Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Sogdian

  • The Mount Mugh Documents and Sogdian Epigraphy

    Livshits 2015Livshits, Vladimir A. 2015. Sogdian epigraphy of Central Asia and Semirech’e. (Ed.) Nicholas Sims-Williams. (Trans.) Tom Stableford. (Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. Part II Inscriptions of the Seleucid and Parthian Periods and of Eastern Iran and Central Asia Vol. III. Sogdian). London: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
    This volume presents the Emglish translations of some very important and major works of  Vladimir Aronovich Livshits on the Sogdian language, culture and sources. The volume is arranged in two parts. The first part is a translation of Sogdian documents from Mount Mug (kuh-e moḡ), site of the 7th-8th-century refuge of the rulers of Penjikent in Sogdiana, located in the upper reaches of the Zeravshan in northern Tajikistan, where an important archive of documents written in Sogdian was discovered by A. A. Freiman’s 1933 expedition. Livshits has taken part  first and foremost, in the deciphering of the Mnt. Mug archive of Sogdian documents from Mount Mug.
    The second part of the volume, dedicated to the English translations of some ten important articles of Livshits, concerning the Sogdian epigraphy, in which he examines “not only the purely philological problems but also questions of the history and culture of Sogd, aided by his frequent participation in archaeological excavations and journeys to the lands of historical Sogdiana in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kirgizia”.

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  • Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

    Sasanian SilkSymposium

    Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

    Hangzhou, China, Oct. 11th –Oct. 13th, 2015

    In June 2014, the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor jointly nominated by China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was inscribed on the World Heritage List, making the ancient Silk Road a common wealth of human beings.

    Parallel to the cognominal exhibition, held at the China National Silk Museum from Sept. 15th to Oct. 14th, 2015, which include masterpiece ancient silk textiles and other treasures related to the Silk Road from 24 Chinese museums and archaeological institutions of eight provinces, the symposium will present the following six sections:

    • Silk Road and Technical Exchange
    • Archaeological Findings of Silk in China
    • Archaeological Findings of Silk outside China
    • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Linguistics
    • Maritime Silk Road and Chinese Export Silk
    • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Anthropology

    See here  for more details and the programme, speackers and topics.

    Some talks relevant to Iranian Studies are:

    • Matthehew Canepa: “Sasanian Persian silks in archaeology findings and stone relief illustration
    • Bi Bo: “Silk in Sogdian Literature”
    • Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi: “Silk in Persian Literature”

     

  • Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL)

    The Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL), an initiative of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University, has been redesigned and relaunched:

    AWDL will identify, collect, curate, and provide access to a broad range of scholarly materials relevant to the study of the ancient world.

    The digital library is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the ancient world and naturally contains material relevant to Iranian Studies such as the digitised copy of the second volume of Henning’s selected papers or Back’s Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften. Why not head over and read up on the Middle Persian word for beer, the dates of Mani’s life, the term for coriander or on a grain of mustard, topics that demonstrate the depth and breadth of Henning’s scholarship.

  • Carpets in ancient Central Asia

    He, Zhang. 2015. The terminology for carpets in ancient Central Asia. Sino-Platonic Papers 257. 1–35.

    This study seeks to gather and clarify the terminology for carpets used by peoples of Central Asia from about 300 BCE to 1000 CE time, including terms in Kharoṣṭhi, Khotanese, Sanskrit and its relatives, plus Persian, Sogdian, Chinese, and Turkic.

  • Map of the Zerafshan valley

    Etienne de la Vaissière has kindly shared this map of the Zerafshan valley in the 7th century on academia.edu. He states:

    Map drawn for my Histoire des marchands sogdiens, Paris: Collège de France, 2002, map 5. Please feel free to modify and adapt it to your needs: the layers can be modified in Illustrator. Although I have drawn it I claim no copyright, but would welcome that you mention the source.

     

  • B.D. Kochnev Memorial Seminar

    coinB.D. Kochnev Memorial Seminar in Central Asian and Middle Eastern Numismatics

    Seventh Meeting, March 14, 2015
    Hofstra University, Calkins Hall 206

    Seminar is free and open to public
    Please RSVP to Aleksandr.Naymark@hofstra.edu

    Session 1
    10:00 – 11:00 am

    Dmitrii Markov (New York), Aleksandr Naymark (Hofstra University)
    “A Hoard of Archaic Greek Coins from the Banks of Amu-Darya. Preliminary Report”

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  • Sogdian bibliography

    Benkato, Adam. 2015. Sogdian Bibliography.

    This provisional bibliography restricts itself to works focused mostly on the Sogdian language and its linguistic analysis or editions of texts. Comments, corrections, and further entries are most welcome.

     

  • Getting to know Sogdian: Major epigraphy

    Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part of his excellent introduction to Sogdian is now online. In this part he talks about Sogdian epigraphy.

    Read the second part of the introduction here.

  • Cosmopolitanism in the Tang dynasty

    Since most of this week’s posts relate to Eastern Iranian regions, I thought I would also post this announcement for a forthcoming publication by Valenstein, who has previously published Cultural Convergence in the Northern Qi Period: A flamboyant Chinese ceramic container. The forthcoming volume was already announced in 2012, but publication seems to now be imminent:

    Valenstein, Suzanne. 2014. Cosmopolitanism in the Tang dynasty: A Chinese ceramic figure of a Sogdian wine-merchant. Los Angeles: Bridge21 Publications. Distributed by Transaction Publishers in Piscataway, NJ.

  • Getting to know Sogdian

    When I started this bibliographic blog my main goal was to keep things simple, hoping that a modest and well-defined goal would allow me to update the site on a regular basis. I am very excited that with the help of my SOAS colleague and friend, Adam Benkato, we now take a first step towards hosting original content. Adam has written a very useful introduction to Sogdian, of which I post the first part today. The goal of this and hopefully forthcoming introductions is to offer brief and somewhat informal overviews. We hope that scholars from neighbouring disciplines and non-specialists will find them useful.

    Read the first part of the introduction here.