Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Ktèma n° 47/2022

    The new volume of the journal Ktèma ,edited by Dominique Lenfant, contains several contributions to ancient Iranian history.

    Ce volume propose des approches inédites, dues aux meilleurs spécialistes internationaux, sur les rapports entre le monde grec et « l’Orient » avant et après les conquêtes d’Alexandre. Sont d’abord privilégiées, sous l’empire perse, les relations intenses et complexes entre cultures comme entre personnes, dans le cadre diplomatique, économique ou artistique. La question de l’hellénisation est ensuite envisagée dans les cas richement documentés de la Carie et de Chypre. L’Égypte lagide est enfin le lieu d’échanges complexes entre Grecs et Égyptiens, que les papyrus permettent d’observer au plus près.

    Table of contents

    Grecs et non-Grecs de l’empire perse au monde hellénistique

    Dominique Lenfant — Introduction

    Dominique Lenfant — Les ambassades grecques à la cour du Grand Roi : des missions pas comme les autres ?

    Margaret C. Miller — Playing with Persians in Athenian imagery of the Fourth Century BCE

    Pierre-Olivier Hochard — Guerres, diplomatie et thésaurisation dans l’espace égéo-anatolien : une autre approche des relations gréco-perses au IVe siècle avant J.-C.

    Eduard Rung — The Persian king as a peacemaker: The ideological background of the Common Peace Treaties in fourth century Greece

    John O. Hyland — Artabazos and the Rhodians: marriage alliance and satrapal politics in the late Achaemenid Aegean

    Thierry Petit — Isocrate, la théorie de la médiation et l’hellénisation de Chypre à l’époque des royaumes

    Anna Cannavò — Kition de Chypre : du royaume phénicien à la cité hellénistique

    Patrice Brun — L’hellénisation passe-t-elle par le nom ? L’exemple de la Carie aux IVe et IIIe siècles av. J.-C.

    Michel Chauveau — Éviter la réquisition militaire ou une menace surnaturelle ? À propos d’un contrat démotique inédit entre un Égyptien et un Grec (P.Carlsberg 471, 251 av. J.-C.)

    Pierre Schneider — Une épigramme pour célébrer l’expansion lagide en mer Érythrée ? À propos du papyrus d’El Hibeh (deuxième moitié du IIIe siècle av. J.-C.)

    Yvona Trnka-Amrhein — The Alexandria Effect: City Foundation in Ptolemaic Culture and the Egyptian Histories of Manetho and Diodorus

    Varia

    François Lefèvre — Assemblées éphémères, assemblées spontanées, assemblées élargies : alternatives démocratiques en Grèce ancienne

    Edith Foster — Devastation of Cultivated Land in Herodotus

    Julien Fournier — Bases thasiennes pour des empereurs d’époque constantinienne. Les derniers feux d’une épigraphie civique

  • Studies of Bactrian Legal Documents

    Sheikh, Hossein. 2023. Studies of Bactrian legal documents (Ancient Iran Series 15). Brill.

    Studies of Bactrian Legal Documents deals with legal texts written in Bactrian, an eastern Middle Iranian language, between the 4th and 8th centuries CE. The work aims to give insight in the Bactrian legal formulary as well as its historical context. In order to achieve that, the author carefully examines the terms and phrases in the legal documents and clarifies their function. Then he explores the historical background of expressions and wordings. To this end, he uses documents from other regions of the Near East spanning from Egypt to Turkestan.

    From the book’s website

  • Sasanian Archaeology

    Simpson, St John. 2022. Sasanian archaeology: Settlements, environment and material culture. Oxford: Archaeopress.

    The Sasanian empire was one of the great powers of Late Antiquity, and for four centuries ruled the vast region stretching from Syria and the Caucasus to Central Asia. Classical, Armenian, Jewish and Arab written sources throw light on its history, and studies of its rock reliefs, stuccoes, silver, silks, coins and glyptic have created a picture of a rich courtly culture with a strong Iranian character. However, the everyday material culture is much less understood, as is the economy which sustained and supported the Sasanian empire and underpinned its consistent military superiority over its western rivals. This collection of essays looks at these aspects and offers an approach based almost entirely on archaeological and scientific research, much presented here for the first time. This book is divided into three parts which in turn examine evidence for Sasanian sites, settlements and landscapes, their complex agricultural resources, and their crafts and industries. Each section is preceded by an essay setting out the wider research questions and current state of knowledge. The book begins and ends with a general introduction and conclusion setting out why this new approach is necessary, and how it helps change our perceptions of the complexity and power of the Sasanian empire.

  • Zoroastrians in Early Islamic History

    Magnusson, Andrew D. 2023. Zoroastrians in early Islamic history: Accommodation and memory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Examines debates about the inclusion or exclusion of Zoroastrians in Islamic society circa 600-1000 C.E.

    • Makes a significant contribution to the literature on interfaith relations in Islamic history
    • Demonstrates the role of advocacy in shaping early Islamic policy
    • Argues against the assumption that Zoroastrians were People of the Book
    • Engages theories of accommodation and of memory, from North America, the Middle East and Europe
    • Utilises archival material from Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States

    The second Muslim caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, once reportedly exclaimed, ‘I do not know how to treat Zoroastrians!’ He and other Muslims encountered Zoroastrians during the conquest of Arabia but struggled to formulate a consistent policy toward the adherents of a religion that was neither biblical nor polytheistic. Some Muslims saw Zoroastrians as pagans and sought to limit interaction with them. Others found ways to incorporate them within the empire of Islamic law. Andrew D. Magnusson describes the struggle between advocates of inclusion and exclusion, the ultimate accommodation of Zoroastrians, and the reasons that Muslim historians have subsequently buried the memory of this relationship.

  • The World of Alexander in Perspective

    Rollinger, Robert & Julian Degen (eds.). 2022. The world of Alexander in perspective: Contextualizing Arrian (Classica et Orientalia 30). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    This volume is a collection of papers that have been given at an international conference in December 2019 in Bregenz, Austria. They focus on Arrian of Nicomedia’s Anabasis Alexandrou which is our main source for the life and reign of Alexander the Great. So far, scholarship has paid only little attention to the Anabasis as literary cosmos of its own right. The various contributions critically evaluate the still extant general opinion, that Arrian deserves a distinguished status as the main source on the Macedonian conqueror since he allegedly closely followed his sources. But the first accounts of the participants in Alexander’s famous expedition have only survived as fragments and thus their literary production is more or less shrouded in mystery. Hence, the tension between Arrian’s literary creativity, propinquity to his sources, his relationship to his role-model Xenophon merits serious examination when assessing the value of his work as a historical source.

    The volume is the first attempt to contextualize the work of Arrian against various backdrops. This includes the reign of Alexander, the Classical and contemporary literary trends, the Second Sophistic as intellectual framework, the until yet neglected idea of “empire” as well as echoes and stimuli from the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period. The various contributions create a more complex image of Arrian as an author, his literary production and his idea of the Macedonian conqueror that helps us to gain a better understanding of this complex text and Alexander the Great as its protagonist.

  • The End of Empires

    Gehler, Michael, Robert Rollinger & Philipp Strobl (eds.). The End of Empires. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    The articles of this comprehensive edited volume offer a multidisciplinary, global and comparative approach to the history of empires. They analyze their ends over a long spectrum of humankind’s history, ranging from Ancient History through Modern Times. As the main guiding question, every author of this volume scrutinizes the reasons for the decline, the erosion, and the implosion of individual empires.

    All contributions locate and highlight different factors that triggered or at least supported the ending or the implosion of empires. This overall question makes all the contributions to this volume comparable and allows to detect similarities, differences as well as inconsistencies of historical processes.

    Several contributions tackle with the problems of the end of ancient Iranian empires:

  • Looking at Persians

    Stuttard, David (Ed.). 2023. Looking at Persians. London: Bloomsbury.

    Aeschylus’ Persians is unique in being the only extant Greek tragedy on an historical subject: Greece’s victory in 480 BC over the great Persian King, Xerxes, eight years before the play was written and first performed in 472 BC. Looking at Persians examines how Aeschylus responded to such a turning point in Athenian history and how his audience may have reacted to his play. As well as considering the play’s relationship with earlier lost tragedies and discussing its central themes, including war, nature and the value of human life, the volume considers how Persians may have been staged in fifth-century Athens and how it has been performed today.

    The twelve essays presented here are written by prominent international academics and offer insightful analyses of the play from the perspectives of performance, history and society. Intended for readers ranging from school students and undergraduates to teachers and those interested in drama (including practitioners), this volume also includes an accurate, accessible and performance-friendly English translation of Persians by David Stuttard.

    Table of Contents
    Foreword

    Introduction – Persians in Context (David Stuttard, Goodenough College, UK)

    1. Persians on Stage (Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge, UK)
    2. Athens and Persia, 472 BCE (Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Cardiff University, UK)
    3. Persians’ First Audience (Robert Garland, Colgate University, USA)
    4. Imperial Stirrings in Aeschylus’ Persians (Sophie Mills, University of North Carolina at Asheville, USA)
    5. Homeric Echoes on the Battlefield of Persians (Laura Swift, The Open University, UK)
    6. Individual and Collective in Persians (Michael Carroll, University of St Andrews, UK)
    7. Land, Sea and Freedom: The Force of Nature in Aeschylus’ Persians (Rush Rehm, Stanford University, USA)
    8. The Persians Love Their Children Too: Common Humanity in Persians (Alan Sommerstein, University of Nottingham, UK)
    9. Atossa (Hanna Roisman, Colby College, Maine, USA)
    10. Theatrical Ghosts in Persians and Elsewhere (Anna Uhlig, University of California, USA)
    11. Words and Pictures (Carmel McCallum-Barry, formerly of University College, Ireland)
    12. National Theatre Wales, The Persians (2010) (Mike Pearson, University of Aberystwyth, UK)

    Aeschylus Persians, translated by David Stuttard (Goodenough College, UK)

    Notes
    Bibliography
    Index

  • The Kushnameh

    Hemmat, Kaveh L. & Hee Soo Lee (eds.). 2022. The Kushnameh: The Persian Epic of Kush the Tusked. Oakland: University of California Press.

    The first English translation of a strange and unusual Persian epic, this action-packed tale of an evil, monstrous king explores questions of nature and nurture and brings the global middle ages to life.

    The great Persian epic known as the Kushnameh follows the entangled lives of Kush the Tusked––a monstrous antihero with tusks and ears like an elephant, descended from the evil emperor Zahhak––and Abtin, the exiled grandson of the last true Persian emperor. Abandoned at birth in the forests of China and raised by Abtin, Kush grows into a powerful and devious warrior. Kush and his foes scheme and wage war across a global stage reaching from Spain and Africa to China and Korea. Between epic battles and magnificent feasts are disturbing, sometimes realistic portrayals of abuse and oppression and philosophical speculation about nature and nurture and the origins of civilization.

    A fantastical adventure story stretching across the known world and a literary classic of unparalleled richness, this important work of medieval Persian literature is a valuable source for understanding the history of racism and constructions of race and the flows of lore and legend from the Central Asian Silk Road and the Sahara to the sea routes of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. The Kushnameh is a treasure trove of Islamic and pre-Islamic Persian cultural history and a striking contemporary document of the “global middle ages,” now available to English-speaking readers for the first time.

  • Persia and Its Kings

    Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (trans.). 2023. Al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar Vol. V, Section 4: Persia and Its Kings, Part II (Bibliotheca Maqriziana, 9). Leiden: Brill.

    Al-Maqrīzī’s (d. 845/1442) last work, al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar, was completed a year before his death. This volume, edited by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, covers the history of pre-Islamic Iran during the Sasanian period and the conquest. Al-Maqrīzī’s work shows how Arab historians integrated Iran into world history and how they harmonised various currents of historiography (Middle Persian historiography, Islamic sacred history, Greek and Latin historiography).

    This part harmonises the versions of Miskawayh’s Tağārib, al-Ṭabarī’s Taʾrīḫ, and several other sources, producing a fluent narrative of Iran from the early 3rd century until 651. It also includes the complete text of ʿAhd Ardašīr, here translated for the first time into English.

  • The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges between East and West

    Rong, Xinjiang. 2023. The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges between East and West (East and West, 14). Translated by Sally K. Church, et al. Edited by Sally K. Church and Imre Galambos. Leiden: Brill.

    This first and only English translation of Rong Xinjiang’s The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges Between East and West is a collection of 28 papers on the history of the Silk Road and the interactions among the peoples and cultures of East and Central Asia, including the so-called Western Regions in modern-day Xinjiang. Each paper is a masterly study that combines information obtained from historical records with excavated materials, such as manuscripts, inscriptions and artefacts. The new materials primarily come from north-western China, including sites in the regions of Dunhuang, Turfan, Kucha, and Khotan. The book contains a wealth of original insights into nearly every aspect of the complex history of this region.