This paper presents the publication of two new owners’ graffiti discovered in Phanagoria in 2015. The first one, Ἀράτριος ἡ κύλιξ (the kylix of Aratris), dates back to the end of the first quarter of the 5th century BC. The name Aratris demonstrates obvious parallels to the ethnic name Aratrii mentioned in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Peripl. M. Rubr.). The second graffito is Ἀρπάτρις (Arpatris). It dates back to the end of the 6th-first third of the 5th century BC. It is possible to suggest that it is a composite name of Scythian origin and it should be translated as ‘the Keeper of Fire’.
Poinsot, Delphine Margaux Spruyt (eds). 2022. Equidés, le cheval, l’âne et la mule dans les empire de l’Orient ancien. Paris: Routes de l’Orient Actes.
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Several of the contributions interest scholars and students of Iranian studies:
Delphine Poinsot: Le cheval de la victoire: Postures équestres et royauté dans les reliefs de Šāpūr Ier
Hervé Monchot & Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento: Des ânes, du cuivre et des moines Une étude préliminairesur l’importance des équidés dans l’économie d’un complexeminier aux époques kouchanosassanide (Mes Aynak, Afghanistan)
Jérémy Clément:L’élevage des chevaux de guerre dans le royaume séleucide Héritages achéménides et innovations hellénistiques.
Thomas Salmon: Combattre à cheval pendant les guerres byzantino-perses Les évolutions des cavaleries byzantine et sassanide pendant les guerres des VIe et VIIe siècles
Marina Viallon: Un rare mors de cheval sassanide et son caveçon conservés au Metropolitan museum of Art, New York
Samra Azarnouche: Miracles, oracles et augures Essai sur la symbolique du cheval dans l’Iran ancien et médiéval
Rooted within the Central Asian iconography of the sacred from the 3rd millennium BCE until the arrival of Islam, also related to the mixed pantheons that combine Central Asian, Iranian, Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese divinities, the image of the goddess riding a lion in the Hasanlu bowl offers the chance to investigate its origin. Posture, attire, lion, divine emblems mark her belonging to a cultural horizon that seems to allude to the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe. The Iranian, Assyrian, Syro-Hurrite, Elamite, Hurro-Urartian, Transcaucasian influences make Hasanlu a privileged observatory to analyze the regulatory apparatus affecting gender hierarchies. Eluding the boundaries imposed by the binary vision, the nomadic lifestyle seems to free the body in favor of fluid strategies necessary to deal with harsh natural conditions. Indeed, some iconographic details of the Hasanlu bowl might reveal a social dimension related to an unconventional gender performativity caused by the mobilization of cultural resources that identified nomadism. Furthermore, the presence of the riding goddess at Hasanlu suggests scrutinizing the cyclical infiltration of nomadic cultures within Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Exploring gender, questioning its epistemic boundaries, enquiring how gender stereotypes have crystallized over time, this paper proposes an inception towards a different history whose traces may have been lost in the unwitting binarism of expertise.
According to Ammianus Marcellinus, elephants substituted, to some extent, siege towers; he describes wooden towers on the backs of the animals, armed with Persian warriors who attacked the defenders of a fortress. Certainly, elephants may have served as an element of ancient psychological warfare. But, at the same time, it appears that the Sasanians employed elephants in their battle fighting, bearing warriors who attacked their enemies with various missiles. In open-field battles, elephants, as a rule, were introduced into the battle in an offensive situation. Ammianus Marcellinus does not offer any evidence as to elephants functioning as beasts of burden or draught animals; on the contrary, he always stresses the fact that they were military animals who posed a real danger to the Romans in battle.
Wenn Vergil Rom als ein “Reich ohne Grenzen” (Aen. 1, 279) bezeichnet, mag dies im übertragenen Sinn zutreffen, tatsächlich verfügte das Imperium jedoch über lange und tief gestaffelte Festlandgrenzen auf allen drei Kontinenten. Dabei kam der Orientgrenze besondere Bedeutung zu, da den Römern hier mit dem Reich der Parther eine ebenbürtige Gesellschaft entgegentrat. Allerdings stießen die beiden Großreiche nur selten unmittelbar aufeinander, da sich zwischen ihnen ein Saum von Kleinstaaten erstreckte. In diesem Grenzraum trafen nicht nur zwei große Reiche mit ihren jeweiligen Sprachen und Organisationsstrukturen, sondern auch Ackerbau und nomadische Weidewirtschaft, unterschiedliche religiöse Vorstellungen und verschiedene Rechtsauffassungen aufeinander.Der Band versammelt Beiträge der Jenaer Tagung “Imperia sine fine?”, die eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Aspekte des Grenzraums zwischen Rom und Parthien als Konflikt- und Kontaktzone vom 1. bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr. darstellen.
The Persepolis textual material contains many Aramaic texts, the majority of which belong to the so-called Persepolis Fortification Archive (509 to 493 BCE), an administrative archive consisting of mostly Elamite texts. In this article, the authors examine some specific Aramaic spellings that occur in the Aramaic texts from Persepolis, sic: the Aramaic Persepolis Fortification texts (PFAT) and the Aramaic epigraphs accompanying the Elamite Fortification texts (PFAE). Our interest in these spellings is that they do not respect the phonology, morphology and lexicon of Aramaic. It is argued that these errors have been triggered by the Elamite phonology, morphological and lexical system and that they have been made by scribes whose mother tongue was not Aramaic, but Elamite or Old Iranian.
Manning, Sean. 2022. The armies of the Teispids and Achaemenids: The armies of an ancient world empire. Journal of Ancient Civilizations 37(2). 147-192.
An Attic red-figure kylix with a battle of Greeks and barbarians, c. 490–480 BC (possibly the same as Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, number 1980.11.21)
Although ancient warfare and the Teispid-Achaemenid empire are common topics for research, no concise and up-to-date overview of Teispid and Achaemenid armies and warfare exists. The most recent syntheses were published in the period 1986–1992 when the current understanding of the empire was only beginning to form. This article combines indigenous and Greco-Roman texts, art, and artifacts to provide a short introduction to the armies and navies of the so-called Persian Empire. It focuses on the reigns of Darius I and Xerxes (522–465 BC) from which a variety of texts and artwork survive from Persis, Babylonia, and Greece. Ten main sections cover the history of research, the seemingly contradictory evidence for a uniform army and a patchwork army under Darius I and Xerxes, how the very rapid conquests of the Teispids lead to an army very different than the Roman or imperial British armies, recruitment, organization and equipment, combat mechanics, army organization, siege warfare, naval and riverine warfare, and numbers and effectiveness. Whereas the author’s recent monograph focused on methodological problems and the origin of different theories, this article offers usable answers to many difficult questions.
Silver bowl from Kustanai, now in Hermitage S–62; 15.5 × 5.2 cm, 4th-5th c., with scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. After Marshak 2000: no. 31, and Ivanov, Lukonin, and Smesova 1984, fig. 39. Photo courtesy State Hermitage Museum.
Elites of the Hunnish states, including Tokharistan (ancient Bactria) and Northwest India from the 4th century, not only appreciated Greco-Roman art, inherited or imported, but also had a good knowledge of the Hellenic mythological cycles. Among the small silver bowls called ‘Bactrian’, attributed by Boris Marshak to the period after the Sasanian withdrawal from Central Asia, the one discovered at Kustanai (Hermitage, S-62) is decorated with scenes inspired mainly by Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. While following the text sometimes literally (e.g. by portraying Oedipus as a child of Fortune), and using a Hellenistic iconographic repertoire which had become ‘Indianized’ during the Kushan period, the artist who executed the model transposed the Sophoclean plot in five scenes, adapting it to his customers’ interests: the son’s marriage to his mother, highlighted on this vase like nowhere else in ancient art, recommends the couple as a Zoroastrian ethical model. The tragic fault now lies with the servant, who did not expose the newborn Oedipus and did not tell the truth on the parricide: the confrontation between the lying servant and the sincere, generous Jocasta, gives the key to a cathartic reading of this vase.
Nourzaei, Maryam, Carina Jahani & Agnes Korn (eds.). 2022. Oral narration in Iranian cultures (Beiträge zur Iranistik, 48). Wiesbaden: Reichert.
This volume presents papers demonstrating the current state of research on oral traditions among different groups in the Iranian-speaking cultural sphere. The articles offer from a variety of perspectives, encouraging the exchange of ideas between different academic disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature, religious studies and folklore studies concerning methods and models applied to studies of oral traditions in Iranian languages and cultures.
Babilonia, giugno 323 a.C. La morte di Alessandro Magno getta lo scompiglio tra i Macedoni: chi dovrà succedere al trono di uno dei piú vasti imperi della storia se i due eredi legittimi sono un figlio che deve ancora nascere e un fratellastro affetto da un ritardo mentale? Si diffonde addirittura la voce che in punto di morte il sovrano abbia detto che lascerà il suo regno al migliore dei suoi generali. La competizione per l’eredità di Alessandro innesca una lotta di potere senza esclusione di colpi aprendo di fatto l’età dei Diadochi, i Successori di Alessandro che dopo decenni di conflitti daranno vita ai regni ellenistici. L’autore esplora le dinamiche in gioco in questo periodo mostrando come lo scenario geopolitico emerso dalle guerre sia stato plasmato dall’interazione dei fattori di forza e debolezza. Quello dei Diadochi è infatti un mondo precario in cui il potere va continuamente confermato, gli equilibri delle forze e i ruoli sociali si ribaltano in modo improvviso trasformando i forti in deboli e viceversa. Tra signori della guerra, avventurieri e regine combattive, l’età dei Diadochi cambierà per sempre il corso della storia nel Mediterraneo.
Table of contents:
Introduzione
I. Al migliore
1. Il migliore è il piú forte
2. La declinazione della forza
II. I deboli
1. Il problema della successione
2. Filippo Arrideo
3. Alessandro IV
4. Eracle
5. Le donne di Alessandro dopo Alessandro
5.1. Le principesse iraniche: Barsine, Parisatide, Rossane e Statira
5.2. Principesse e regine macedoni: Cinnane, Cleopatra, Euridice, Olimpiade e Tessalonice
6. Eumene di Cardia, un condottiero forte in una posizione debole
