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Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL)

The Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL), an initiative of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University, has been redesigned and relaunched:

AWDL will identify, collect, curate, and provide access to a broad range of scholarly materials relevant to the study of the ancient world.

The digital library is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the ancient world and naturally contains material relevant to Iranian Studies such as the digitised copy of the second volume of Henning’s selected papers or Back’s Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften. Why not head over and read up on the Middle Persian word for beer, the dates of Mani’s life, the term for coriander or on a grain of mustard, topics that demonstrate the depth and breadth of Henning’s scholarship.

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Iran and the Caucasus

Volume 18, issue 4 of Iran and the Caucasus:

Iran and the Caucasus 18(4).

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Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios

Alberto Cantera and his team have launched a new journal, entitled Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios, with the aim to promote the study of Iran and Central Asia in Spain. The first volume has already been published and is available from academia.edu. A dedicated website is under construction.

The original announcement:

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Getting to know Sogdian: Major epigraphy

Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part of his excellent introduction to Sogdian is now online. In this part he talks about Sogdian epigraphy.

Read the second part of the introduction here.

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انتشار اولین شماره «بساتین»

بساتین، نشريه‌اي علمي ـ تخصّصي در موضوع نسخه‌هاي خطي اسلامي است، اين نشريه در زمينه مطالعاتِ کتاب ‌شناختی، مباحث نسخه ‌شناسی، تاريخ علم مسلمانان، کتابخانه‌هاي تراثي، مجموعه‌داري کتب خطي و اسناد کهن، ترجيحاً با محوريّت ميراث مکتوب کهن شيعه و معرّفي آثار فرهيختگان مسلمان، به صورت دو فصلنامه، به سه زبان فارسي، عربي و انگليسي، منتشر مي‌گردد و قلمرو فعاليتِ آن نيز شامل تمامي حوزه‌هاي متنوّع کتاب‌ شناختي آثار تراثي، نسخه شناسی (دانش کوديکولوژی)، تصحیح متون کهن، فهرست نویسی نسخ خطي و اسناد کهن، در قالب و ساختاري پژوهشي است.

برای اطلاعات بیشتر به این پیوند رجوع کنید!

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The archaeology of Sasanian politics

The proceedings of the workshop The Archaeology of Sasanian Politics, organized by Richard Payne and Mehrnoush Soroush at ISAW, have now been published:

Payne, Richard & Mehrnoush Soroush (eds.). 2014. The archaeology of Sasanian politics. Journal of Ancient History 2(2).

For this issue of the journal, see here. Richard’s introductory notes to the volume are available as a free PDF. Karim Alizadeh’s Borderland projects of Sasanian Empire: Intersection of domestic and foreign policies can be found here.

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Getting to know Sogdian

When I started this bibliographic blog my main goal was to keep things simple, hoping that a modest and well-defined goal would allow me to update the site on a regular basis. I am very excited that with the help of my SOAS colleague and friend, Adam Benkato, we now take a first step towards hosting original content. Adam has written a very useful introduction to Sogdian, of which I post the first part today. The goal of this and hopefully forthcoming introductions is to offer brief and somewhat informal overviews. We hope that scholars from neighbouring disciplines and non-specialists will find them useful.

Read the first part of the introduction here.

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DABIR: Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review

DABIR, published by the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine, is a new open access journal focusing on publishing brief notes rather than full length articles. Our aim is to speed up the publishing process, hoping to enable researchers to communicate and share their ideas more quickly.

Please visit the journal’s website, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages.

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Richard N. Frye

Richard Neslon Frye, the Aga Khan Professor of Iranian Studies Emeritus, who passed away on 27 March 2014, has unfortunately become the subject of a political row in Iran. It is good to remember him for what he was, a scholar with a unique and refreshing style and a sharp eye for methodology:

There is always the danger in Avestan studies of seizing upon a device or a theory as the key to the understanding of that enigmatic book to the exclusion of all contrary evidence (which is declared corrupt and untrustworthy), proclaiming that the true meaning of the Avesta lies in this key. Johannes Hertel is the shining example of a competent Indo-Iranian philologist who proposed his Feuerlehre as the key to the understanding of both the Avesta and the Vedas. His ubiquitous fire was not taken seriously by others but his linguistic skill in support of fire was impressive. Just as Th. Noeldeke said of Pahlavi, “In Pehlewi stumpfen wir alle”, so the Avesta may drive all who study it slightly mad.

Frye, Richard Nelson. 1960. Georges Dumézil and the translators of the Avesta. Numen 7(2). 161–171.

See here for an obituary at the HARVARDgazette and here for one by Burzine Waghmar.

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A few of our favourite things

The The International Dunhuang Project‘s (IDP) series of  A Few of Our Favourite Things is now complete. The 20 contributions cover a wide range of manuscripts found at Dunhuang, featuring among others objects discussed by Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Nicholas Sims-Williams and Prods Oktor Skjærvø.