This article proposes new readings and interpretations for parts of seven Middle Persian documents first published by Dieter Weber, namely: Berk. 80, Berk. 95, Berk. 43B, Tehran B, LA1, Berk. 149, and Berlin 28. It also provides the editio princeps of Berk. 19.
The commemorative publication Deciphering the Illegible is dedicated to Dieter Weber, one of the most important scholars in the field of Iranian Studies, who is best known for his work on deciphering original documents in the extremely ambiguous Pahlavi cursive script, which was long considered ‘illegible’. In addition to an appreciation of his research and a bibliography of his publications, the volume contains twenty-eight contributions by renowned experts, reflecting the broad spectrum of the dedicatee’s academic interests and research work. The articles cover a wide range of topics and offer many new insights and original perspectives on religious, linguistic and historical problems, including several editions of previously unpublished texts.
Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo: Three Zoroastrian Manuscripts in Armenia
Thomas Benfey: Windādag’s Orders: Ten Unpublished Middle Persian Ostracafrom Chāl Ṭarkhān-ʿEshqābād
Adam Benkato: A Manichaean Remedy for Headaches
Alberto Cantera: The Passive Suffix -ī̆h̆– in Middle Persian
Carlo G. Cereti: From the Zamyād Yašt to the Seventh Book of the Dēnkard, Some Notes on Sistan and Zoroastrian Eschatology
Iris Colditz: How to Make Clarified Butter in Sogdian
Touraj Daryaee: The Owl in the Zoroastrian Tradition: Contribution to Iranian Bestiary I
Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst: Hübschmann and the Middle Iranian Part on Armenian Loanwords
Shervin Farridnejad and Arash Zeini: “Who Will Protect the Cattle”? On Dogs and the Sin of Meat Consumption in Zoroastrianism
Ela Filippone: A Contribution to Pahlavi Lexicography: The Case of ⟨twk(‘)⟩ and ⟨twp(‘)⟩ in the Pahlavi Corpus and their Possible Cognates in Modern Iranian Languages
Philippe Gignoux †: Sur l’argenterie sassanide, relectures et nouveautés
Rika Gyselen: Le y final et le trait final en moyen-perse: le cas des sceaux des administrations territoriales
Almut Hintze: The Pahlavi Psalter in its Historical Context
Philip Huyse: Klimawandel und die spätantike Pest im sasanidischen Reich
Götz König: Notizen zur Überlieferung und zum Gebrauch der Yašts
Pavel B. Lurje and Boris Zheleznyakov: “Let Buyruq Sangun Live Long and be Divinely Blessed” Another Sogdian Dedicatory Inscription
Maria Macuch: Trading with Infidels: A Balancing Act in Zoroastrian Legal Reasoning
Mauro Maggi: Blowing out saṃsāra in Khotan.
Jaime Martínez Porro: A Brief Note on an Avestan Quotation in the Wizī̆rgerd ī̆ Dēnī̆g
Enrico Morano: Fragments from a Sogdian Cosmogonical Manuscript in Manichaean Script.
Antonio Panaino: The ‘starred’ Frawahr and the ‘Katasterization’ of Humanity
Anna-Grethe Rischel: Studies of ‘Watermarks of Technology’ from the Turfan Collection in Berlin
Adriano V. Rossi: Minima Iranica for Dieter
Nikolaus Schindel: Zur Bronzeprägung des Ohrmazd IV.
Martin Schwartz: Mnemonica Iranica
Nicholas Sims-Williams: Further Notes on Sogdians in Khotan
Yutaka Yoshida: Training of Scribes along the Silk Road: A Case from Manichaean Sogdian
Arash Zeini: The Covenant that Binds: Ownership of Life in Late Antique Zoroastrianism
During the Second World War, a number of manuscript fragments in Iranian languages from the Berlin Turfan collections were lost. Photographs of these fragments preserved in the Nachlass of Walter B. Henning bring to light their contents and fill gaps in the record of Turfan texts. These photographs are published here for the first time, together with a description of the fragments and their contents.
This volume is a tribute to Mauro Maggi, celebrating his distinguished career and significant contributions in the fields of Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Central Asian philology and linguistics. It features a diverse collection of papers presented by colleagues, former students, and friends, reflecting the broad spectrum of Mauro Maggi’s research interests. This collection not only honours Mauro Maggi’s extensive scholarly contributions but also serves as a valuable resource for researchers in Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Central Asian studies. It will be of interest and value to scholars of Iranian philology and linguistics, as well as those in Indo-European linguistics, Central Asian philology, and Buddhist literature. Through this comprehensive tribute, the volume underscores the lasting impact of Mauro Maggi’s work and his enduring legacy in the field.
Ricerche Linguistiche is a new journal, giving new life to an older version of itself. It is published annually and aims to provide ‘a venue for contributions in the fields of diachronic and historical linguistics concerning all levels of linguistic analysis, with a special focus on ancient Indo-European and Semitic languages, as well as Romance languages and varieties’. You can read more about the journal, its history and goals here. Sadly, the journal does not seem to be open access.
This article discusses the formation and meaning of the Avestan personal name of Zarathuštra’s father, pourušaspa-. Taking side with the current scholarly view on the etymology and meaning of the word, i.e., *pourušāspa– → pourušaspa– ‘one who has grey horses’, it is argued here that the shortening of the vowel can be explained by an analogical model in Wištāsp Yašt 1.2, where pourušaspa– m. is described as pouru.aspa– ‘having many horses’. The article also challenges the view that Wištāsp Yašt 1.2 is a recent text.
This article proposes a new etymology for the Nuristani word family of Katë lod ~ lot, Nuristani Kalasha lād, etc. It is argued that these are best understood as early borrowings from Bactrian λαδο “law”.
This article deals with the identification and interpretation of two rare Middle Persian words. Firstly, some attestations of the as yet unrecognized word <hs’lyh> hassārīh are discussed, showing that it means “direction”. Then, a semantic analysis of its underived counterpart hassār is carried out, as a basis for an etymological proposal. Finally, it is argued that hassār descends from Old Persian *haçā-sāra- “(having the head) in the same direction”, and a possible reconstruction of the semantic development of the word is provided.
The purpose of this manifesto is to raise broad questions about philological inquiry as a background to the purpose of this occasional journal. It reflects both on general questions of philology (Section 2) and delves into an example from the Middle Persian translations (Zand) of the Avesta in which can be seen a clash between the traditional approach in that field and the type of inquiry that I advocate here (Section 3).