This is the second workshop in a series that began in Spring 2023 with the idea of bringing together scholars around the world who were actively working on, or interested in working on Middle Persian documents and sealings. The workshop is organised by Adam Benkato (UC Berkeley) and Arash Zeini (University of Oxford).
To attend the workshop, which takes place on Zoom, register here. The programme is below.
‘Parzor is delighted to announce its long awaited TISS-Parzor Online Academic Programme on Culture & Heritage Studies’. As part of this programme, you can ‘learn, gain credits, explore exciting issues of environment and sociology, craft, art, literature, theatre, cuisine as well as business and philanthropy’.
Dr. Shernaz Cama announces the start of the TISS Parzor Online Academic Programme on Culture & Heritage Studies.
For admissions and programme details, visit the TISS Website. Admissions are open till 31st August and open to all! Apply now!
The latest issue of Indiran, the newsletter of the Ancient India & Iran Trust, is now online.
Established in 1978, the Ancient India & Iran Trust occupies a unique position as an independent charity concerned with the study of early South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, promoting both scholarly research and popular interest in the area.
From About Us
An archive of past issues of Indiran, is available here.
The Pourdavoud Center at the UCLA operates the Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran, a great resource which we think should be more widely known.
The Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran: An Online Encyclopedia of Iranian Archaeological Sites
The Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran is a research tool for scholars in all branches of humanities, including anthropology, art history, and history, but more specifically for those working on the archaeology of Iran and the ancient Near East. The Gazetteer is a free, open access resource and will be hosted and maintained by the University of California, Los Angeles, which will ensure its up-to-date, long-term use and availability.
From the Introduction
Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the final three Ratanbai Katrak Lectures this autumn in Oxford.
These lectures are convened by Prof. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina for the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
The talks will also be on Zoom.
Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures 101 years after the inauguration of the Ratanbai Katrak Lecturership at the University of Oxford.
Convened by Prof. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina for the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Please use this link to attend the lectures on Zoom.
Lecture 1: Manuscripts and Rituals: The Written Transmission of the Zoroastrian Rituals
11 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD
Lecture 2: The Questioned Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Rituals: Their Reception in Western Academia
18 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD
Lecture 3: The Ritual System: Modularity and Productivity
25 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Ertegun House, 37A St. Giles’, Oxford OX1 3LD
Derbent: What Persia Left Behind, is a documentary directed by Pejman Akbarzadeh. For more information, including a timeline and screening schedules, visit derbentonline.com.
Registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 6th-century Derbent (Darband) fortification complex is considered the largest defensive structure of Sasanian Persia (Iran) in the Caucasus.
From the film’s website
“Derbent: What Persia Left Behind”, also explores the unique architecture of the massive fortress, and how it has been preserved for some fifteen centuries by Persian, Arab, Turkish and Russian rulers. Built strategically in the narrowest area between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, the fortification includes the northernmost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) inscriptions in the world, which are in danger of destruction. The 42-km defence wall of the complex that extended toward the Black Sea had already been destroyed in the Soviet era.
This year, we missed to announce the ‘Zoroastrianism Summer Course‘, which is offered by the ‘Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies‘ and takes place at the Norwegian Institute in Rome.
But we would like to take this opportunity to mention ‘Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief‘, which has been designed by Dr Sarah Stewart and Dr Céline Redard and is offered as a free online course (MOOC).
This is an online event (3 hours): The History of Zoroastrian Priesthood, The bond between the Avesta and Persian Literature & The Forgotten Sources of Medieval Zoroastrianism
Sat, November 19, 2022, 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM CST
Morning Session – Scholarly Symposium
9:30 – Opening Address: – Prof. Dan Sheffield introduced by Zal Taleyarkhan
10:00 – Dr. Kerman Daruwalla – The History of Training Zoroastrian Priests in India
10:45 – Dr. Benedikt Peschl – Zoroastrian Middle Persian Literature and its Relation to the
Avesta: current research perspectives
11:30 – Prof. Dan Sheffield – The Pahlavi Book of Religious Decrees: a Forgotten Source for the
History of Medieval Zoroastrianism
The interactive film of the Performance of the High Zoroastrian Ceremony of Yasna
Open Access to the full film of the performance of the most solemn Zoroastrian ceremony the standard Yasna with the dedicatory of Mīnō Nāwar (the version edited by Geldner), the film is prepared in the frame of the multi-disciplinary Multimedia Yasna project (MuYa), based at SOAS, University of London and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with an Advanced Investigator Grant (2016-2022), which had as its focus the Yasna – the core ritual of the Zoroastrian religion:
“You can watch the film at different speeds by moving the dot on the speed line below the Chapter and Stanza & Subsection tabs. The recording of this film was made in November 2017 at the Dadar Athornan Institute in Mumbai. The two priests, who performed the ceremony are the late Ervad Asphandiarji Dadachanji and Ervad Adil Bhesania.”
The Multimedia Yasna (MUYA)
The Multimedia Yasna (MUYA) examines the performance and written transmission of the core ritual of the Zoroastrian tradition, the Yasna, whose oldest parts date from the second millennium BCE. Composed in an ancient Iranian language, Avestan, the texts were transmitted orally and not written down until the fifth or sixth century CE. The oral tradition continues to be central to the religion, and the daily Yasna ceremony, the most important of all the rituals, is recited from memory by Zoroastrian priests. The interpretation of the Yasna has long been hampered by out-dated editions and translations of the text and until now there has been no documentation and study of the performance of the full ritual. The project MUYA examines both the oral and written traditions. It has filmed a performance of the Yasna ritual and created a critical edition of the recitation text examining the Yasna both as a performance and as a text attested in manuscripts. The two approaches have been integrated to answer questions about the meaning and function of the Yasna in a historical perspective.
Combining models and methodologies from digital humanities, philology and linguistics, the project has produced a subtitled, interactive film of the Yasna ritual, an online platform of transcribed manuscripts, editorial tools, digital transcriptions of manuscripts and digital editions with a text-critical apparatus, and with print editions, translations and commentaries of the Yasna. Information which was formerly restricted to students of Iranian philology and practising Zoroastrians has now become accessible to a world-wide audience through digital humanities. The project, based at SOAS, University of London and funded by the European Research Council, ran from October 2016 to September 2022. It was headed by Professor Almut Hintze and included an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, India and Iran.