Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2016. “Eine spätsasanidische Münze mit zwei Prägeherren“, Schweizer Münzblätter (Gazette numismatique suisse/Gazzetta numismatica svizzera) 66 (263), 63-66.
Author: Yazdan Safaee
Categories
Dance in Iran: Past and Present
Gholami, Saloumeh (ed.). 2016. Dance in Iran: Past and Present. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.
Dance is one of the cultural topics facing some of the greatest challenges in Iran. Culturally, dance constitutes one of the richest and most extensive branches of art, having a long tradition and history. But in today’s Iran, dance is automatically regarded to be a political issue, even though dancers have no intention for it to be thought of in this way. In spite of the fact that Iran is considered to be one of the most ancient centers of dance culture, dance has still faced many challenges in its long history, particularly after the arrival of Islam in Iran.
This volume is an extraordinary history of dance, full of mystery and humor. The various developments in the history of this art in Iran have never before been presented in a single book, making “Dance in Iran: Past and Present” the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. The book examines the major branches of Iranian regional, ethnic, and national dances as well as Iranian ballet and describes their history to the present. The videos are available at the website www.reichert-verlag.de and contain unique historical dance material from the pre-revolutionary period and examples of Iranian ballet from the contemporary era.
The book is suitable for anyone involved or interested in the dance history of Iran.
See the table of contents here.
Categories
The battle of Arbela in 331 BCE
Rollinger, Robert. 2016. “The battle of Arbela in 331 BCE, Disloyal “Orientals” and the Alleged “Panic” in the Persian Army: from Neo-Assyrian kings to Alexander III“, in: Saana Svärd and Robert Rollinger (eds.), Cross-cultural Studies in Near Eastern History and Literature, 213-242, Münster.
The third published issue of International Journal of the Society of Iranian Archaeologists 2 (3) (2016) is dedicated to the Persian Gulf. For a table of contents and access to articles, see below or visit this page.
Cameron A. Petrie: “Kaftati and Kaftari-Related Ceramics in Southwest Iran and the Persian Gulf”
Lloyd Weeks: “Iran and the Bronze Age Metals Trade in the Persian Gulf”
Hossein Tofighian & Farhang Khademi Nadooshan: “Ancient Maritime Trade in the Persian Gulf: the Evidence of Sassanid Torpedo Amphoras”
Touraj Daryaee: “The Sasanian ‘Mare Nostrum’: The Persian Gulf”
Donald Whitcomb: “Persian Documents In The National Archives (Torre Do Tombo) Of Portugal And Their Importance For The History Of Persian Gulf In The 16th -17th Centuries”
Daniel T Potts: The Shi‘a origins of the 12th century ‘Uyunid Madrasah Abu Zaidan (Suq al-Khamis Mosque) on Bahrain
Categories
Greek Echos in Pahlavi Literature
Agostini, Domenico . 2016. Greek echoes in Pahlavi literature. A preliminary survey of calques and foreign terms. Linguarum Varietas 5. 13–24.
The vast majority of the extant Pahlavi literature was written or compiled during the Islamic period (mainly during the 9th-10th centuries) and deals with religious themes of theological and scholastic interest. Only a few examples of Sasanian imaginative, scientific and philosophical works have survived, despite the rich testimony towards their existence found in Syriac, Arabic, and Persian sources, as well as references in some Pahlavi texts. In particular, some of them teach us that Greek philosophical systems, astrology, astronomy and medicine penetrated Iranian thought already in the Sasanian period. These new ideas were necessarily reworked as they entered Zoroastrian writings. It is not always easy to
pinpoint when and where certain aspects of the Pahlavi literature rely on Greek culture, although it is quite clear that the latter had a heavy influence on the formation of Iranian, and especially Zoroastrian, thinking in Sasanian period. This article aims to present some evidence of the presence of Greek thought and lexicon in the Pahlavi literature through the textual analysis of some passages belonging to the Zoroastrian literary tradition.
Thomalsky, Judith. 2016. “Archaeological research at Tappeh Pahlavan, North Khorasan Province (Northeastern Iran): Report on the 2014 season“, ANES 53, 59-79.
In the summer of 2014, an Iranian-German team carried out the first systematic excavations at Tappe Pahlavan. The site is located in the Jajarm plain, a corridor between the Alborz Mountains in the north and the vast Dasht-e Khavir in the south. The surface of the site itself is littered with ceramics and the remains of an intensive production of stone beads. All stages of production are represented: from coarsely shaped pieces to finished polished beads. The most recent 14 C datings place the upper settlement horizon in the early sixth millennium BC. The site thus provides the earliest dates for the ceramic Neolithic period in Northeast Iran. The finds display clear ties with the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods in Northeast Iran, and can be correlated with the cultural sphere of Kopet Dagh, located c. 200 km to the east. A large part of the retrieved ceramics can be described as a local Cheshmeh Ali variant. This ware would then be c. 500 years older than the hitherto known sequences, which as a rule begin after the mid-sixth millennium BC. Moreover, Djeitun ceramics, so characteristic for Northeast Iran and southern Turkmenistan and representative of the Late Neolithic in this region, are absent in Pahlavan. Hence, the question arises as to whether an early Chalcolithic must be postulated here, or an early manifestation of a local Cheshmeh Ali horizon.
Payne, Richard. 2016. Iranian cosmopolitanism: World religions at the Sasanian court, in Myles Lavan, Richard Payne & John Weisweiler (eds.), Cosmopolitanism and empire: Universal rulers, local elites, and cultural integration in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, 209–230. Oxford University Press.
Payne examines how the Iranian empire developed cosmopolitan techniques through which to overcome the religious contradictions of its elite. The imperial elite of Iranians cohered through Zoroastrian institutions that provided its shared self-conception and normative framework, while the local elites they subordinated frequently practiced other religions- notably Christianity whose cosmologies were incompatible with the ruling religion. Imagining their mythical-historical lineage as the source of all human knowledge, however, the Iranians considered themselves capable of integrating-by means of subordination – even potentially contradictory cultures. The late Sasanian court adopted the cosmopolitan practice of the dialectical disputation from the Roman empire to manage difference, showcasing the banal commonalities of all religious and philosophical traditions without jeopardizing the superior position of Zoroastrianism. In acting as the authorities in intra-Christian disputations, the Iranians even became the arbiters for competing Christian claims to doctrinal truths. Iranian cosmopolitanism thus reveals the subordinating mode in action, as Christian sub-elites acknowledged their superiors as the source of their cultural legitimacy and authority as well as of imperial perquisites
and privileges.
Categories
Sasanian and Islamic Exports to Japan
Priestman, Seth. 2016. “The Silk Road or the Sea? Sasanian and Islamic Exports to Japan“, Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 3(1).
This article considers the movement of commodities manufactured in southern Iraq during the Sasanian and Early Islamic periods to the furthest eastern extremity of the Old World: to the archipelago of Japan. In particular the focus is on two categories of non-perishable finds that survive within the archaeological record: glass vessels and turquoise blue alkaline glazed ceramic jars. We begin by providing an outline of the definition and dating of what is a commonplace and widely distributed ceramic product within the Middle East and western Indian Ocean area. It is then possible to place these finds within a broader context by reviewing the evidence for the earliest West Asian exports to Japan and what these might tell us about the mechanisms of their transmission and circulation and the role of such imports within an East Asian context. Specifically these include glass vessels dated to the Sasanian period followed some time later by ceramic vessels manufactured at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate. The continued arrival of Islamic glass into this later period is not a subject that will be covered specifically as it does not contribute directly to the main arguments that are developed below. Finally the finds are used to shed light on the broader debate surrounding the development of the Indian Ocean economy and to what extent Japan itself may have been commercially integrated within a wider commodity exchange
network.
Seth Priestman is a research assistant at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on processes of long-term socio-economic change, commodity exchange networks and craft production within the Middle East and the wider Afro-Eurasian area during the Sasanian (Late Antique) and Islamic periods.
Categories
Diodorus and his Library
Michael, Rathmann. 2016. Diodor und seine “Bibliotheke”: Weltgeschichte aus der Provinz. Berlin: De Gruyter
Previous research saw Diodorus as an author with modest intellect and a working technique of equal mediocrity, just capable enough of reconstructing forgotten historical works from the Hellenistic period. This study reveals a serious historiographer who brought an entirely original perspective to his “universal history,” based on his own background, talent, and training, especially as he presented heroic figures, such as Alexander the Great.
See the table of contents here.
Rung, Eduard. 2016. “The Burning of Greek Temples by the Persians and Greek War-Propaganda“, in Krzysztof Ulanowski (ed.), The Religious Aspects of War in the Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome (Ancient Warfare Series Volume 1), Leiden; Boston: Brill, 166–179.