Although there was oral literature among speakers of ancient Iranic languages, the author argues that there is no valid reason to assume that Middle Persian speakers, alone among sedentary peoples of their time, never or seldom wrote literary works in their language. Not only are there many Middle Persian literary works surviving in translation, and sufficient testimonies to the existence of Middle Persian literary works now lost and to Sasanian Middle Persian literacy, there are also strong explanations for their general nonsurvival that eliminate the assumption of a theory of predominant literary orality and disinclination to write literature, an argumentum ex silentio. We may reasonably assume that it is wrong to propose that what happens to survive in the original language on stone and metal surfaces and in desert environments represents the true range of Sasanian Middle Persian—the odds are far against it. Especially when propped up by a concept of “ancient Iranians” and without any definition of literature or the literary, it has no sound basis and is contradicted by a variety of extant sources.
Die ersten Zivilisationen der Weltgeschichte, Ägypten und Mesopotamien, werden oft getrennt untersucht. Diese Studie verfolgt einen anderen Ansatz und konzentriert sich auf die Beziehungen zwischen diesen beiden Flusskulturen. Sie befasst sich mit der afrikanisch-babylonischen Interaktion im Zeitraum 626–331 v. Chr., als Babylonien (der heutige Südirak) zunächst das Zentrum eines Staates war, der den alten Nahen Osten dominierte, und dann eine wichtige Provinz im achämenidischen Reich. Während dieser 300 Jahre führten Auseinandersetzungen zwischen dem saitischen Ägypten (664–525) und dem chaldäischen Babylonien (626–539) sowie die persische Eroberung Ägyptens zu einem Macht- und Bevölkerungstransfer „von Memphis nach Babylon“. Das übergeordnete Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Erörterung der Beziehungen zwischen Afrika und Mesopotamien. Die genaueren Ziele dieser Studie bestehen darin, Afrikaner (Ägypter, Kuschiten, Libyer) in babylonischen Texten aus der chaldäischen (626–539) und achämenidischen (539–331) Zeit zu identifizieren und die Anwesenheit von Afrikanern im chaldäischen und achämenidischen Babylonien zu erörtern unter dem Gesichtspunkt individuell-biografischer und kollektiv-demografischer Ebenen und Perspektiven. Die folgenden Forschungsfragen werden gestellt: Wer waren diese Afrikaner (in Bezug auf ethnische Zugehörigkeit, Geschlecht/Gender, Alter und Klasse)? Was haben diese Leute (beruflich) gemacht? Wann lebten sie (im Hinblick auf die Regierungszeit oder den Zeitraum)? Wo lebten sie (in Bezug auf Dorf, Stadt und Region)? Wie wurden sie in das babylonische Reich eingegliedert (zwangsweise/freiwillig, erste/zweite Generation usw.)? – Die Anwesenheit der afrikanischen Beamten im Dienste des chaldäischen und achämenidischen Babyloniens weist auf einen komplexen Prozess hin, in dem sowohl Anpassung als auch Kooptation eine Rolle spielten. Der Wunsch oder das Bedürfnis des Einzelnen, sich anzupassen, um zu überleben, co-existierte zusammen mit einem externen Druck von staatlicher Seite, der darauf abzielte, die afrikanischen Deportierten zu loyalen und profitablen Untertanen zu machen. Der Transfer von Memphis nach Babylon musste eine kontinuierliche Neubewertung dessen mit sich gebracht haben, was es bedeutete, ein Teil der ägyptischen Zivilisation an den Flüssen Babylons zu sein.
The present volume addresses dynamic and collective authorship by examining how authors and scribes in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world produced, copied, and interpreted texts during the manuscript age within specific cultural contexts, out of political necessity and as a result of professional choices. The processes of scribal adaptation faced by scholars studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which are still unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components. Under the label “ideological variations”, this volume intends to discuss any deliberate changes in content, rather than form, made by authors, copyists, and readers intervening at various stages in the process of textual production and transmission.
In this article the possible Iranian etymology of three hitherto unexplained Old Armenian words is discussed: Arm. aptak ‘slap, blow’ < Ir. *apitāka-, to be compared with Man.Parth. and MP abdāg ‘assailant’; Arm. žapawēn ‘hem, border’ compound of Parth. *žī(h), equivalent of NP zeh ‘string, hem, decoration’ + Arm. apawēn ‘cover, shelter, refuge’; Arm. xawsim ‘to speak’ from a metathetic form of MIr. *wā̆xs-, inchoative formation from the root *vac- ‘to speak’. Finally, Szemerényi’s convincing explanation of Arm. awgnem ‘to help’ and zawravign ‘aid, helper, defender’ as related to an OIr. noun *abigna- ‘helper’ attested in several anthroponyms (e.g. OP Bagābigna-) is reaffirmed and substantiated since it remained mostly unnoticed in the subsequent literature.
Nima Asefi: Open Access Frāy in Seven Documents from the Pahlavi Archive of Hastijan
Majid Daneshgar: Anthologies of Persian Poetry Inscribed in Indonesia: A Handlist of Rare Manuscripts
Mustafa Dehqan: Restricted Access From Historian to Poet: A Checklist of the Persian Poems of Idrīs Bidlīsī (Hašt Bihišt VI, Nuruosmaniye 3209)
Marco Ferrario: Before Skunḫa. A (Trans)Local Perspective on the Rise of the Teispid-Achaemenid Frontiers in Baktria, Sogdiana, and Beyond
Saloumeh Gholami: The Zoroastrian Manuscripts of the Rostam Jāmāsb’s Family and a New Dating of Videvdād 4100
Book Review:
David Gilinsky: ‘Shirat Moshe: A Complete Hebrew translation of Shahin’s Musa Nameh – the greatest poet of Iranian Jewry’ [Hebrew] , written by Baruch Pickel
This unique book is the first publication on the art of teaching Persian literature in English, consisting of 18 chapters by prominent early-career, mid-career and established scholars, who generously share their experiences and methodologies in teaching both classical and modern Persian literature across various academic traditions in the world. The volume is divided into three parts: the background to teaching Persian literature: pedagogy, translation and canon, and thematic and topical approaches to the Persian literature class. It includes such topics as the history of teaching Persian literature, the traditional teaching of Persian literature, the political and ideological intentions revealed in the formation of the Persian literature curriculum, the necessity to include marginalized modern Persian literature, such as women’s or diaspora literature, and more applied approaches to curriculum development and teaching.
How do we reconstruct ancient societies’ cultural and visual identities? Prudence Oliver Harper has dedicated her scholarly and curatorial career to piecing together the material culture of communities across ancient Western Asia, Iran, and Central Asia. A number of her colleagues – art historians, archaeologists, philologists, and conservators – have contributed essays to this volume to reflect Harper’s range of contributions throughout her six-decade career. Many of the essays focus on ancient metalwork, Harper’s major expertise, while others on glyptics, ivory, or glass, three of her other interests. The essays aim to make sense of this region’s diverse cultural identities, many of which are the results of cross-cultural exchange. Some authors have employed iconographical or socio-historical approaches; others have complementarily opened new facets of cultural identities through technical and scientific analyses, collection history, and provenance research.
The volume 26 of the journal ISIMU is now out and it is dedicated to aspects of ancient Iranian architecture and culture: Landscapes, Scriptures, Symbols and Architectures of Ancient Iran.
Fernando Escribano Martín, Carmen del Cerro Linares, Carlos Fernández Rodríguez y Francisco L. Borrego Gallardo: Presentación
Silvia Balatti: I materiali scrittori dell’Iran achemenide
Pierfrancesco Callieri: Babilonesi a Persepoli. Nuovi studi sull’architettura dell’Antica Persia
Fernando Escribano Martín: El jardín persa, intento de explicación y búsqueda de orígenes y trascendencias
Carlos Fernández Rodríguez: La gestión del agua y la habitabilidad del sur de Irán durante la Edad del Hierro
Zahara Gharehkhani: Criaturas híbridas de la Persia preislámica. Reflexiones y simbolismo
Sébastien Gondet: Observations on the environmental setting of the agricultural development and occupational history of Achaemenid Persepolis
Alireza Khounani: The Vineyards of Parthian Arsacid Nisa (151–15 BCE): Rent Farming and Cash Crop Agriculture from the Perspective of the Ostraca
Giulio Maresca: An overview of the pottery from Sistan in the Late Iron Age/Achaemenid period
Negin Miri and Cyrus Nasrollahzadeh: Another bulla of Weh-Šāpur, ĒrānSpāhbed of Kust-i-Nēmrōz from the Treasury of Mostazafan Foundation’s Cultural Institution of Museums in Tehran
Davide Salaris and Roberto Dan: Exploring the archaeology and significance of Masjed-e Soleyman: a reassessment of the Elymaean Temple and its socio-cultural context in southwestern Iran
