquity
      RASHIDIAN, Elnaz
      abstract details
    • 195 – 218 – Passing through the Northwestern Heights of the Alvand Mountains: Restoring the Caravan Routes between Asadabad and Hamadan in Different Historical Periods
      REZAEI, Iraj
      abstract details
  • Iran and the Caucasus 29 (2)

    Iran and the Caucasus 29 (2)

    Volume 29, issue 2, of Iran and the Caucasus has now been published. While all articles relate to the focus of BiblioIranica, two stand particularly out:

    This article is open access.

    Ever since its preliminary publication, Xerxes’ “Daiva” inscription (XPh) has been seen as an important and unique witness to early Achaemenid Mazdean orthopraxy and cultic propaganda. It is an essential document that captures a major reform in Achaemenid-Zoroastrian cult patterns and its relationship to cognate cults. This royal inscription describes a liturgical reform or, at least, the enforcement of such a reform, targeting and condemning the cult of the daivā—a designation describing competing deities. The key to decoding this reform hinges upon an obscure expression that appears thrice in the document—normalized as a-r-t-a-c-a : b-r-z-m-n-i-y—the meaning of which is yet to be fully understood. In this article, I revisit and analyze the various approaches previously taken to interpreting this remarkable syntagm and provide a methodological approach and a broader and more comprehensive translation which is presented in a more holistic comparative context—including onomastic, epigraphic and archeological data.

    Abstract

    There is no unified Yezidi source that would give a complete understanding of sins and retribution in this tradition. The article is an attempt to identify a number of sins and the expected retributions for them, based on the analysis of the text A’lī Šērē Xwadē Āxiratēdā—“ ‘Ali, the Lion of God in the Hereafter”. The text, which can be attributed to the apologetic genre, tells about ‘Ali’s journey to the afterlife and the opportunity he was given to see the punishments of sinners, in order to pass on this information to people in the “world of light”, i.e. the material world.

    Abstract
  • Across the deserts of Iran

    Across the deserts of Iran

    Céline Redard, Université de Strasbourg, has established a new series entitled Publications d’Etudes indo-iraniennes. The first book in the series has already been published and two more volumes are announced. This promises to be an exciting series. The books of the series will be open access.

    Redard, Georges. 2025. A travers les déserts de l’Iran. Rapport d’expédition 1951 – 1952 (Publications d’Etudes Indo-Iraniennes 1). Edidetd by Céline Redard. Strasbourg: Université de Strasbourg.

    Le présent ouvrage contient le récit de voyage rédigé par Georges Redard (1922-2005) lors de sa première mission en Iran, de fin 1951 à début 1952, en compagnie de Murray Barr et Richard Nelson Frye. Le lecteur les suivra ainsi à travers les déserts de l’Iran pendant 49 jours, et prendra connaissance de leurs rencontres et de leurs découvertes, mais aussi de leurs ennuis mécaniques ou techniques. Autant d’anecdotes qui lui permettront de s’immerger dans une autre époque, une autre culture et d’entreprendre un voyage scientifique à leurs côtés.

    Résumé

    Georges Redard (1922-2005) était un linguiste suisse, qui s’est notamment intéressé aux langues iraniennes anciennes ainsi que modernes. Il fut professeur à l’Université de Neuchâtel sur la chaire de Grammaire comparée, puis à l’Université de Berne sur la chaire de linguistique indo-européenne.

  • The Zoroastrian Manuscripts of the Matenadaran

    The Zoroastrian Manuscripts of the Matenadaran

    Andrés-Toledo, Miguel Ángel (ed.). 2025. The Zoroastrian manuscripts of the Matenadaran. Facsimile edition (Corpus Avesticum / Handbuch der Orientalistik 32/6). Leiden: Brill.

    Armenia was a stronghold of the Zoroastrian religion in antiquity and late antiquity. Of the rich Zoroastrian literature that was composed and transmitted in the region, no single text was extant there after long periods of cultural, political and religious changes.
    The three Zoroastrian manuscripts of this facsimile edition, containing precious copies of texts in the Avestan, Pahlavi and Zoroastrian New Persian languages, are the only exception. Stemming from Iran and now preserved at the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran), they are heirs of an ancient Iranian faith that once flourished also in Armenia.

  • Journal of Iran National Museum

    Journal of Iran National Museum

    The new issue (vol. 3, issues 1/2) of Journal of Iran National Museum is out. It is open access.

    Table of contents:

    • Sepehr Zarei: Giant Cores and Large Flake Production at Dehtal: An Acheulean Site in the Northern Hinterland of Persian Gulf, Iran
    • Hossein Davoudi; Marjan Mashkour; Fereidoun Biglari: Animal Biodiversity during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene in the Zagros Mountains: Evidence from the Wezmeh Cave
    • Arkadiusz Sołtysiak: Human remains from Zard-e Sahel, Kashan, Iran
    • Ali Khayani; Sahar Abdolahi: A Door Sealing from Tape Jameh Shuran Sofla, the Mahidasht Plain, Western Central Zagros
    • Saman Hamzavi Zarghani; Cyrus Barfi; Samira Jafari; Mohsen Zeidi: Tol-e Khaki: Tracing the Footsteps of a Chalcolithic Community in the highlands of Fars Province, Southern Zagros Mountains, Iran
    • Rouhollah Yousefi Zoshk; Hassan Afshari Salaki; Donya Etemadifar: Agricultural Practices in Proto-Elamite Susa: An Analysis of Proto-Elamite Tablets at Iran National Museum (MDP 26)
    • Parsa Daneshmand: An Inscription of Hammurapi in the National Museum of Iran
    • Kiumars Alizadeh: From Hanni to Kidin-Hutran the son of Kurluš: a new look into the Arjān bowl
    • Wouter Henkelman: Tacara- and *tacarana-: Palatial terminology in a new exemplar of A2Sde and in the Persepolis Fortification archive
    • Fahimeh Homayoun; Siroos Zare; Younes Zare; Hamid Fadaei: The Newfound Footprints of a Discrete Decoration Type on the Column Capitals at Persepolis: An Outline
    • Zahra Alinezhad: A Review of Coin Finds From Ernst Herzfeld’s Excavations at Persepolis in the National Museum of Iran
    • Sepideh Qaheri: Aegyptiaca of Achaemenid Persia: re-examination of the documentation from Iran
    • Lena Ohrstrom; Natascha Bagherpour Kashani; Roger Seilera; Beata Bode; Abolfazl Aali; Sara Khalifeh Soltani; Shapour Shirani; Gabriela Ruß-Popa; Thomas Stöllner; Frank Rühli: Paleopathological assessment of the ancient Iranian salt mummies #1, #7 and #X, Chehrābād salt mine of Douzlākh, Iran
    • Ali Aarab; Leila Khamooshi; Bahareh Salimian Rizi; Ali Shojaee Esfahani; Yimin Yang: The Origin of Cobalt: A Review of Blue Glazed Ceramics in Iran and China from the 12th to the 17th Centuries CE
    • Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani; Andrej Vladimirovich Gromov: An Analysis of the Arms and Armor of the Battle Scene titled “the battle of Yerevan” (National Museum of Iran)
    • Ali Tarmigh: Seismic Risk Mitigation of Art Objects in Museums
    • Naghmeh Hosein Qazvini: Museum and the sublime (Based on Kantian sublime)

  • Recent publications by Maria Carmela Benvenuto

    Recent publications by Maria Carmela Benvenuto

    We would like to bring a number of recent publications by Maria Carmela Benvenuto and her collaborators to the attention of our readers. Her publications are listed on her departmental page, but also on her academia account.

  • What is Zoroastrianism?

    What is Zoroastrianism?

    In a series of workshops, Dr Mehrbod Khanizadeh (SOAS, University of London) will explore the history of Zoroastrianism from its roots in the second millennium BCE through to the present day. He will discuss religious, historical as well as social aspects of the religion’s development.

    Dr. Mehrbod Khanizadeh currently teaches courses on Avestan, Middle Persian (Pahlavi), and Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London. He specialises in Zoroastrianism and ancient Iranian languages.  His recent peer-reviewed publications include an article on the genealogy of the Iranian bilingual Avestan Pahlavi Yasna manuscripts, published in the Bulletin of SOAS in 2021, and a study of the etymology of the Avestan personal name pourušaspa- published in the journal of Iran and the Caucasus in 2024. His edition of the Avestan text of chapters 9-11 of the Yasna will be published as a monograph in 2025.

    Six sessions from 25 May to 30 November 2025.

    For more information and to register, see the document below:

    WorkshopFlyerDownload
  • Representation of Aphrodite and Eros

    Representation of Aphrodite and Eros

    Moradi, Yousef & Almut Hintze. 2025. Representation of Aphrodite and Eros on Sasanian clay bullae: Evidence from the fire temple of Ādur Gušnasp at Takht-e Solaymān. Iranian Studies 1–31.

    This article examines five Sasanian bullae from the fire temple of Ādur Gušnasp with seal impressions depicting Aphrodite and Eros, and Aphrodite Anadyomene. It is argued that the original seal with Aphrodite and Eros likely dates from the late 1st century BCE to the early 1st century CE, reused between the 5th–7th centuries CE, while the Aphrodite Anadyomene seal is from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Contextualizing these findings within Graeco-Roman and Iranian cultures, this article explores reinterpretations of Graeco-Roman iconography for both Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian audiences, as well as highlights that bullae with concave impressions of cylindrically curved objects on the reverse had once been attached to vessels, not just documents. Additionally, this article also discusses other sealings on the new bullae, some with Middle Persian inscriptions, identifying a mgw (priest) and an astrologer, providing the first attestation of the word axtar (constellation) on a Sasanian seal.

    Abstract
  • The Frontier Pushes Back

    The Frontier Pushes Back

    Garosi, Eugenio. 2025. The frontier pushes back: From local languages to imperial substrate(s) in scribal practices in 8th-century Central Asia. Iranian Studies FirstView. 1–15.

    This article draws on documentary texts from multilingual archives of early Islamic Central Asia to illustrate connections between the Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal world. Here, I contend that some lesser-known evidence from Sogdia contributes new elements to current debates on the contact between Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal traditions and provides a measure of “intensity” of Arab rule in the region more generally. In particular, ostraca from various Transoxanian administrative centers provide documentary confirmation that a class of biliterate Arabic-Sogdian scribes was active in the local bureaucracy as early as the mid-8th century. When viewed in dialogue with archives from coeval Iran and Iraq, the Transoxanian evidence helps lead to a more nuanced understanding of the so-called “Pahlavi diplomatic substrate” model.

    Abstract
  • Studia Iranica (52/1)

    Studia Iranica (52/1)

    The new issue of Studia Iranica is out (volume 52, issue 1). Here is the table of contents:

    • Maryam NOURZAEI, Thomas JÜGEL: On the Function of -ag in Middle Persian. Evaluative Marker or Derivational Suffix?
    • Parviz MOHEBBI: Sweet Orange and Mandarin in Iran and India (14th-19th Centuries) with a Glimpse at Europe
    • Piero DONNINI: Khayyām Literacy among Turkman Copyists
    • Willem FLOOR: Trois Rapports inédits de fonctionnaires belges concernant l’occupation ottomane (1907) et russe (1911) du territoire iranien
    • Comptes rendus