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The genealogy of Artabanos II

The last day of 2014 is busier than most other days on this blog:

Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2014. The genealogy of Artabanos II (AD 8/9–39/40), King of Parthia. Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica 15(3). 92–97.

One of the most controversial issues in the Parthian history of the early 1st century AD is the lineage of Artabanos II. The resolution of this problem determines the image of Parthian history in the 1st century AD, moulded to a large extent by an internecine struggle for the legitimation of rival parties’ claim to power.

Read it here.

 

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Religious transformation between East and West

Herman, Geoffrey. 2014. Religious transformation between East and West: Hanukkah in the Babylonian Talmud and Zoroastrianism. In Wick, Peter & Volker Rabens (eds.), Religions and trade: Religious formation, transformation and cross-cultural exchange between East and West, 261–281. Leiden: Brill.

When religious traditions travel they tend to adapt to their new surroundings. Like new products seeking to penetrate a foreign market, they often undergo a process of modification and re-packaging that makes them comprehensible and inviting to their potential clientele. This can often be a subconscious process whereby the elements in the imported tradition that evoke more familiar local practices rise to prominence and develop further whereas others sink into the background. This article seeks to account for the development of the ritual observance of the festival of Hanukah, a festival that was brought from Judaea to Babylonia. It pinpoints the holiday’s evolution upon its reception in Babylonia. Observing similarities in ritual between the receiving community – Babylonian Jewry, and the prevalent practices found among the Zoroastrians of the region it suggests a connection between the two. This connection intimates that the ritual celebration of Hanukkah was radically and fundamentally transformed in its new religious environment as a result of its encounter with local religious custom.

Find the article here.

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Repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia

Cantera, Alberto. 2014. Repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia and animal sacrifice in the Zoroastrian long liturgy. Estudios Iranios y Turanios 1. 25–29.

The Ahuna Vairiia prayer is never repeated three times in extant Avestan texts and also the Pahlavi literature excludes this number of repetitions. This is because three repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia is the Avestan text used for the very centre of the Zoroastrian long liturgy: the slaughter of the sacrificial victim and the meat offerings to the fire. Here again, we discover the central importance of the sacrifice when the Avestan texts used in the long and short liturgies got their current shape. Further, it is shown a ritual parallelism between the slaughter of the victim and the pounding of the haōma.

The PDF of the article is here.

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Scribal practices in the Turfan Christian community

Dickens, Mark. 2013. Scribal practices in the Turfan Christian community. Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 13. 3–28.

A PDF of this article is available here.

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The epic of Farāmarz

The new issue, vol. 24, of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute (BAI) has been published. As of this post, the journal’s website has not been updated to reflect the content of vol. 24, and the issue contains too many articles and reviews of interest to individually list them here.

Michael Shenkar has made a PDF of his article available here:

Shenkar, Michael. 2014. The epic of Farāmarz in the Panjikent paintings. Bulletin of the Asia Institute 24. 67–84.

Update:

The following content list has been posted by Carol Bromberg:

Bulletin of the Asia Institute 24 (December 2014)

David Stronach, Solomon at Pasargadae: Some New Perspectives

 Domenico Agostini, Encountering a Beautiful Maiden: On the Zoroastrian dēn in Comparison with Dante’s Beatrice

 Yishai Kiel, Gazing through Transparent Objects in Pahlavi and Rabbinic Literature: A Comparative Analysis

 Dieter Weber, Villages and Estates in the Documents from the Pahlavi Archive: The Geographical Background

 Michael Shenkar, The Epic of Farāmarz in the Panjikent Paintings  (2 color plates)

 Étienne de la Vaissière, Silk, Buddhism and Early Khotanese Chronology: A Note on the Prophecy of the Li Country

 Harry Falk, Libation Trays from Gandhara

 Phyllis Granoff, Maitreya and the Yūpa: Some Gandharan Reliefs

 David Frendo, Sovereignty, Control, and Co-existence in Byzantine-Iranian Relations: An Overview

 Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, The Prophet’s Seal: A Contextualized Look at the Crystal Sealstone of Mani (216–276 c.e.) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (2 color plates)

Reviews

Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Gnosis and Deliverance: Werner Sundermann’s “Speech of the Living Soul”

Azarnouche, ed. and trans. Husraw ī Kawādān-ē ud Rēdag-ē: Khosrow fils de Kawād et un page (Jenny Rose)

Agostini. Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg: Un texte eschatologique zoroastrien (Daniel Sheffield)

Jullien, ed. Eastern Christianity: A Crossroads of Cultures (David Frendo)

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Avestan research 1991–2014

The first part of a survey by Almut Hintze on Avestan research from 1991 to 2014:

Hintze, Almut. 2014. Avestan research 1991–2014. Part 1: Sources and phonology. Kratylos 59. 1–52.

For more information and a PDF, see here.

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Elamite monumentality and architectural scale

Potts, Daniel. 2014. Elamite monumentality and architectural scale: Lessons from Susa and Choga Zanbil. In J.F. Osborne (ed.), Approaching monumentality in archaeology, 23–38. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Read the article here.

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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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Guriania, Γουράνιοι and the Gūrān

Potts, Daniel. 2014. Guriania, Γουράνιοι and the Gūrān. In Salvatore Gaspa, Alessandro Greco, Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, Simonetta Ponchia & Robert Rollinger (eds.), From source to history: Studies on the Ancient Near Eastern worlds and beyond dedicated to Giovanni Battista Lanfranchi on the occasion of his 65th birthday on June 23, 2014 (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 412), 561–571. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

Find the article here.

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Zoroastrianism in Iranian history

This chapter by Michael Stausberg was published in 2012, but I post it here due to its relevance and the recent availability of a PDF:

Stausberg, Michael. 2012. From power to powerlessness: Zoroastrianism in Iranian history. In Anh Nga Longva & Anne Sofie Roald (eds.), Religious minorities in the Middle East: Domination, self-empowerment, accommodation, 171–193. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Read the article here.