Middlemas, Jill. 2023. Innovation in Persian Period Judah: Royal and Temple Ideology in Its Ancient Near East Setting. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
This volume provides an overview of the attitude towards the monarchy and the temple in Achaemenid Yehud in a comparative perspective. It provides a thorough overview of a series of discussions about the extent of Persian influence on the ideology of Second Temple Judaism by some of the leading experts in the field.
Jansen-Winkeln, Karl. 2023. Inschriften der Spätzeit. Teil V: Die 27.–30. Dynastie und die Argeadenzeit. Band 1: Kambyses – Tachos. Band 2: Nektanebos II. – 4. Jahrhundert insgesamt. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Der fünfte Teil der Inschriften der Spätzeit umfasst in 22 Abschnitten (im Anschluss an die vorhergehenden Bände als Nr. 61–82 nummeriert) die Texte vom Beginn der 27. Dynastie (526 v.Chr.) bis zum Beginn der Ptolemäerzeit (305 v.Chr.), wiederum grundsätzlich eingeteilt nach Regierungszeiten: Die Perserkönige der 27. Dynastie von Kambyses bis Artaxerxes II. (dazu die beiden Gegenkönige Petubastis IV. und Psametik IV., Kapitel 61–68), die Könige der 28. bis 31. Dynastie (Kapitel 70–78) sowie die Argeadenkönige (die Dynastie Alexanders des Großen, Kapitel 79–81). Dazu kommen zwei weitere Abschnitte mit den Texten der 27. Dynastie, die sich keiner Regierungszeit zuordnen lassen (Kapitel 69), und denjenigen Inschriften, die zwar sicher oder sehr wahrscheinlich ins 4. Jahrhundert gehören, aber nicht genauer einzuordnen sind (Kapitel 82). Die Sammlung umfasst alle historisch im weitesten Sinne relevanten hieroglyphischen Inschriften, dagegen werden die (für Datierungen wichtigen) demotischen Texte nur mit Literaturangaben erfasst.
Enthalten sind auch zahlreiche bisher unpublizierte Texte und viele ältere Veröffentlichungen sind kollationiert worden. Ausführliche Indizes erleichtern die Suche nach Denkmälern in Museen, königlichen und nichtköniglichen Personen sowie Regierungsjahren.
Mitchell, Lynette. 2023. Cyrus the Great: A biography of kingship. New York: Routledge.
Cyrus the Great was a celebrity of the ancient world, the founder of one of the first world empires in the ancient Near East, whose life and deeds were celebrated through the many stories told about him, then and for millennia.
This book offers an analysis of these stories, locating them within the rich storytelling cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. Although there are few fixed points in Cyrus’ career, it is possible to see through these narratives the way his kingship developed so he became not just the instrument of the gods, but also their companion. Mitchell explores what these stories reveal about the different societies and cultures who engaged with the mythology surrounding Cyrus in order to examine their own conceptions of great men, leadership, kingship, and power. Such was his celebrity in antiquity that the stories about his kingship have remained influential over the course of two and a half thousand years into the modern era.
Hashemi, Zahra, Mehrdad Malekzadeh & Ata Hasanpour. 2023. Sangtarashan, l’Âge du Fer au Pish Kuh du Luristan. Avec une étude “L’assemblage lithique de Sangtarashan” par Francesca Manclossi (Acta Iranica 62). Leuven: Peeters.
Le site archéologique de Sangtarashan est situé à l’ouest de l’Iran, dans la province du Luristan, au cœur de la chaîne montagneuse du Zagros. Découvert en 2002, il a fait l’objet de six campagnes de fouilles entre 2005 et 2011.
Dès les premières recherches, il est apparu que le site présentait des caractéristiques exceptionnelles. Au sein d’une structure circulaire en pierre, chevauchée par plusieurs autres constructions, les fouilles ont mis au jour plus de deux mille objets. Parmi eux, des centaines d’objets métalliques connus sous le nom de Bronzes du Luristan. Ces bronzes étaient enterrés par lot, insérés dans les murs ou éparpillés sur toute la surface du site.
L’étude architecturale et l’examen de la nature et de la distribution des objets conduisent à penser que le site de Sangtarashan serait un sanctuaire ayant connu deux phases d’occupation. Les dépôts de la première phase sont constitués d’armes et de vases enfouis dans le sol. Ceux de la seconde phase sont constitués d’objets isolés, de taille plus petite et de nature plus variée, déposés dans la maçonnerie des bâtiments. La première occupation daterait de l’Âge du Fer I-II, la seconde de l’Âge du Fer II-III (et peut-être même IV). L’hypothèse d’une fonction non cultuelle pendant la seconde phase n’est pas totalement écartée au regard de la prolongation des structures architecturales vers l’ouest et de la position des objets éparpillés sur toute la surface du site.
Avec Sorkhdom-i Lori, Sangtarashan est le deuxième sanctuaire de l’Âge du Fer de la région du Zagros central où les fidèles déposaient des objets dans le sol ou dans la maçonnerie des bâtiments. La richesse des objets métalliques découverts fait de Sangtarashan un site de référence pour l’étude des Bronzes du Luristan. L’analyse du matériel archéologique permet désormais de proposer une datation pour des objets jusqu’alors connus uniquement par des exemplaires issus de fouilles clandestines.
Nagel, Alexander. 2023. Color and meaning in the art of Achaemenid Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In this volume, Alexander Nagel investigates the use of polychromy in the art and architecture of ancient Iran. Focusing on Persepolis, he explores the topic within the context of the modern historiography of Achaemenid art and the scientific investigation of a range of works and monuments in Iran and in museums around the world. Nagel’s study contextualizes scholarly efforts to retrieve aspects of ancient polychromies in Western Asia and interrogates current debates about the contemporary use of color in the architecture and sculpture in the ancient Mediterranean world, especially in North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Bringing a multi-disciplinary perspective to the topic, Nagel also highlights the important role of theory, methodology, and conservation studies in the process of reconstructing polychromy in ancient monuments. A celebration of the work of painters, artisans, craftsmen and -women of Iran’s past, his volume suggests frameworks through which historical and contemporary research play a dynamic role in the reconstruction of ancient technological knowledge.
Clancier, Philippe & Julien Monerie (eds.). 2023. L’empreinte des empires au Proche-Orient ancien: Volume d’hommage offert à Francis Joannès (Études Mésopotamiennes 3). Oxford: ArchaeoPress.
Colleagues, students and friends of Francis Joannès pay tribute in articles exploring the Achaemenid and Greco-Macedonian empires through cuneiform sources, as well as other topics reflecting his extensive and varied career.
Certain papers interest scholars and students of ancient Iranian history:
The issue 7 of the NeHeT journal is now available. The latest issue of this Egyptological journal is dedicated to reports of current research about Tell el-Herr and North Sinai under the direction of Catherine Defernz.
The following papers contribute to our understanding of the Achaemenid Egypt:
Daryaee, Touraj, Robert Rollinger & Matthew P. Canepa (eds.). Iran and the transformation of ancient Near Eastern history: The Seleucids (ca. 312–150 BCE) (Classica et Orientalia 31). Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag.
The Seleucid Empire presided over one of the most pivotal and creative periods of Iranian history, a fact that has often been elided or misunderstood in both ancient and modern historiography. Iran and the Transformation of Ancient Near Eastern History examines the Seleucid Empire within the context of ancient Iranian history from an interdisciplinary standpoint and seeks to integrate it more fully into the history of Iranian empires. It brings together a wide variety of perspectives, including landscape archaeology, art history, cuneiform studies, as well as political, economic, maritime and religious history. This volume presents the contributions of the conference on the same topic organized by the editors of this volume, which took place on February 24th–25th 2020 at the University of California Irvine (Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Iranian Studies), the third in the series of the “Payravi Conferences on Ancient Iranian History”.
Porten, Bezalel & Ada Yardeni. 2023. Textbook of Aramaic ostraca from Idumea, volume 5. Dossiers H–K: 485 ostraca. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Since the early 1990s, about two thousand Idumean Aramaic ostraca have found their way onto the antiquities market and are now scattered across a number of museums, libraries, and private collections. This fifth and final volume of the Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea completes the work of bringing these ostraca together in a single publication.
Volumes 1–4 published some 1,600 ostraca that gave us insight into agriculture, economics, politics, onomastics, and scribal practices from fourth/third-century BCE Idumea and Judah. The ostraca in volume 5 come from the same milieu, but the information they provide is entirely new and different. This volume presents 485 ostraca, including 99 land descriptions, 168 uncertain texts, and 218 assorted remains, scribal exercises, and forgeries, along with useful indexes and tables and a comparative list of entries. The land descriptions—which record local landmarks, ownership boundaries, and land registration—provide rich complementary material to the rest of the Idumean ostraca. The “uncertain texts” are fragmentary, in poor condition, or contain other abnormalities. As the TAO corpus becomes better understood and as imaging techniques improve, these texts will help to fill gaps in knowledge. The final section includes the remains of scribal practices and forgeries, important because they help to show the authenticity of the other two thousand pieces.
A unique collection of documentary sources for fourth/third-century BCE Idumea—and, by extension, Judah—this multivolume work will be a powerful resource for those interested in onomastics and social and economic history.
Gorris, Elynn. 2023. “Don’t Let the Boats Pass!” Neo-Elamite Grain Procurement in Times of Famine and Drought. Iranian Studies 56(3), 439-456.
This article is concerned with interregional trade dynamics between Elam and Mesopotamia in the early to mid-first millennium BC. During the seventh century BC, two great famines in the Neo-Elamite kingdom, of which climatological changes were a major cause, were documented in the textual records. An era of megadrought made grain procurement from the neighboring regions essential to feed the Neo-Elamite lowland population. This article further explores the impact of the two Neo-Elamite famines and “drought of the century” on the commercial and political mechanisms in the Upper Persian Gulf region.