Author: Shervin Farridnejad

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Books

Greek Views of India and the Parthian Empire

207_111Wiesehöfer, Josef, Horst Brinkhaus & Reinhold Bichler. 2016. Megasthenes und seine Zeit. Akten der Internationalen Tagung „Megasthenes, Apollodoros and Isidoros. Greek Views of India and the Parthian Empire“. Kiel,27. –30.6. 2 012. . Vol. 1. (Classica et Orientalia 13). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
The volume comprises a collection of the articles,  presented initially at the conference “Images of the Orient: Megasthenes, Apollodorus of Artemita and Isidore of Charax”, held from 27.06. until 30.06.2012 at the Institute for Classical Archaeology of the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (Germany). The contributions of this volume deal with Megasthenes, the Greek ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period, as a central object of study. He became an ambassador of Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid dynasty possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India and played an important role on the transition of the Greek notions of India as semi-mythical Wonderland and the geographical remit of great gods and heroes (Semiramis, Hercules, Dionysus, etc.) towards a verifiable plave with native traditions; however without a complete relinquishing the old topical descriptive and explanatory patterns . Megasthenes reports, is among the earliest well-known Western accounts of India.
Table of Contents:
  • Josef Wiesehöfer; Horst Brinkhaus: “Megasthenes und Indien im Fokus althistorischer Forschung”
  • Reinhold Bichler: “Herrschaft und politische Organisation im älteren Indien-Bild der Griechen und in der klassischen Alexander-Historie”
  • Horst Brinkhaus: “Zum aktuellen Stand der Arthaśāstra
    -Forschung: Kann Kauṭilya noch als Kronzeuge für Megasthenes gelten?”
  • Veronica Bucciantini: “Megastene e la ‘Reiseliteratur’:
    resoconti di viaggio tra descrizione, memoria e rappresentazione”
  • Bruno Jacobs: “Megasthenes’ Beschreibung von Palibothra und
    die Anfänge der Steinarchitektur unter der Maurya-Dynastie”
  • Sushma Jansari; Richard Ricot“: Megasthenes and the  ‘Astomoi’:  a case study into ethnography and paradoxography”
  • Grant Parker: “Roman Megasthenes: towards a reception history”
  • Daniel T. Potts: “Cultural, economic and political relations between Mesopotamia,  the Gulf region and India before Alexander”
  • Duane W. Roller: “Megasthenes: His Life and Work”
  • Robert Rollinger: “Megasthenes, mental maps and Seleucid royal ideology: the western fringes of the world or how Ancient Near Eastern empires conceptualized world dominion”
  • Kai Ruffing: “Die Ausbildung des literarischen Indienbildes bis Megasthenes”
  • Oskar von Hinüber: “Aśoka und die Griechen”
  • Josef Wiesehöfer: “Seleucids and Mauryas”
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Books

Samarkand: The Center of the World

Compareti 2016Compareti, Matteo. 2016. Samarkand: The center of the world. Proposals for the identification of the Afrasyab paintings (Sasanika Series 5). Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers.

In antiquity Samarkand was the capital of the Persian province of Sogdiana. Its language, culture, and “Zoroastrian” religion closely approximated those of the Persians. Following its conquest by Alexander, its strategic position and fertile soil made Sogdiana a coveted prize for Late Antique invaders of Central Asia. Around 660 CE — at the dawn of Arab invasion — local king Varkhuman promoted the execution of a unique painted program in one of his private rooms. Each wall was dedicated to a specific population: the north wall, the Chinese; the west, the Sogdians themselves; the east, the Indians and possibly the Turks. The south wall is probably the continuation of the scene on the west wall. In Chinese written sources, some support for this concept of the “division of the world” can be found. Accidentally discovered during Soviet times, the room was named “Hall of the Ambassadors” due to the representations of different peoples. However, many aspects of its painted program remain obscure. This study offers new ideas for better identifications of the rituals celebrated by the people on the different walls during precise moments of the year.

Matteo Compareti (PhD 2005) is Guitty Azarpay Distinguished Visitor in the History of the Arts of Iran and Central Asia at the University of California, Berkeley. He studied at the University of Venice “Ca’ Foscari” in the faculty of oriental studies in 1999 and took hid PhD from the University of Naples “L‘Orientale,” working on the Silk Road in 2005. His interest is on the iconography of Mazdean divinities in Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia, especially Sasanian and Sogdian art.

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Books

The Christian Sogdian Gospel Lectionary

Barbati 2016Barbati, Chiara. 2016. The Christian Sogdian Gospel Lectionary E5 in Context (Veröffentlichungen Zur Iranistik 81). Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

On the basis of a thorough philological-linguistic study, the book aims primarily at reintegrating the complex whole of the various phenomena that have contributed to creating what in modern scholarship runs under the name of Christian Sogdian Gospel Lectionary E5, a set of manuscript fragments preserved in the Turfan Collection in Berlin. The study applies a precise methodology that puts various disciplinary approaches on the same level in order to relate and interconnect textual, material and historical-cultural aspects. Specific codicological characteristics are considered in correlation with the broader manuscript tradition to which the fragments belong. The discussion of the Gospel lectionary leads to reflections on the transmission, reception and development of a specific body of religious knowledge, namely that of the Church of the East. The exploration of linguistic phenomena takes also into consideration the processes at work in the missionary history of the Church of the East in Central Asia between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the Oasis of Turfan in present-day Xinjiang, China. The book therefore addresses Iranologists as well as students of Eastern Christianity and of manuscript cultures.

Chiara Barbati (PhD 2009) is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Iranian studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).  She specializes in Ancient and Middle Iranian languages. Her main fields of research are Sogdian language and literature with particular regard to the Christian Sogdian texts in relation to its Syriac sources, history of eastern Christianity through primary sources (Syriac) as well as secondary sources (Sogdian, Middle Persian, New Persian), paleography and codicology of pre-Islamic Iranian manuscripts and Iranian dialectology from an historical point of view.

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Books

Achaemenids and Greeks

omslagDahlén, Ashk (ed.). 2016. Antikens Persien. Umeå: H:ström Text & Kultur.

The  Achaemenian Empire was the first of the Persian Empires to become an important political and economic power in the ancient world for more than two hundred years. It transformed the entire area from the Greek islands in the west to Central Asia in the east to a continuous trading with efficient infrastructure and monetary economics. However Greco-Persian Wars, also often called the Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. , and as long overshadowed the western image of the Ancient Persia.

This volume is the first introduction to the Achaemenid Empire in Swedish. It is dedicated to Swedish archeologist, professor Carl Nylander and is a tribute to his pioneering work in the field of early Achaemenid archeology.

“Antikens Persien” covers a range of interrelated topics such as political history, multiculturalism, architecture, language, and literature. Its aim is provide a general introduction to ancient Persia for Swedish readers and also to highlight the diverse and flourishing interactions between Persians and Greeks in various fields.

Table of Contents:

  • Förord
  • Lennart Lind: “Persien och Grekland”
  • Johan Mårtelius: “Arkitektur och konst”
  • Bo Utas: “Språk och litteratur”
  • Ashk Dahlén: “Kosmopolitism och mångkultur”
  • Vidare läsning
  • Appendix: Bilder

About the Editor:

Ashk Dahlén (PhD 2002) is Associate Professor in Iranian Languages at Uppsala University and founding president of the Scandinavian Society for Iranian Studies. Among his research interests are classical Persian literature, Iranian cultural history, mythology, religions, and historical continuities between ancient and medieval Iran.

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Books

Avestica

Humbach, Helmut & Klaus Faiss. 2016. Avestica. (Münchener Studien Zur Sprachwissenschaft. Beiheft NF 25). Dettelbach: Verlag J.H. Röll.

This volume presents a collection of academic papers (mostly have been presented in the context of academic conferences) on different aspects of the Avestan and Zoroastrian studies, based on a very detailed philological and linguistic examination of various texts and concepts and  in all its phonological, morphological, syntactical, semantic, and etymological aspects.

 Table of Contents
  • Preface 7
  • Publications Helmut Humbach
  • Herz – Feuer – Seele. Bekehrung im vorgeschichtlichen Iran
  • The Avestan world with particular reference to the Mihr Yašt (Yt. 10,14-15)
  • The first chapter of the Avestan Vidēvdād
  • ‘Wind’ an Old Iranian Deity
  • Haoma Dūraoša and Grass in Zarathushtra’s Gāthās
  • Zarathushtra, Gāthic Poetry, and the Two Spirits
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Books

Levantine Epigraphy from the Achaemenid Period

Papyrus with an Aramaic translation of the Behistun inscription's text
Papyrus with an Aramaic translation of the Behistun inscription’s text

Lemaire, André. 2015. Levantine epigraphy and history in the Achaemenid period (539-332 BCE). First edition. (Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology 2013). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Inscriptions discovered since 1980 and fresh epigraph research have revealed much about the Archaeminid period in the Levant (533-332 BCE). André Lemaire concentrates on three areas where new data has shed light on the societies living in the largest empire that the world had known to that date.

Phoenicia played a vital political and economic role in the empire because Persian kings had to rely on the Phoenician navy in their wars against Greece and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean. Newly discovered inscriptions from Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, as well as the results of research into coins, have illuminated the chronology, history and extent of the Phoenician kingdoms, as well as their influence in Palestine.

New inscriptions have added to our knowledge of the Judean Diaspora in Babylonia, Egypt and Cyprus. The main indirect information about the Exiles previously available to us was in the book of Ezekiel. Now, epigraphic data has revealed not only many names of Exiles but how and where they lived and more about their relationship with Jerusalem.

The third region described is the Persian provinces of Samaria, Judaea and Idumaea, especially during the 4th century BCE. The publication of various, mainly Aramaic, contemporary inscriptions on papyri, ostraca, seals, seal-impressions and coins, sheds new light on the daily life and religion of these provinces. The insciptions help us to understand something of the chronology, society and culture of these three different provinces as well as several Biblical texts in their historical and economic contexts.

With over 90 inscriptions illustrated and fully transcribed, this book provides new insight into a period that has proved difficult to study.

Table of Contents:

  • Levantine epigraphy and Phoenicia: the kingdoms of Aradus, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre during the Achaemenid period
  • West Semitic epigraphy and the Judean Diaspora during the Achaemenid period: Babylonia, Egypt, Cyprus
  • Levantine epigraphy and Samaria, Judaea and Idumaea during the Achaemenid period

About the Author:

André Lemaire (Sorbonne, Paris) has worked, first as a researcher in the French National Center for Scientific Research and later as “directeur d’études ” in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne, Paris), in the field of West Semitic epigraphy, Levantine history and Hebrew Bible in the first millennium BCE, for more than forty years. He has published many new Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician inscriptions as well as new historical interpretations. He is especially interested in the connection between West Semitic epigraphy and the Biblical tradition and was a member of the Editorial board of Vetus Testamentum for 36 years.

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Events

Iberia between Rome and Iran

Iberia between Rome and Iran from Pompey to Heraclius

Georgian Bolnisi inscriptions, 494 AD.
Georgian Bolnisi inscriptions, 494 AD.

07.- 09. July 2016, University of Jena

An international colloquium on the history of Georgia in Late Antiquity (from the 1st century BC to the 7th century AD) organized by the Chair of Ancient History at the University of Jena.

Central to the research are the close contacts of the Iberians to the Roman Empire on one side, and to the realms of the Parthians and Sasanians on the other side. Iberia formed an interface between the great powers and was strongly influenced by both sides. Some of these influences, such as the establishment of Christianity, territorial ambitions of the great neighbors or linguistic developments,  will be discussed at the conference, attended by German and internatioal scholars of the Ancient Studies and the history of Caucasian Iberia.

Programm

  • Tassilo Schmitt: “Argo und Argumente. Historische Perspektiven auf den und aus dem Kaukasus”

Sektion I – Iberien im Spannungsfeld der Großmächte

  • Frank Schleicher: “Die Chronologie der kartvelischen Könige und das Ende des iberischen Königtums”
  • Balbina Bäbler: “Pompeius im Kaukasus. Geographie und Topographie eines Feldzugs”
  • Henning Börm: “Die Grenzen des Großkönigs? Grundzüge der arsakidisch-sasanidischen Politik gegenüber Rom”
  • Giusto Traina: “Dynastic connections in Armenia and Iberia (I-III CE)”

Sektion II – Zur Christianisierung Iberiens

  • Konstantin Klein: “Ein Königssohn, zwei Rabbinen und (fast) vierzig Nonnen – die Konversion Iberiens in der lateinischen, griechischen und armenischen Überlieferung”
  • Josef Rist: “Nino versus Gregor. Die Christianisierung Iberiens und seine Stellung zur Reichskirche im Vergleich mit Armenien”
  • Stephen H. Rapp Jr.: “The Conversion of Eastern Georgia: Cross-Cultural and Pan-Regional Perspectives”

Sektion III – Zur Religiosität der Iberer (Moderator: Udo Hartmann, Jena)

  • Eka Tchkoidze: “Iberia between Christianity and Zoroastrianism (evidence from Georgian literary tradition)”
  • Cornelia B. Horn: “Die Georgier und das Heilige Land: Hagiographische, apokryphe und historische Elemente einer Beziehung”
  • Jan-Markus Kötter: “Bekenntnis als Mittel der Diplomatie – Die Stellung der iberischen Kirche zum Reich”

Sektion IV – Zu den Quellen

  • Alexander Schilling: “Die ‚Diegesis ophelimos‘ (BHG 1060) in georgischer Überlieferung: historische und historiographische Kontexte”
  • Bernadette Martin-Hisard: “L’Ibérie des VIe-VIIe siècles d’après des traditions religieuses géorgiennes des IXe-XIIe siècles”
  • Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan: “Das Bild der Iberer in der armenischen Literatur (5.-7. Jh.)”
  • Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis: “Griechisch, Aramäisch oder was? Die historischen Voraussetzungen für die Genese der georgischen Literatursprache”

Sektion V – Archäologisches

  • Nodar Bakhtadze: “The Oldest Basilicas Revealed in Nekresi Former City and Assumptions on Architectural Design of the First Georgian Christian Churches”
  • Annegret Plontke-Lüning: “Von Dmanisi nach Bolnisi. Ein alter Pilgerweg in Niederkartli”
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Events

Friedrich Carl Andreas: A Man for All Seasons

1886. Lou Salomé und Friedrich Carl Andreas (© Gottinger Tageblatt Verlag)
1886. Lou Salomé und Friedrich Carl Andreas (© Gottinger Tageblatt Verlag)

Friedrich Carl Andreas:
ein Sohn der vier Himmelsrichtungen

A talk by Martin Tamcke

Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 19.00
Lepsiushaus Potsdam

A joint event organized by the Lepsiushauses Potsdam and the Theodor-Fontane-Archivs of the University Potsdam.

The Orientalist Friedrich Carl Andreas (1846-1930) is mostly known as husband of Lou Andreas-Salomé, a well-known German writer and psychoanalyst. He was born as a descendant of Armenian, Malay and German ancestors in Indonesia and grew up in Hamburg and Geneva.  He studied Iranian and Oriental Studies (PhD, 1868 Erlangen) and participated as a volunteer in the Franco-German War. Between 1875 and 1881, he conducted field work in India with the Parsees and with a Prussian Research Expedition in southern Iran, where he remained for several years. His research in Europe focused on the languages and music of Ossetia and the Indo-Afghan borderlands. From 1903 to his death he was professor of western Asiatic and Iranian philology at the University of Göttingen. As a master of many living languages, Andreas specialized in the history of languages and civilizations, but his interests extended to philosophy and natural history. He excelled in reading difficult Oriental scripts, ancient or modern, and in perceiving the finest nuances of spoken languages, especially their accents. Together with his wife, a friend of Nietzsche and Freud, and Rilke, he travelled to Russia and visited Tolstoy. He was very active by the practical training of missionaries for Kurdistan and Central Asia and to the scientific analysis of texts and the religious movement of the Persian Bābīs. Working with the Manichean fragments from Turfan, he quickly isolated those texts written in Parthian (which he called the “northern dialect”) and identified another “Pahlavi dialect” as the Sogdian language. 

Read more about him and his works here.

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Books

Cultural Transfer along the Silk Road

Espagne, Michel, Svetlana Gorshenina, Frantz Grenet, Sahin Mustafayev & Claude Rapin (eds.). 2016. Asie centrale: transferts culturels le long de la route de la soie. Paris: Vendémiaire.
This collection of essays is the result of the International Symposium “Cultural Transfers in Central Asia: before, during and after the Silk Road” (Conference Program), held in Samarkand on 12–14 September 2013. Expanding the original Eurocentric orientation in a broad chronological and interdisciplinary perspective and involving new materials, the participants have attempted to test the methodological approach of the “cultural transfers” and the effectiveness of their basic concepts (ways of travel, guides, translators, innovation, assimilation of “new” assignments, semantic shifts, etc.) in the Central Asian context. In these studies Central Asia includes mainly the post-Soviet space and its Central Asian neighbors like Siberia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Iran and Azerbaijan. The purpose of the collection is to determine the significance of the theory of the “cultural transfers” and, if possible, the range of its applications.
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Articles

Sexual Desire in Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian Ethics

Reżā ʿAbbāsī (1570-1635). Deatil of Two Lovers (A.H. 1039 A.H./1630 A.D.)
Reżā ʿAbbāsī (1570-1635). Deatil of Two Lovers (A.H. 1039 A.H./1630 A.D.)

Kiel, Yishai. 2016. Dynamics of Sexual Desire: Babylonian Rabbinic Culture at the Crossroads of Christian and Zoroastrian Ethics. Journal for the Study of Judaism 47. 1–47.

The article examines the inherently dialectical view of sexuality reflected in Babylonian rabbinic culture, which differentiates the sexual act, consisting of the indivisible elements of procreation and sexual gratification, from notions of sexual desire. On the one hand, the Babylonian Talmud accentuates the relative role of both male and female sexual gratification in the sexual act, but, on the other hand, it expresses a pessimistic view of the sexual urge, which is reified as part and parcel of the demonic realm. This dialectical perception is resolved in Babylonian rabbinic culture through a paradoxical mechanism that seeks to extinguish sexual desire via marital sex. The article situates different aspects of this distinctive construction of sexual desire in the context of contemporaneous Christian and Zoroastrian views. First, the Babylonian rabbinic mechanism is contextualized with the Pauline view of marital sex as a therapy for those “aflame with passion” (1 Cor 7:9) and its reception in patristic literature. Second, the Babylonian rabbinic dialectic of sex and desire is viewed in the light of a similar bifurcated perception evident in the Pahlavi tradition: while Zoroastrianism advocated full-fledged marital relationships from its very inception, an important strand in the Pahlavi tradition expresses an ambiguous view of sexual desire, which is linked in various ways to the demonic sphere.
The article is here online available .