Author: Yazdan Safaee

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The Temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr

Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2018. The Temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr (Southern Iran): Historical Documents and Archeological Evidence. In
Juraj Belaj et al. (ed.), Sacralization of Landscape and Sacred Places: Proceedings of the 3rd International Scientific Conference of Mediaeval Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, 2nd and 3rd June 2016 [Zbornik Instituta za Arheologiju 10], 179-194 , Zagreb: Institute of Archaeology.

This essay deals with the location of the Achaemenid and Sasanian temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr, the capital of Persis/Fārs province in southern Iran. Relevant texts from Achaemenid and Sasanian epigraphic sources, classical literature, and Islamic historical and geographical writings are interpreted, followed by a survey of the archaeological sites at Estakhr and its environs, which have been suggested by other scholars to be in connection with the temples of Anāhīd. In this survey, I will criticise a new speculative hypothesis on the location of the temples and argue where in fact these temples were located.

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Shaping the Geography of Empire

    Clarke,  Katherine . 2018. Shaping the Geography of Empire: Man and Nature in Herodotus’ Histories. Oxford University Press.

    This is a book about the multiple worlds that Herodotus creates in his narrative. The constructed landscape in Herodotus’ work incorporates his literary representation of the natural world from the broadest scope of continents right down to the location of specific episodes. His ‘charging’ of those settings through mythological associations and spatial parallels adds further depth and resonance. The physical world of the Histories is in turn altered by characters in the narrative whose interactions with the natural world form part of Herodotus’ inquiry, and add another dimension to the meaning given to space, combining notions of landscape as physical reality and as constructed reality. Geographical space is not a neutral backdrop, nor simply to be seen as Herodotus’ ‘creation’, but it is brought to life as a player in the narrative, the interaction with which reinforces the positive or negative characterizations of the protagonists. Analysis of focalization is embedded in this study of Herodotean geography in two ways—firstly, in the configurations of space contributed by different viewpoints on the world; and secondly, in the opinions about human interaction with geographical space which emerge from different narrative voices. The multivocal nature of the narrative complicates whether we can identify a single ‘Herodotean’ world, still less one containing consistent moral judgements. Furthermore, the mutability of fortune renders impossible a static Herodotean world, as successive imperial powers emerge. The exercise of political power, manifested metaphorically and literally through control over the natural world, generates a constantly evolving map of imperial geography.

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    Iconographic Exegesis of Anthropomorphic Zoroastrian Deities

    Farridnejad, Shervin. 2018. Die Sprache der Bilder: Eine Studie zur ikonographischen Exegese der anthropomorphen Götterbilder im Zoroastrismus (Iranica 27). Harrassowitz-verlag.

    Einer in der Forschung weit verbreiteten Meinung zufolge existierte im Alten Iran keine zoroastrische Kunst. In Sprache der Bilder nun untersucht Shervin Farridnejad Darstellungen altiranischer anthropomorpher Gottheiten und deren Erscheinung im zoroastrischen Pantheon mit der methodischen Herangehensweise einer exegetischen Ikonographie.
    Farridnejad zeichnet die Darstellungsweise und Entwicklung der zoroastrischen Götterbilder nach und analysiert den Ursprung ihrer Ikonographie innerhalb der iranischen religiösen Bildsprache, insbesondere im Wechselspiel mit den in der schriftlich überlieferten Tradition bewahrten religiösen Ideen. Der Autor widmet sich in seiner umfassenden und reich bebilderten Studie den teilweise komplex aufgebauten Götterbildern, die als vielschichtige Bedeutungsträger im religiösen Leben der alten Zoroastrier eine große Rolle spielten. Darüber hinaus ermittelt er allgemeine formale Strukturen, beleuchtet ihre Genese und erforscht den „Sitz im Leben“ der Götterbilder, indem er vor allem die literarische Überlieferung des zoroastrischen Corpus im Avestischen und Mittelpersischen berücksichtigt. Farridnejad bietet so erstmals einen umfassenden, methodisch fundierten Überblick über die zoroastrische Bildersprache im Kontext von Religion und Kultur des vorislamischen Iran.

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    The Reception of Alexander the Great

    Moore, Kenneth Royce (ed.). 2018. Brill’s companion to the reception of Alexander the Great. Leiden & Boston: Brill.

    Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great offers a considerable range of topics, of interest to students and academics alike, in the long tradition of this subject’s significant impact, across a sometimes surprising and comprehensive variety of areas. Arguably no other historical figure has cast such a long shadow for so long a time. Every civilisation touched by the Macedonian Conqueror, along with many more that he never imagined, has scrambled to “own” some part of his legacy. This volume canvasses a comprehensive array of these receptions, beginning from Alexander’s own era and journeying up to the present, in order to come to grips with the impact left by this influential but elusive figure.

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    The Iron Age in southern Central Asia

    Lhuillier, Johanna & Nikolaus Boroffka (eds.). 2018. A millennium of history. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23–25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi (Archeology in Iran and Turan 17). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

    The volume gives a comprehensive insight into the Iron Age in southern Central Asia, whose beginning and end are marked by two major cultural changes: the end of Bronze Age urban societies with their large burial grounds and the conquest of Central Asia by Alexander the Great. Central to this is the incorporation of this region into the Achaemenid-Persian empire. Profound social changes in settlement, technology, and spiritual life can be linked to the emergence of the Avesta and the Zoroastrian religion, which became the official religion of the Persian Empire. A new look at texts and archaeological research demonstrates the complete incorporation of Bactria and Sogdia into the Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC.

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    The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity

    Walsh, David. 2018. The cult of Mithras in late antiquity: Development, decline and demise ca. A.D. 270-430. Leiden: Brill.

    In The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity David Walsh explores how the cult of Mithras developed across the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. and why by the early 5th century the cult had completely disappeared. Contrary to the traditional narrative that the cult was violently persecuted out of existence by Christians, Walsh demonstrates that the cult’s decline was a far more gradual process that resulted from a variety of factors. He also challenges the popular image of the cult as a monolithic entity, highlighting how by the 4th century Mithras had come to mean different things to different people in different places.

    David Walsh, Ph.D. (2016), University of Kent, is a lecturer in Classical and Archaeological Studies at that university. He has published articles on the cult of Mithras and on the fate of temples in the Roman provinces of Noricum and Pannonia.

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    The Problem of Respect in Sasanid-Roman Relations

    Maksymiuk, Katarzyna. 2018.The two eyes of the earth: The problem of respect in Sasanid-Roman relations. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 58, 591–606.

    The diplomatic exchanges of the two powers need not express mutual respect, as the language and the rituals used by one side need not have been interpreted by the other as intended.

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    Achaemenid Sources and the Problem of Genre

    Silverman, Jason M. 2018. Achaemenid sources and the problem of genre. In Sebastian Fink & Robert Rollinger (eds.), Conceptualizing Past, Present, and Future. (Melammu Symposia 9), 261-278, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

    The present paper discusses the import of genre decisions for the assessment of historical sources for the Achaemenid Empire. It argues the medium must be included within genre considerations, and that genre is more than a literary artifact, but carries important historical and sociological implications.

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    Revisiting the Location of Pṛga in the Behistun Inscription

    Doroodi, Mojtaba & Farrokh Hajiani. 2018. Revisiting the location of Pṛga in the Behistun inscription on the basis of its etymology and an examination of historico-geographical texts. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 46 (3-4), 265–289.

    A multitude of geographical names are referred to in the Behistun Inscription. Despite the fact that scholars have put considerable effort in locating the current sites of many of these places, there is a shroud of mystery hanging over some. A mountain called Parga, the battlefield of King Darius with Vahyazdāta, is one of them. Some researchers have identified it with Forg District which seems to be an erroneous assumption. This study, while convincingly refuting the aforementioned assumption, tries to propound and prove a new idea as regards the whereabouts of Prga. In reaching this goal, the authors have benefited from etymological and historical evidence and have examined the original inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, and Aramaic. The results of this study indicate that what is now called Shahrak-e Abarj in the Marvdasht Plain could be the real location of Prga referred to in the Behistun Inscription.

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    Reflections of Armenian Identity in History and Historiography

    Berberian, Houri & Touraj Daryaee (eds.). 2018. Reflections of Armenian identity in history and historiography. Jordan Center for Persian Studies.

    This volume is the result of a conference held on the UCI campus in April of 2015. The purpose of this international conference was to explore various aspects of Armenian identity from the remote past to the present. Some of the papers that appear in this collection stay true to their original presentations w hile others have been dramatically altered, even in subject in one case.

    Table of Contents:

    • Gregory E. Areshian: Historical Dynamics of the Endogenous Armenian, i.e. Hayots, Identity: Some General Observations
    • Touraj Daryaee: The Fall of Urartu and the Rise of Armenia
    • Ani Honarchian: Of God and Letters: A Sociolinguistic Study on the Invention of the Armenian Alphabet in Late Antiquity
    • Khodadad Rezakhani: The Rebellion of Babak and the Historiography of the Southern Caucasus
    • Giusto Traina: Ambigua Gens? Methodological Problems in the Ancient Armenian history
    • Sebouh David Aslanian: The “Great Schism” of 1773: Venice and the Founding of the Armenian Community in Trieste
    • S. Peter Cowe: The Armenian Oikoumene in the Sixteenth Century: Dark Age or Era of Transition?
    • Roman Smbatyan: Some Remarks on the Identity and Historical Role of Artsakhi Meliks in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries CE
    • Myrna Douzjian: Armenianness Reimagined in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat
    • Shushan Karapetian: The Changing Role of Language in the Construction of Armenian Identity among the (American) Diaspora
    • Rubina Peroomian: Effects of the Genocide, Second Generation Voices