Archaeology – Bibliographia Iranica

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)

16/05/2025

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

14/05/2025

Between the Tigris and Zagros

Peyronel, Luca. 2025. Entre le Tigre et le Zagros. Les recherches archéologiques de la mission italienne de l’Université de Milan dans la plaine d’Erbil (Kurdistan irakien). ArchéOrient – Le Blog.

About ArchéOrient – Le Blog

ArchéOrient-Le Blog is run by members of the « Archéorient » research centre of the University of Lyon 2 (CNRS/University Lyon 2), based at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée (Lyon, France). The blog aims to promote exchanges and to give greater visibility to new scientific information in the field of archaeology and history of societies and environments during the Holocene in the Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and more recently, the Horn of Africa and West Africa. This Blog is open to all representatives of the international scientific community and welcomes contributions in French and English.

18/04/2025

Eating and Drinking in the Ancient Near East

Martino, Stefano de, Elena Devecchi and Maurizio Viano (eds.). 2024. Eating and drinking in the ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Turin, July 12–16, 2021 (dubsar 33). Münster: Zaphon.

This volume comprises many of the papers presented at the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in July 2021 in Turin. Due to pandemic restrictions the participants of the conference could not meet in person. The encompassing topic “Eating and Drinking in the Ancient Near East” is broad and declinable under different perspectives. Key lectures (1) have been delivered by Cécile Michel on “Gender Aspects in Food and Drink Preparation” and by Theo van den Hout on “Hittite Foodways: The King as the Provider of his People”. Subsequent lectures grouped around the following sections: (2) Food Production, (3.) Resource Management, (4.) Rituality, Banquet and Commensality, (5.) Medicine and Literature, (6.) Philological and Archaeological Researches, (7.) Varia. The lections feature both philological as well as archaeological topics, presenting new insights into well-known texts as well as hitherto unpublished material. Among others Paola Paoletti examines “Butter and Cheese Production in the Third Millennium BCE Babylonia”, Juliette Mas “Funerary Drinking Vessels in Early and Middle Bronze Age Upper Mesopotamian Burials”, while Ludovico Portuese pursues “The Assyrian Royal Banquet”, and Jan Tavernier “The Use of Eggs in Mesopotamian Medicine and beyond”, to list just a few of the 35 articles.

Two contributions investigate topics that are related to ancient Iran:

Francesca Giusto: Dairy Production in SW Iran from the Middle Elamite to the Neo-Elamite Period
Trudy Kawami: What Fine Ceramics Can Tell Us About Social Drinking in Iron Age Iran

10/04/2025

Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue

Kallas, Nathalie (ed.). 2025. Bridging the gap: Disciplines, times, and spaces in dialogue. Vol. 2. Oxford: Archaeopress.

This volume gathers the papers presented at sessions 3, 7 and 8 from the conference Broadening Horizons 6, held at the Freie Universität Berlin, 24–28 June 2019, and is available in open access.

The second volume compiles papers presented in three enlightening sessions: Session 3 – Visual and Textual Forms of Communication; Session 7 – The Future of the Past. Archaeologists and Historians in Cultural Heritage Studies; and Session 8 – Produce, Consume, Repeat. History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Economies. Within this volume, the 20 papers traverse diverse topics spanning multiple periods, from the 5th millennium BCE to the Roman Empire, and encompass a wide array of geographical regions within the Near East.

Among other relevant contributions, the following papers deal with aspects of ancient Iranian history and culture:

Delphine Poinsot: Sexuation of animals’ bodies in the bullae from Qasr-I Abu Nasr
Olivia Ramble: Generations of Writing: The Secondary Inscriptions of Darius’ tacara at Persepolis
Takehiro Miki: Deciphering the Skills of the Prehistoric Painting Technique: Case Study of the Painted Pottery of the 5th Millennium BCE from Tall-e Bakun A (Fars province, Iran)
Yazdan Safaee: Persian Female Weavers in the Persepolis Economy

22/03/2025

A Numismatic History of Barikot

Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2025. A numismatic history of Barikot (Veröffentlichungen zur Numismatik 69). Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. With a contribution by Luca M. Olivieri.

This volume offers a ‘catalogue and analysis of the coin finds from the excavations at Bīr-koṭ-ghwaṇḍai (Barikot), Swāt, Pakistan (1984–2022)’.

For the table of contents, see here.

The present volume explores the coins unearthed during the excavations at the ancient city of Barikot (Swāt Valley, northern Pakistan) between 1984 and 2022. The excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission at Barikot have revealed numerous settlement phases from the prehistoric to the Islamic times. Of particular significance are over 500 coin finds, which are placed in their historical context in this volume to draw a clear picture of the monetary circulation in the Swāt Valley (Uḍḍiyāna) throughout antiquity and the early Islamic period. The chronological framework of the coin finds spans from the third century BCE to the twelfth century CE, i.e., from the Indian Maurya dynasty to the Ghaznavids. The majority of the coin finds are from the Kušān period (first to fourth century CE). Various historical, typological, metrological, and topographical aspects of the coinage and monetary circulation of each period are addressed in separate chapters. The finds from Barikot are also compared with those from other documented sites in Uḍḍiyāna, Gandhāra, and adjacent regions in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. What should be highlighted is the stratigraphic documentation of the find contexts, which, based on the radiocarbon analyses, makes it possible to bring the coins into relation with other types of archaeological artifacts. This subject is discussed in an archaeological contribution by the director of the excavations, Luca M. Olivieri.

06/03/2025

Ash-Sharq

The two issues of volume 8 of Ash-Sharq are published and contain several interesting contributions. Below are listed the articles that deal with Iranian studies:

St John Simpson: Sutton Hoo, St. Sergius and the Sasanians: Anglo-Saxon finds re-interpreted from an eastern perspective
Pernille Bangsgaard , Lisa Yeomans , Hojjat Darabi , Tobias Richter: Faunal deposits and displays in the early Neolithic, new evidence from Ganj Dareh, central Zagros
Margaret Cool Root: The Arc of the Horn Part II: Sacral powers of the ibex on the seals of Persepolis

23/12/2024

New Voices in Iranian Archaeology

Alizadeh, Karim & Megan Cifarelli (eds.). 2024. New voices in Iranian archaeology. Barnsley: Oxbow Books.

This volume highlights the excellent, wide-ranging work of a diverse collection of Iranian archaeologists, the new voices in Iranian archaeology. Archaeology in Iran has developed in lockstep with the discipline of archaeology itself, in part due to the colonial endeavors that provided impetus for Europeans to travel to distant lands and extract antiquities and other commodities. But centuries before western archaeologists broke ground on excavations in the lands that would in 1935 be called Iran, a deep and meaningful engagement with and reverence for the past was a thread running through Iranian culture since antiquity. For millennia, the residents and rulers of ancient Iranian lands have admired, interacted with, inscribed, invented stories about, and imitated the visible, often ruined, monuments of their ancestors that dotted the landscape
Description

12/12/2024

Mannea and beyond

Naseri, Reza, Mehrdad Malekzadeh, Andrea Cesaretti & Roberto Dan. 2024. Mannea and beyond: A study of Iron Age and later pottery from Zanjan in the National Museum of Iran. Antilia.

The volume Mannea and Beyond: A Study of Iron Age and Later Pottery from Zanjan in the National Museum of Iran presents a systematic analysis of a ceramic assemblage from Zanjan, stored in Iran’s National Museum. Due to the lack of archaeological context—these artefacts were retrieved through illegal excavations—the study focuses on typology, preservation, and precise comparisons with neighbouring sites. The assemblage is heterogeneous, largely from the Iron Age with some medieval pieces, with several items linked to the Mannaean culture, enriching our understanding of this relatively obscure cultural horizon. The excellent preservation suggests that the materials may originate from a necropolis with unknown position.

Source: Reza Naseri’s social media page.

22/11/2024

Iran, Volume 62, Issue 2 (2024)

The table of contents of the latest issue (62/2) of the journal Iran:

Abbas Moghaddam & Elnaz Rashidian: Visiting Tol-e Tahmachi, a Fifth Millennium BCE Settlement in the Persian Gulf Littoral, Southwest Iran
Sheler Amelirad & Behroz Khanmohamadi: Typological Study of Metal Pins in Northwestern Iran Based on the Bayazid Abad (Bayazi Awa) Archaeological Assemblage
Mostafa Dehpahlavan & Zahra Alinezhad: The Cylinder Seals of Qareh Tepe in Sagzabad, Iron Age II and III
Mohsen Javeri & Majid Montazer Zohouri: Vigol and Harāskān Fire Temple: Archaeological Evidence About the Veneration of Fire in the Center of the Iranian Plateau During the Sasanian Period
Shahram Jalilian & Touraj Daryaee: The Image of the Sasanian King in the Perso-Arabic Historical Tradition
Esmaeil Sangari, Zohreh Noori, Amirhossein Moghaddas, Aliakbar Abbasi & Reza Dehghani: The Iconography of Dancers and Their Garments on Sasanid Silver Vessels (Case Study: Four Silver Vessels with Different Features)
Michael Shenkar: The So-Called “Fravašis” and the “Heaven and Hell” Paintings, and the Cult of Nana in Panjikent
Moujan Matin: A Medieval Stonepaste Ceramic Production Site in Moshkin Tepe, Iran: Ceramics, Wasters, and Manufacturing Equipment
Philip Henning Grobien: The Origins and Intentions of the Anglo-Persian Agreement 1919: A Reassessment

11/11/2024

Tag: Archaeology

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