Delpech, François. 2015. Objets sacrées et armes parlantes: Le message des Scythes à Darius entre le mythe d’origine et l’historiographie. Journal Asiatique 303 (1), 25–46.
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Category: Articles
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Mehrgān at Persepolis
Bahadori, Ali. 2015. Persepolitan ceremonies: The case of Mehrgān. Ancient West & East 14. 51–71.
The celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis is a hypothesis that has never been discussed in detail. The present paper explores evidence for the presence of the Mithra cult at the Achaemenid court and, consequently, for celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis.
Melirad, Sheler & Abbas Razmpoush. 2015. A newly discovered Iron Age site at Sarrez, Iranian Kurdistan. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 52. 207–216.
Sarrez is an ancient site in Kurdistan Province, Iran, near the present-day country town of Kamyaran. This site was discovered accidentally during dam construction activities. It has yielded some metal artefacts, potsherds and bones that are comparable to Iron Age III instances. The collection in its entirety is discussed in this article. One of the main objects from Sarrez is a decorated beaker with a scene on its wall that is comparable in many ways to examples of Neo-Assyrian art. The purpose of this paper is to publish and date the metal objects of the Sarrez collection based on this bronze beaker, which is one the few beakers from western Iran which has been found in a secure context.
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Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman
Zehbari, Zohreh, Reza Mehr Afarin & Seyyed Rasul Musavi Haji. 2015. Studies on the structural characteristics of Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 52. 217–259.
The Achaemenid site of Dahan-E Gholaman lies 44 km southeast of Zabol, eastern Iran. Recovered archaeological records and evidence, including residential, public, and administrative-religious structures, indicate pre-planned and intense urbanisation. Unfortunately, the pottery from Dahan-E Gholaman has not been paid the attention it is due, even though pottery from the site has been studied. The studies show that innovation and demands on the pottery industry created local types of beakers, jars, jugs, and bowls and so on. Research on the pottery characteristics shows that the potters of this site were skilled in controlling the kiln temperature and were able to produce high quality wares, while various forms were commonly in use at the site.
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The vision of Ahura Mazdā’s poet
Panaino, Antonio. 2015. The vision of Ahura Mazdā’s poet. Notes on Y. 31,5. In M.C. Pelevin (ed.), «НА ПАСТБИЩЕ МЫСЛИ БЛАГОЙ» Сборник статей к юбилею И. М. Стеблин-Каменского [Collection of articles for the anniversary of Steblin-Kamensky], 47–62. St. Petersburg: Контраст.
Y.31,5 is a very intriguing O.Av. stanza, which presents some interesting problems centered on the pivotal role of ərəšiš “seer, inspired poet”, corresponding to Ved. r̥ṣi-, whose insight should be connected not only with the Manah who was Vohu, but also with the inner manah- of Ahura Mazdā himself by means of a word-game played around the stem manah- evoked in its compositional form (mə̄ṇ°). The “better” (vahiiō) rule assigned by the Gods to the poet and priest (Zoroaster) opens his eyes offering the Av. ərəši– a new power of discrimination and comprehension of the world (probably both in the ritual dimension and in reality) so that he might actually impress in his own mind what does not exist and what is really existent. In this respect the text by means of the direct opposition between two subjunctives (yā nōit̰ vā aŋhat̰ aŋhaitī vā) of the root ah (very interestingly, one with a secondary ending, the latter with a primary one), shows how the idea of “existence” and “inexistence” — in this very case deeper than that of “being” or not “being” — was fittingly formulated already in the earliest Mazdean framework.
Antonio Panaino is professor of ancient Iranian philology and hitory of religion at the University of Bologna.
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Journal of the American Oriental Society
The latest issue of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 135(3), has several articles and reviews of interest to scholars of ancient Iran. We have already announced Michael Shenkar’s Rethinking Sasanian Iconoclasm in a previous post. Among the reviews three stand out for their direct relevance for Iranian Studies:
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Grammaire juhuri, ou judéo-tat, langue iranienne des Juifs du Caucase de l’est by Gilles Authier (pp. 623-625)Review by: Habib Borjian
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The Transmission of the Avesta by Alberto Cantera (pp. 637-640)Review by: Elizabeth Tucker
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The Sīh-rōzag in Zoroastrianism: A Textual and Historico-Religious Analysis by Enrico G. Raffaelli (pp. 640-642)Review by: Jenny Rose
The full JSTOR Table of Contents is available here.
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Rethinking Sasanian Iconoclasm
Shenkar, Michael. 2015. Rethinking Sasanian Iconoclasm. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135(3). 471–498.
This article presents a detailed reconsideration of the well-established and canonized theory of “Sasanian iconoclasm” postulated by Mary Boyce in 1975. The Sasanians did not develop any prohibition against anthropomorphic representations of the gods, and in the surviving Zoroastrian literature and inscriptions there is no evidence of either theological disputes over idols or of a deliberate eradication of them by the Persian kings. Sasanian cult was aniconic, but the historical and archaeological evidence clearly demonstrates that Sasanian visual culture was anything but iconoclastic. It seems that the Persian iconoclastic identity was constructed in the early Sasanian period as a response to the challenges posed by Christianity. By joining the common monotheistic discourse against idolatry, the Zoroastrian clergy adopted the conventions of the world in which they lived.
Attacks against “idols” and “idolatry” should be understood in the context of internal and external polemical discourse against beliefs deemed to be erroneous by the Zoroastrian priesthood.
Treister, Mikhail Yu.2015. A Hoard of Silver Rhyta of the Achaemenid Circle from Erebuni. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 21 (1), 23-119.
This paper is devoted to a treasure found in 1968. The hoard in “a large jug”, consisting of three silver rhyta, a silver goblet and a fifth, now missing object, was found during construction works at the foothill of the Erebuni citadel. The silver vessels were preserved in a jug in a flattened condition. Every piece of the Treasure is discussed in detail. Descriptions of the vessels are provided in a catalogue section. The results of our analysis do not contradict the suggestion that the Treasure was possibly hidden in ca. 330 bc, thus assigning it a date more or less the same as that of the hoard from Pasargadae, which was also hidden in a clay vessel and most probably, like the Erebuni Treasure, coincided with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.
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Arsacid Iran and cultural transfer
Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2015. Arsacid Iran and the nomads of Central Asia – Ways of cultural transfer. In Bemmann, Jan & Michael Schmauder (eds.), Complexity of interaction along the Eurasian steppe zone in the first millennium CE (Bonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology 7). Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2015. Parthian cities and strongholds in Turkmenistan. International Journal of Eurasian Studies 2. 117–125.
The Arsacid empire (247 BC – AD 226) emerged as the result of a nomadic invasion in northeastern Iran and in southern Turkmenistan. The Arsacids attached great importance to the erection of fortifications and strongholds. Justin’s account on Arsaces I (247-211/210 BC) shows the unexpected triumph of a leader from the steppes in northeastern Iran and focuses on two aspects: that Arsaces raised a large army (41.4.8) and that he built fortresses and strengthened the cities (41.5.1). No less emphatic about it is Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.4 who relates that Arsaces “filled Persia with cities, with fortified camps, and with strongholds”. Fortified centers made the dynasty’s basis in the course of internal consolidation of the kingdom, at the same time having become the elements of a defense system against the aggression of the neighboring powers, including the Seleucid monarchy, Graeco-Bactria, and some nomadic tribes of Central Asia. This paper shall point to some questions concerning cities and strongholds in Parthia proper, including the location of Dara, Nisaia, Asaak, Alexandropolis, and the development of Old Nisa as well as New Nisa.