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Articles

Abraham and Nimrod

Kiel, Yishai. 2015. Abraham and Nimrod in the shadow of Zarathustra. Journal of Religion 95(1). 35–50.

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Articles Journal

Iran and the Caucasus

Volume 18, issue 4 of Iran and the Caucasus:

Iran and the Caucasus 18(4).

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Events

Yarshater Lectures at SOAS

‘In the rays of light of imperial favour’: The visual arts of early fifteenth-century Timurid Herat.

Four lectures by Professor David J. Roxburgh of the Department of History of Art and Architecture and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University:

  • 15 January Timurid Herat: The City as a Setting for Art and Literature
  • 16 January The Timurid-Ming Embassy of 1419-22: Art after China
  • 19 January Modelling Artistic Process: The Kitābkhāna and ΄Arzadāsht
  • 20 January Baysunghur’s Books: Codifying Form and Aesthetic Value

For more information, see the series’ SOAS webpage or the poster.

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Articles

Textiles and elite tastes

Canepa, Matthew. 2014. Textiles and elite tastes between the Mediterranean, Iran and Asia at the end of antiquity. In Marie-Louise Nosch, Zhao Feng & Lotika Varadarajan (eds.), Global textile encounters (Ancient Textiles Series 20), 1–14. Oxford and Havertown, PA: Oxbow Books.

Read the article here.

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Articles

Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran

The latest issue  of the journal Iranian Studies 48(1), dated 2015 and entitled Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran, is a treasure trove of highly recommended articles. This special issue has been edited by Jason Mokhtarian & David Bennett.

Read the editors’ introduction here.

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Journal

Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios

Alberto Cantera and his team have launched a new journal, entitled Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios, with the aim to promote the study of Iran and Central Asia in Spain. The first volume has already been published and is available from academia.edu. A dedicated website is under construction.

The original announcement:

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Articles

Repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia

Cantera, Alberto. 2014. Repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia and animal sacrifice in the Zoroastrian long liturgy. Estudios Iranios y Turanios 1. 25–29.

The Ahuna Vairiia prayer is never repeated three times in extant Avestan texts and also the Pahlavi literature excludes this number of repetitions. This is because three repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia is the Avestan text used for the very centre of the Zoroastrian long liturgy: the slaughter of the sacrificial victim and the meat offerings to the fire. Here again, we discover the central importance of the sacrifice when the Avestan texts used in the long and short liturgies got their current shape. Further, it is shown a ritual parallelism between the slaughter of the victim and the pounding of the haōma.

The PDF of the article is here.

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Articles

The epic of Farāmarz

The new issue, vol. 24, of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute (BAI) has been published. As of this post, the journal’s website has not been updated to reflect the content of vol. 24, and the issue contains too many articles and reviews of interest to individually list them here.

Michael Shenkar has made a PDF of his article available here:

Shenkar, Michael. 2014. The epic of Farāmarz in the Panjikent paintings. Bulletin of the Asia Institute 24. 67–84.

Update:

The following content list has been posted by Carol Bromberg:

Bulletin of the Asia Institute 24 (December 2014)

David Stronach, Solomon at Pasargadae: Some New Perspectives

 Domenico Agostini, Encountering a Beautiful Maiden: On the Zoroastrian dēn in Comparison with Dante’s Beatrice

 Yishai Kiel, Gazing through Transparent Objects in Pahlavi and Rabbinic Literature: A Comparative Analysis

 Dieter Weber, Villages and Estates in the Documents from the Pahlavi Archive: The Geographical Background

 Michael Shenkar, The Epic of Farāmarz in the Panjikent Paintings  (2 color plates)

 Étienne de la Vaissière, Silk, Buddhism and Early Khotanese Chronology: A Note on the Prophecy of the Li Country

 Harry Falk, Libation Trays from Gandhara

 Phyllis Granoff, Maitreya and the Yūpa: Some Gandharan Reliefs

 David Frendo, Sovereignty, Control, and Co-existence in Byzantine-Iranian Relations: An Overview

 Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, The Prophet’s Seal: A Contextualized Look at the Crystal Sealstone of Mani (216–276 c.e.) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (2 color plates)

Reviews

Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Gnosis and Deliverance: Werner Sundermann’s “Speech of the Living Soul”

Azarnouche, ed. and trans. Husraw ī Kawādān-ē ud Rēdag-ē: Khosrow fils de Kawād et un page (Jenny Rose)

Agostini. Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg: Un texte eschatologique zoroastrien (Daniel Sheffield)

Jullien, ed. Eastern Christianity: A Crossroads of Cultures (David Frendo)

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Articles

Avestan research 1991–2014

The first part of a survey by Almut Hintze on Avestan research from 1991 to 2014:

Hintze, Almut. 2014. Avestan research 1991–2014. Part 1: Sources and phonology. Kratylos 59. 1–52.

For more information and a PDF, see here.

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Events

Iran and the West

Call for Papers for a conference at the University of Warwick:

Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives

1-3 July 2015