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Assyriology in Iran?

Daneshmand, Parsa. 2020. Assyriology in Iran? In Agnès Garcia-Ventura & Lorenzo Verderame (eds.), Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 266–282. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns.

Forṣat-od-Dowle Šīrāzī (1854-1920)

The title of this paper might be one fraught with difficulties. For one thing, there is hardly a field of study in Iran at the present time that can be labelled as Assyriology; instead, there are scattered individual efforts, self-studied research, and erratic workshops run by a small number of genuine specialists. Although Iran is the birthplace of cuneiform decipherment, Iranian universities offer no courses in Assyriology, nor is any local academic institute qualified to run a degree program in cuneiform studies.