Author: Shervin Farridnejad

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Events

Achaemenian Palaces and the Zoroastrian Ritual Surfaces

Cylinder seal impression from Daskyleion with royal audience scene, inscribed “Artaxerxes.” Drawing by B. Mussche of Daskyleion inv. no. Erg. 55. After AMI 22, 1989, p. 147, fig. 1 © Encyclopædia Iranica Online

“The Old Iranian Absolute Frame of Reference.
To the Orientation of Achaemenian Palaces and the Zoroastrian Ritual Surfaces“.

A talk by Kianoosh Rezania (Bochum).

Monday, 9 January 2016, 06:30 PM, Österreichische Orient-Gesellschaft Hammer-Purgstall Dominikanerbastei 6/6, 1010 Wien.

This talk is the first of a talk series “Kulturwissenschaftliche Iranforschung“,  organized as joint events by the Institute of Iranian studies (IFI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and the Österreichischen Orient-Gesellschaft Hammer-Purgstall, Vienna.

Abstract

For the orientation in space and the linguistic expression of spatial relations of objects, different coordination systems can be used. One of these systems utilizes fixed cardinal directions. The four compass points north, south, east and west constitute the cardinal directions of our absolute frame of reference. Did the Old Iranians employ the same frame of reference likewise with these compass points?
After the representation of different coordination systems, absolute, intrinsic and relative, the paper addresses the Old Iranian absolute frame of reference. By means of the orientation of Achaemenian palaces, the order of countries in the Old Persian list of nations as well as Avestan linguistic evidence, it will be demonstrated that the Old Iranian people did not used our todays compass points for their orientation in space, but employed a different absolute frame of reference. The paper will present the cardinal directions of this system.

You can download the whole program of this talk series here.

Kianoosh Rezania is a professor of Western Asian Religious Studies at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

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Books

The Zoroastrian Law to Expel the Demons

Andrés Toledo, Miguel Ángel. 2016. The Zoroastrian law to expel the demons: Wīdēwdād 10-15. Critical edition, translation and glossary of the Avestan and Pahlavi texts (Iranica 23). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
The text Wīdēwdād – “Law Serving to Keep the Demons Away” – is one of the longest and most important sources for the study of the Zoroastrianism of the ancient Iranian and the Middle Iranian periods. The ancient Iranian text, written in Avestan, was in the Sassanid era (3rd-7th centuries) translated into Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and provided with glosses and extensive commentaries. The Pahlavi version, called zand, is of particular interest for two reasons: firstly, it is the oldest Middle Persian translation of an Avestan text, and thus of major importance for the linguistic reconstruction of Middle Persian; secondly, the annotations approach complex theological, ritual, and legal questions that examine numerous insufficiently studied areas of the Sassanid society. Despite its outstanding importance, this primary source has, due to the high degree of difficulty of the subject matter, until recently attracted hardly any attention.
Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo’s book, based upon a careful collation of all 44 still existing manuscripts, is the first critical edition of the Avestan and the Pahlavi text of the Wīdēwdād.
For more details see the table of the contents of this volume.
Author:
Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo is an scholar of Ancient and Middle Iranian Lingustics as well as Zoroastrianism. He is currently a research fellow of the Department of Classical Philology and Indo-European Studies at the University of Salamanca.
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Events

Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia

Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia: Linguistic, Ritual, and Socio-Economic Aspects

International Workshop, organized by the Institute of Iranian Studies (IFI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Vienna Linguistic Society and the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press

13.12-15.12.2016, Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences

The Cyrus cylinder © The Trustees of the British Museum
Continue reading “Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia”
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Articles

Disability in Ancient Persia

Coloru, Omar. 2017. Ancient Persia and silent disability. In Christian Laes (ed.), Disability in antiquity, 61–74. London: Routledge.

Did disability ever exist in ancient Persia? This provocative question is justified by the scarcity of the documentary evidence the historians face when dealing with the pre-Islamic societies of the Iranian world. As a matter of fact, the tradition of theses populations have always been pre-eminently oral. The rock inscription of Darius I at Behistun, which represents the first text written in the Old Persian language, was only composed in the 6th century BCE, when the nearby Mesopotamian world could boast a diverse textual tradition dating back three millennia. […] Given the nature of the evidence, it is easy to feel discouraged about the possibility of having a clear and definite picture of the condition of the disabled in the Persian world. Nevertheless, we can try to explore the issue by surveying the available documents and comparing and contrasting them with external evidence from the classical world.

Omar Coloru, is an associate member of the laboratory ArScAN HAROC (Nanterre). His main research interests include Hellenistic history, history of Iran and pre-Islamic Central Asia, and the relations between the Greco-Roman and the Iranian worlds.

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Books

Alexander the Great and the East

Nawotka, Krzysztof & Agnieszka Wojciechowska (eds.). 2016. Alexander the Great and the East: History, Art, Tradition. (Philippika – Altertumswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen / Contributions to the Study of Ancient World Cultures 103). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Even if Alexander’s rule in Asia has to be approached primarily through the study of Greek and Latin authors, many papers in this volume try to look beyond Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius, and Diodorus to Greek inscriptions, papyri, Egyptian, Babylonian, medieval Syriac and Arabic evidence. One focus is on Egypt, from the XXX dynasty to the Ptolemaic age. A lasting achievement of the early Macedonian age in Egypt is the lighthouse of Pharos, probably devised under Alexander to serve both as a watchtower of Alexandria and the focal point of the fire telegraph.
Another focus of the volume is on Babylonia, with caveats against the over-enthusiastic usage of cuneiform sources for Alexander. This focus then moves further east, showing how much caution is necessary in studying the topography of Alexander’s campaigns in Baktria, the land often misrepresented by ancient and medieval authors. It also deals with representation and literary topoi, having in mind that Alexander was as much a historical as a literary figure. In many respects ancient Alexander historians handled his persona in strong connection with Herodotean topics, while the idealized portrait of Alexander translated, through court poetry, into the language of power of Ptolemy of Egypt. Alexander was adopted to cultural traditions of the East, both through the medium of the Alexander Romance and through his fictitious correspondence with Aristotle, sometimes becoming a figure of a (Muslim) mystic or a chosen (Jewish) king.
Table of Contents
  • Krzysztof Nawotka and Agnieszka Wojciechowska: “Alexander the Great and the East: History, Art, Tradition: An Introduction”
  • Ivan A. Ladynin: “An Egyptian Prince at Alexander’s Court at Asia? A New Interpretation for the Evidence of the Statuette of the Son of Nectanebo II”
  • Krzysztof Nawotka and Agnieszka Wojciechowska: “Nectanebo II and Alexander the Great”
  • Adam Łukaszewicz: “Alexander and the Island of Pharos”
  • Giulia Cesarin: “Hunters on Horseback: New Version of the Macedonian Iconography in Ptolemaic Egypt”
  • Eduard Rung: “Athens, Alexander and the Family of Memnon of Rhodes: Some Notes on a New Interpretation of so-called “Memnon’s Decree”
  • Krzysztof Ulanowski: “The Methods of Divination Used in the Campaigns of the Assyrian Kings and Alexander the Great”
  • Micah T. Ross: “Belephantes to Alexander: An Astrological Report to a Macedonian King?”
  • Robin Lane Fox: “Alexander and Babylon: A Substitute King?”
  • Jeffrey Lerner: “Which Way North? Retracing Alexander’s Route to Marakanda in the Spring of 328 B.C.E”
  • Olga Kubica: “The Massacre of the Branchidae: a Reassessment. The post-mortem Case in Defence of the Branchidae”
  • Gościwit Malinowski: “Alexander the Great and China”
  • Guendalina D.M. Taietti: “Alexander the Great as a Herodotean Persian king”
  • Sabine Muller: “Poseidippos, Ptolemy and Alexander”
    Igor Yakubovitch: “The East in Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni: A Paradoxical Reversion of Standards”
  • Christian Thrue Djurslev: “The Figure of Alexander the Great and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca”
  • Agnieszka Fulińska: “The Great, Son of the Great. Alexander – Son of Darius?”
  • Dan-Tudor Ionescu: “The King and His Personal Historian: The Relationship between Alexander of Macedon and Callisthenes in Bactria and Sogdiana”
  • Przemysław Siekierka: “Another Note on Deification of Alexander in Athens”
  • Agnieszka Kotlińska-Toma: “On His Majesty’s Secret Service – Actors at the Court of Alexander the Great”
  • Aleksandra Szalc: “The Metamorphoses of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Motifs Concerning India in the Persian Alexander Romances”
  • Emily Cottrell: “An Early Mirror for Princes and Manual for Secretaries: The Epistolary Novel of Aristotle and Alexander”
  • Richard Stoneman: “Alexander’s Mirror”
  • Aleksandra Klęczar: “Wise and the Wiser: The Narratives on Alexander’s Wisdom Defeated in Two Versions of Hebrew Alexander Romance (MS London Jews’ College no 145 and MS Héb. 671.5 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale)”
  • Josef Wiesehöfer: “Alexander’s “Policy of Fusion” and German Ancient History between 1933 and 1945”
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Books

Syriac Polemics Against Zoroastrianism and Christian Controversies under the Sasanians

es-xiii-couv4eRuani, Flavia (ed.). 2016. Les controverses religieuses en syriaque. (Études Syriaques 13). Paris: Geuthner.
The latest volume of the series Études Syriaques, edited by Flavia Ruani is dedicated to the subject of the religious controversies in the “Syriac world”. The volume contents thirteen articles, originally presented at the 13th. symposium of the Society of Syria Studies at the l’Institut protestant de théologie in Paris in 2015. The articles (Table of Contents PDF) aim to give an overview of the debates and relations that the Syriac Christians have maintained over the centuries with other communities, among others Pagans, Jews, Manicheans, Muslims, Zoroastrians, etc. in the areas where they evolved, in order to trace the interreligious relations in the Syriac world. Two contribution from this volume address some aspects of a particular controversy and polemics between Christians in Sasanian Milieu as well as the Syriac polemics against Zoroastrianism in their Sasanian religious, cultural and political contexts:
  • Florence Jullien: “Les controverses entre chrétiens en milieu sassanide: un enjeu identitaire” [Polemics between Christians in Sasanian Milieu: an Identity Issue]
In Sasanian milieu, controversies among Christians have a strong identity dimension which explains the important involvement of Syriac communities in theological debates as a means of positioning strategy. The most significant disputes were organized in public at the court of Seleucia- Ctesiphon, in the sixth and early seventh centuries. These controversies were considered as a royal entertainment; but for the Christians, they involved a very real political issue, especially for the East-Syrians and the Syro-Orthodox, with regard to the consequences for the existence of their Churches. Heresiographical representation, using humour and derision, is part of the polemical discourse so as to deconstruct the image of the opponent. In the Syriac world, controversy was above all an affair of the cultural elite, trained in the ecclesiastical milieu to deal with confrontation—and monasticism played an important role in many respects.
  • Richard Payne: “Les polémiques syro-orientales contre le zoroastrisme et leurs contextes politiques” [East Syriac Polemics Against Zoroastrianism and Their Political Contexts]
The paper provides an account of the evolution of East Syrian polemics against Zoroastrianism from their fitful origins in late fourth- and early fifth-century hagiography to the more complex works of the late Sasanian era. It argues that the chronological correspondence between the beginning of polemical production and the institutionalization of the Church of the East in the Iranian Empire is not accidental. The shift away from Judaism to Zoroastrianism as the primary polemical concern of ecclesiastical leaders took place just as they were becoming dependent on a Zoroastrian court for patronage. With the rise of the Church of the East, East Syrian secular elites and ecclesiastical leaders could participate in the institutions of a Zoroastrian Empire qua Christians, and polemical texts aimed to define relations between Christians and Zoroastrians in the overarching political context of increasing interreligious collaboration. The early East Syrian representation of Zoroastrianism as a peculiarly Iranian form of Greco- Roman polytheism gave way, by circa 500, to more nuanced accounts of Zoroastrian ritual and cosmology—notably in the Martyrdom of Pethion, Adurohrmazd, and Anahid and the History of Mar Qardagh—that outlined political space, practices, and identities that Christians and Zoroastrians could share. At the same time, the catholicos-patriarch Mar Aba attacked Christians for adopting Zoroastrian practices necessary for the political participation of would-be aristocrats and, in so doing, distinguished ascetic ecclesiastical leaders from secular elites through their wholesale rejection of the Good Religion. Polemics emerge from this paper as instruments for the creation of the boundaries required for workable cooperation between Christians and Zoroastrians, and their development provides an index of Christian assimilation and acculturation from the fourth through early seventh centuries.
About the Editor:
Flavia Ruani (PhD) is a a scholar of Syriac Christianity and the hagiography of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. She is curently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Literary Studies at the University of Geneva.
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Events

Memory and Commemoration in Islamic Central Asia

LUCIS 7th Annual Conference: Memory and Commemoration in Islamic Central Asia

Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society

d1180x250The seventh annual conference of LUCIS focuses on Islamic Central Asia, both from a historical and contemporary perspective. Central Asia today is often regarded as a periphery of the Islamic world, but this region with its fluid borders, stretching into present-day Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Iran and the Caucasus, has been for a long period the cradle of empires that ruled over large parts of the globe.

Central Asia in the past has been at the heart of the trade network known as the Silk Road, a premodern highway of global interaction. The idea of a New Silk Road today demonstrates Central Asia’s increasing importance as a centre stage of geopolitical interests. Comprehending the complex history of Central Asia by taking into account its dynastic and regional historiographies and more recent nationalistic narratives is crucial for perceiving the current dynamics of this vast region.

Analysing commemorative practices across Central Asia may provide a prolific framework to outline the complexity of its group identities, in modern times often constructed as nationalistic narratives. In this conference we propose to focus on the notion of memory and commemoration in Central Asia from past and present perspectives, in a broad sense, in order to shed light on the complexities of this fascinating and understudied region.

Themes

Rather than focusing on a single period, medium or language of commemorative practices, the conference will take a comparative and connective perspective. Questions that may be addressed include:

  • Narratives: How does literary and artistic production reflect imperial ideology and commemorative culture? How were dynastic members commemorated and rehabilitated? How were genealogies concocted and manipulated in order to commemorate the ancestral origins? How were important events commemorated?
  • Sites:  How were visions of kingship articulated in commemorative dynastic shrines and landscapes across Central Asia? How did religiously diverse commemorative practices contribute to the development of a distinct royal visual morphology? How were urban centres transformed through the diverse visual lexicon of local Islamic cult activities? How are historical shrines and cults commemorated in the present?
  • Religions:  How was commemorative culture influenced by orthodox Islam and Sufism? What was the impact of these complex theological interactions on the intellectual life and artistic production throughout Central Asia? How are religious commemorative practices used in contemporary nationalistic discourses?

The themes of the conference are broad on purpose, as we wish to welcome speakers from different disciplines and backgrounds.

Please find the full programme of the LUCIS annual conference here.

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Books

Sasanian Objects and the Tabarestan Archive

Gyselen, Rika (ed.). 2016. Words and symbols. Sasanian objects and the Tabarestan archive (Res Orientales 24). Leuven: Peeters Publishers.Table of Contents:

  • Carlo G. Cereti; Zohre Bassiri: “On a Few Sasanian Bullae from the Collections of the National Museum of Iran”
  • Rika Gyselen: “Sasanidische Siegelsteine de P. Horn et G. Steindorf revisité”
  • Ursula Weber: “The Inscription of Abnun and its Dating to the Early Days of Shabuhr I”

Tabarestan Archive (8th cent.)

  • Dieter Weber: “Court Records of Lawsuits in Tabarestan in the Year 86/7 PYE (737 CE): A Philological Examination”
  • Maria Macuch: “The Legal Context of the Tabarestan Court Records (Tab. 1-8, 10)”
  • Philippe Gignoux: “Une archive post-sassanide du Tabarestan (III)”
  • Dieter Weber: “Two Documents from Tabarestan Reconsidered (Tab. 12 and 26)”

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Books

Persian Martyr Acts under King Yazdgird I

herman-2016Herman, Geoffrey (ed.). 2016. Persian Martyr Acts under King Yazdgird I. (Persian martyr acts in Syriac: text and translation 5). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.

This volume presents five vivid tales of Persian Christian martyrs from the fifth century. They provide important historical information on Christian society at this time, revealing its geographical and social divisions. Narseh is an itinerant monk from Bēth Raziqāyē who damages a fire temple that had formerly been a church. Tātāq is a high ranking courtier from Bēth Ḥadyab who abandons his position to become an ascetic. Mār ‘Abdā is a compliant bishop from Ḥuzestān drawn into conflict with the king by his confrontational and defiant priest, Hasho. Set in the Sasanian Empire in the reign of Yazdgird I (399-420 CE), these texts thematize the struggle between the martyrs’ identity as Persian subjects loyal to the king, often in the face of hostility by the Zoroastrian priesthood, and their devotion to their Christian faith.

About the Author:

Geoffrey Herman is a researcher at the Mandel Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on the history of religious life in the Sasanian era.

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Articles

Interpreting Repetitions in Avestan

Jügel, Thomas. 2016. Repetition Analysis Function (ReAF) II: Interpreting Repetitions in Avestan. Indogermanische Forschungen 121(1). 1–38.
Up to this point, most editions of Avestan texts have been concerned with interpreting the text. Although repetitions and abbreviations were known, they were often ignored since they did not offer new insight into the understanding of the meanings of words. The present study takes the opposite approach. Ignoring the meaning of the text (at first), it tries to detect the compositional structure of the Yasna ceremony by concentrating on formal matters such as specific closing sections, frames, etc. In a second step, the content is considered in order to offer interpretations for the compositional structure. In ReAF I (Jügel 2015), information on the technical and theoretical background of the tool “Repetition Analysis Function” (ReAF) was given and textual units were identified. In ReAF II, the results of the ReAF for the Yasna ceremony as it appears in the manuscript J2 will be presented in detail. Furthermore, I will offer an interpretation of how to transfer the structural results to an analysis of the compositional structure of the Yasna. This also allows for the formulation of assumptions on the ceremonial structure.
Thomas Jügel is a Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Mondes iranien et indien (UMR 7528) in Paris.