Author: Yazdan Safaee

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Journal

Iran Nameh: A new series

 Iran Nameh: New Series, Vol 1, No 1, Spring 2016.

Here is the preface of editor (Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi) for this new series:

With the publication of this issue, Iran Nameh is re-launched as an independent Iranian Studies quarterly. Iran Nameh began publication in fall 1982 under the auspices of the Foundation for Iranian Studies. The Foundation generously supported Iran Nameh until Winter 2016, when funding for the journal was discontinued. Via the urging of our readership and contributors, and despite serious financial difficulties, the editorial office has decided to continue the publication of Iran Nameh as an
independent, reader-supported quarterly of Iranian Studies. As of this issue, Iran Nameh is no longer affiliated with the Foundation for Iranian Studies. To continue publishing Iran Nameh as a leading scholarly journal, I urge our contributors and readers to assist us in expanding the subscription base of the journal, and to become a sustainer of Iran Nameh by their generous support.
Since 1982, Iran Nameh has served as a vital venue for the dissemination of original scholarly research on Iran. This has been particularly important due to the hyperpoliticization and ideologization of publically-available knowledge on Iran. With
the inauguration of the second series, Iran Nameh is redoubling its commitment to the publication of original and well-documented scholarship on all aspects of Iranian Studies both in Persian and English. To facilitate the timely distribution of
such new scholarship, with the inaugural issue of the second series, Iran Nameh has adopted a new “article-based” publishing model. Based on this model, submissions that have been successfully peer-reviewed and copyedited will be made available online before the scheduled time of publication. In addition to this inaugural issue, the peer-reviewed and accepted articles for the forthcoming issues will be made available online immediately after the completion of the copy-editing and layout process. With article-based publishing, Iran Nameh intends to remain up to speed with the changing world of digital publishing. A great benefit of this challenge is the timely dissemination of new research and scholarship to the readers of Iran Nameh. To prosper under this changing print-scape, I urge our contributors to continue to send their very best scholarly research to Iran Nameh. I also call on our large digital readership to renew their subscription to Iran Nameh now. This is of vital importance. We need your support. Iran Nameh cannot continue without it. Your active support is vital during this crucial transition period for Iran Nameh into an
independent reader-supported scholarly journal.

See the table of contents Here.

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Books

Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires

Khatchadourian, Lori. 2016. Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires. Oakland: University of California Press.

What is the role of the material world in shaping the tensions and paradoxes of imperial sovereignty? Scholars have long shed light on the complex processes of conquest, extraction, and colonialism under imperial rule. But imperialism has usually been cast as an exclusively human drama, one in which the world of matter does not play an active role. Lori Khatchadourian argues instead that things—from everyday objects to monumental buildings—profoundly shape social and political life under empire. Out of the archaeology of ancient Persia and the South Caucasus, Imperial Matter advances powerful new analytical approaches to the study of imperialism writ large and should be read by scholars working on empire across the humanities and social sciences.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos.

About the Autor                                                                                                          LORI KHATCHADOURIAN is Assistant Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University.

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Journal

Iranica Antiqua, Volume 51

The table of contents of the latest issue (51) of the journal Iranica Antiqua:

 

 

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Articles

ZOROASTRIANS OF IRAN vi. Linguistic Documentation

Saloumeh Gholami, “ZOROASTRIANS OF IRAN vi. Linguistic Documentation,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2016, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrians-in-iran-06 (accessed on 27 January 2016).

This article focuses on the importance of documenting the Zoroastrian dialects of Yazd and Kerman, also known as Zoroastrian Dari (a term not to be confused with classical Persian Dari or Dari in Afghanistan).

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Books

Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) in Kerman

Gholami 2016Gholami, Saloumeh & Armita Farahmand. 2016. Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) in Kerman. (Estudios Iranios Y Turanios. Supplementa Didactica 1). Girona: Sociedad de estudios iranios y turanios (SEIT).

 Dari (also known as Behdīnī, Gavrī, or Gavrūnī), the topic of the present book is a critically endangered Iranian language. The study of Zoroastrian Dari is of particular importance for Iranian dialectology and comparative linguistics. This language is used in a parallel way to the Persian language of the Muslim population, and one can observe strong influence from Persian, especially in the domain of the lexicon. But Dari also differs from Persian, having special characteristics common to the languages of the North-West Iranian group. Sharing of both North-West and South-West features draws our attention to the fact that the immigrants to Yazd and Kerman originally came from different regions of Iran. The primary aim of this book is to teach Kermani Dari as a living language. This book offers basic materials for those who are interested in learning Dari. The focus is not only on grammar but also includes sections on learning vocabulary, listening to original documented materials, and also writing and understanding texts. The book consists of seven chapters.

See the table of contents here.

Saloumeh Gholami is a scholar of Iranian linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Armita Farahmand is a member of the Zoroastrian community in Kerman and a scholar of Zoroastrianism.

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Articles

Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Pasargadae and Persepolis

Aloiz, Emily, Janet G. Douglas & Alexander Nagel. 2016. Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Achaemenid Pasargadae and Persepolis, Iran. Heritage Science (4) 3.

A PDF file of the paper is available online.

Continue reading “Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Pasargadae and Persepolis”
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Books

Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes

Askari, Nasrin. 2016. The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes (Studies in Persian Cultural History 9) Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Nasrin Askari explores the medieval reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma, or Book of Kings (completed in 1010 CE) as a mirror for princes. Through her examination of a wide range of medieval sources, Askari demonstrates that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily understood as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly elites. In order to illustrate the ways in which the Shāhnāma functions as a mirror for princes, Askari analyses the account about Ardashīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as an ideal king in the Shāhnāma. Within this context, she explains why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr.

Nasrin Askari, PhD, (2012), University of Toronto, has completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia, and will be working on her next project at the University of Oxford as a Bahari Visiting Scholar in the Persian Arts of the Book.

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Articles

Olive cultivation in the heart of the Persian Achaemenid Empire

Djamali, Morteza, Matthew D. Jones, Jérémy Migliore, Silvia Balatti, Marianela Fader, Daniel Contreras, Sébastien Gondet, Zahra Hosseini, Hamid Lahijani, Abdolmajid Naderi, Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh, Margareta Tengberg & Lloyd Weeks. 2015. Olive cultivation in the heart of the Persian Achaemenid Empire: New insights into agricultural practices and environmental changes reflected in a late Holocene pollen record from Lake Parishan, SW Iran. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (August 2015), 1–15.

This is an Online First Article and has not been assigned to an issue of the journal.

Ancient Persia witnessed one of its most prosperous cultural and socio-economic periods between 550 bc and ad 651, with the successive domination of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian Empires. During this period agricultural activities increased on the Iranian plateau, as demonstrated by a remarkable arboricultural expansion. However, available data are not very informative about the spatial organization of agricultural practices. The possible links between climate conditions and agricultural activities during this millennium of continuous imperial domination are also unclear, due to the lack of parallel human-independent palaeoclimatic proxies. This study presents a new late Holocene pollen-based vegetation record from Lake Parishan, SW Iran. This record provides invaluable information regarding anthropogenic activities before, during and after the empires and sheds light on (i) spatial patterning in agricultural activities and (ii) possible climate impacts on agro-sylvo-pastoral practices during this period. Results of this study indicate that arboriculture was the most prominent form of agricultural activity in SW Iran especially during the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian periods. Contrary to the information provided by some Greco-Roman written sources, the record from Lake Parishan shows that olive cultivation was practiced during Achaemenid and Seleucid times, when olive cultivation was significant, at least in this basin located close to the capital area of the Achaemenid Empire. In addition, pollen from aquatic vegetation suggests that the period of the latter centuries of the first millennium bc was characterized by a higher lake level, which might have favoured cultural and socio-economic prosperity.

A PDF of the paper is available here.

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Journal

New issue of Electrum

The latest issue of Electrum features a number of articles relevant to Iranian Studies. 

Electrum, Volume 22 (2015).
Table of Contents:
  • Frank L Holt, Alexander the Great at Bactra: A Burning Question, 9–15.
  • Laurianne Martinez-Sève, Ai Khanoum and Greek Domination in Central Asia, 17–46.
  • Pierre Leriche, La découverte de l’Ancienne Termez, métropole de la Bactriane du Nord, 47–85.
  • Antonio Panaino, Ὁμόγλωττοι παρὰ μικρον?,  87–106.
  • Touraj Daryaee, Soodabeh Malekzadeh, King Huviška, Yima, and the Bird: Observations on a Paradisiacal State, 107–114.
  • Carlo Lippolis, Niccolo Manassero, Storehouses and Storage Practices in Old Nisa (Turkmenistan), 115–142.
  • Vito Messina, Mehr Kian, Lasser-scanner Survey at Kong-e Yār ‘Alīvand. Research of the Iranian-Italian Joint Expedition in Kūzestān, 143–154.
  • Alain Chenevier, Crépuscule de l’Empire parthe – Les dernières drachmes, 155–158.
  • The Syriac Book of the Laws of the Countries, Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, and the Clementine Recognitions: Early Witnesses for Christianity in Central Asia?, 159–171.
  • Omar Coloru, I Am Your Father! Dynasties and Dynastic Legitimacy on Pre-Islamic Coinage between Iran and Northwest India, 173–199.
  • Fabrizio Sinisi, The Deities on the Kushano-Sasanian Coins, 201–225.
  • Nikolaus Schindel, Sakastan in the Fourth and Fifth Century AD. Some Historical Remarks Based on the Numismatic Evidence, 227–248.
  • Paul J. Kosmin, Review: Paul J. Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA–London 2014, pp. 423, b/w ill., 9 maps, ISBN 978-0-674-72882-0 (Edward Dąbrowa).

 

Electrum has been published since 1997 by the Department of Ancient History at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow as a collection of papers and monographs. In 2010 it starts as journal with one issue per year.
 
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Books

Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar

Gholami, Saloumeh. 2014. Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar (Gottinger Orientforschungen, III. Reihe: Iranica 12). Harrassowitz Verlag.

Bactrian, the only Iranian language written in the Greek alphabet, was spoken in ancient Bactria in northern Afghanistan. It is an intermediary Middle Iranian language, possessing the characters of both Eastern and Western Iranian groups, and thus playing a very important role in the dialectology of Iranian Languages.
Saloumeh Gholami’s study deals with various relatively unknown phonological, morphological and syntactical features of Bactrian and includes the following topics: historical phonology of Bactrian; the syntactical position of different kinds of nouns and their relationship in a sentence; the different types of pronouns and their syntactical properties; the function and syntactical position of prepositions and postpositions; adverbs and their formation; proximate and remote deixis adverbs as well as their different syntactic positions; various kinds of conjunctions and their functions; selected aspects of the verb; word order in clauses with transitive or intransitive verbs, and an investigation of double object constructions; as well as the different types of compounds.

For more information see the ToC of this volume.