Category: Books

Categories
Books

Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue

Kallas, Nathalie (ed.). 2024. Bridging the gap: Disciplines, times, and spaces in dialogue – Volume 2: Sessions 3, 7 and 8 from the Conference Broadening Horizons 6 Held at the Freie Universität Berlin, 24–28 June 2019. Oxford: Archaeopress.

The second volume compiles papers presented in three enlightening sessions: Session 3 – Visual and Textual Forms of Communication; Session 7 – The Future of the Past. Archaeologists and Historians in Cultural Heritage Studies; and Session 8 – Produce, Consume, Repeat. History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Economies. Within this volume, the 20 papers traverse diverse topics spanning multiple periods, from the 5th millennium BCE to the Roman Empire, and encompass a wide array of geographical regions within the Near East.

Among other interesting contributions, the following papers deal with aspects of ancient Iranian history and culture:

  • Delphine Poinsot: Sexuation of animals’ bodies in the bullae from Qasr-I Abu Nasr
  • Olivia Ramble: Generations of Writing: The Secondary Inscriptions of Darius’ tacara at Persepolis
  • Takehiro Miki: Deciphering the Skills of the Prehistoric Painting Technique: Case Study of the Painted Pottery of the 5th Millennium BCE from Tall-e Bakun A (Fars province, Iran)
  • Yazdan Safaee: Persian Female Weavers in the Persepolis Economy
Categories
Books

Written Middle Persian Literature under the Sasanids

Van Bladel, Kevin T. 2024. Written Middle Persian literature under the Sasanids (AOS Essay 16). New Haven: AOS.


Although there was oral literature among speakers of ancient Iranic languages, the author argues that there is no valid reason to assume that Middle Persian speakers, alone among sedentary peoples of their time, never or seldom wrote literary works in their language. Not only are there many Middle Persian literary works surviving in translation, and sufficient testimonies to the existence of Middle Persian literary works now lost and to Sasanian Middle Persian literacy, there are also strong explanations for their general nonsurvival that eliminate the assumption of a theory of predominant literary orality and disinclination to write literature, an argumentum ex silentio. We may reasonably assume that it is wrong to propose that what happens to survive in the original language on stone and metal surfaces and in desert environments represents the true range of Sasanian Middle Persian—the odds are far against it. Especially when propped up by a concept of “ancient Iranians” and without any definition of literature or the literary, it has no sound basis and is contradicted by a variety of extant sources.

Categories
Books

War in the Ancient Iranian Empires

Hyland, John O. & Khodadad Rezakhani (eds.). 2024. Brill’s companion to war in the ancient Iranian empires (Brill’s Companions to Classical Studies: Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World 9). Leiden: Brill.

Brill’s Companion to War in the Ancient Iranian Empires examines military structures and methods from the Elamite period through the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, and Sasanian empires. War played a critical role in Iranian state formation and dynastic transitions, imperial ideologies and administration, and relations with neighbouring states and peoples from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Twenty chapters by leading experts offer fresh approaches to the study of ancient Iranian armies, strategy, diplomacy, and battlefield methods, and contextualise famous conflicts with Greek and Roman opponents.

Table of Contents

Continue reading “War in the Ancient Iranian Empires”
Categories
Books

African Individuals and Groups in Texts from Chaldean and Achaemenid Babylonia

Karlsson, Mattias. 2024. From Memphis to Babylon: African individuals and groups in texts from Chaldean and Achaemenid Babylonia (Ägypten und Altes Testament 125). Münster: Zaphon.

Die ersten Zivilisationen der Weltgeschichte, Ägypten und Mesopotamien, werden oft getrennt untersucht. Diese Studie verfolgt einen anderen Ansatz und konzentriert sich auf die Beziehungen zwischen diesen beiden Flusskulturen. Sie befasst sich mit der afrikanisch-babylonischen Interaktion im Zeitraum 626–331 v. Chr., als Babylonien (der heutige Südirak) zunächst das Zentrum eines Staates war, der den alten Nahen Osten dominierte, und dann eine wichtige Provinz im achämenidischen Reich. Während dieser 300 Jahre führten Auseinandersetzungen zwischen dem saitischen Ägypten (664–525) und dem chaldäischen Babylonien (626–539) sowie die persische Eroberung Ägyptens zu einem Macht- und Bevölkerungstransfer „von Memphis nach Babylon“. Das übergeordnete Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Erörterung der Beziehungen zwischen Afrika und Mesopotamien. Die genaueren Ziele dieser Studie bestehen darin, Afrikaner (Ägypter, Kuschiten, Libyer) in babylonischen Texten aus der chaldäischen (626–539) und achämenidischen (539–331) Zeit zu identifizieren und die Anwesenheit von Afrikanern im chaldäischen und achämenidischen Babylonien zu erörtern unter dem Gesichtspunkt individuell-biografischer und kollektiv-demografischer Ebenen und Perspektiven. Die folgenden Forschungsfragen werden gestellt: Wer waren diese Afrikaner (in Bezug auf ethnische Zugehörigkeit, Geschlecht/Gender, Alter und Klasse)? Was haben diese Leute (beruflich) gemacht? Wann lebten sie (im Hinblick auf die Regierungszeit oder den Zeitraum)? Wo lebten sie (in Bezug auf Dorf, Stadt und Region)? Wie wurden sie in das babylonische Reich eingegliedert (zwangsweise/freiwillig, erste/zweite Generation usw.)? – Die Anwesenheit der afrikanischen Beamten im Dienste des chaldäischen und achämenidischen Babyloniens weist auf einen komplexen Prozess hin, in dem sowohl Anpassung als auch Kooptation eine Rolle spielten. Der Wunsch oder das Bedürfnis des Einzelnen, sich anzupassen, um zu überleben, co-existierte zusammen mit einem externen Druck von staatlicher Seite, der darauf abzielte, die afrikanischen Deportierten zu loyalen und profitablen Untertanen zu machen. Der Transfer von Memphis nach Babylon musste eine kontinuierliche Neubewertung dessen mit sich gebracht haben, was es bedeutete, ein Teil der ägyptischen Zivilisation an den Flüssen Babylons zu sein.

Categories
Books

Mystical Landscapes

Keshavarz, Fatemeh & Ahmet T. Karamustafa (eds.). 2024. Mystical landscapes in medieval Persian literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

In this collection, Fatemeh Keshavarz and Ahmet T. Karamustafa bring together leading researchers from comparative literature, history, literary criticism and religious studies to explore the major authors and genres of medieval Persian mystical literature. Breaking out of the all-inclusive literary history framework, the contributors write on topics that have energised their scholarship over time and address areas where the literary and the mystical have mingled and led to paradigmatic creations. How can you interpret the climactic conclusion to the framing narrative of The Speech of the Birds of ‘Attar of Nishapur? How did ‘Aziz Nasafi understand the concept of religion? What do Rumi’s conversations with the Divine tell us about his teachings and his poetry? How do medieval Persian Sufi commentators add to our understanding the Qur’an? How can we utilise Sufi manuals, life stories and utterances? All of these explorations and more bring the depth and eloquence of Persian mystical literature to life in this volume.

Editor note: This books falls outside our known comfort zone, but not by such a wide margin that we can ignore it. ~AZ

Categories
Books

Zoroastrian Apocalypticism in The Maʿnī-yi Vahman Yasht

Alimoradi, Pooriya. 2024. “The wolf era ends, and the sheep era starts”: Zoroastrian apocalypticism in the Maʿnī-yi Vahman Yasht. Leiden: Brill.

This book studies, for the first time, the Maʿnī-yi Vahman Yasht , the New Persian version of the Zand ī Wahman Yašt , the most important Zoroastrian text in apocalyptic genre. Through offering a critical edition, translation, and commentary, Alimoradi argues that the MVY is not a translation of the extant Pahlavi ZWY and is derived from another recension of apocalyptic materials in Pahlavi. He also offers suggestions in identifying several unspecified characters and events referred to in the text whose identities have been debated for decades. The book is relevant to those interested in Zoroastrianism, Iranian apocalyptic traditions, and anyone studying the Arab conquests in Western and Central Asia in 6ᵗʰ to 9ᵗʰ c. CE.

Categories
Books

Ideological Variants in Persian Texts

Alsancakli, Sasha & Philip Bockholt. 2023. Authorship and textual transmission in the manuscript age: Contextualising ideological variants in Persian texts (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 64). Leuven: Peeters.

The present volume addresses dynamic and collective authorship by examining how authors and scribes in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world produced, copied, and interpreted texts during the manuscript age within specific cultural contexts, out of political necessity and as a result of professional choices. The processes of scribal adaptation faced by scholars studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which are still unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components. Under the label “ideological variations”, this volume intends to discuss any deliberate changes in content, rather than form, made by authors, copyists, and readers intervening at various stages in the process of textual production and transmission.

Categories
Books

Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean

Hebblewhite, Mark & Conor Whately (eds.). 2023. Brill’s Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean. Leiden: Brill.

Among other interesting papers, two contributions are related to ancient Iranian history:

  • Michael Charles: Apple Bearers and Kinsmen Cavalry: Guards Units of the Kings of Achaemenid Persia
  • Jeffrey Rop: The Four Hundred and the Ten Thousand: The Politics of Greek Bodyguard Service in the Achaemenid Empire
Categories
Books

Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity

Kotyk, Jeffrey. 2024. Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian relations in Late Antiquity: China and the Parthians, Sasanians, and Arabs in the first millennium (Crossroads – History of Interactions across the Silk Routes 8). Leiden: Brill.

What type of exchanges occurred between West and East Asia in the first millennium CE? What sort of connections existed between Persia and China? What did the Chinese know of early Islam?
This study offers an overview of the cultural, diplomatic, commercial, and religious relationships that flourished between Iran and China, building on the pioneering work of Berthold Laufer’s Sino-Iranica (1919) while utilizing a diverse array of Classical Chinese sources to tell the story of Sino-Iran in a fresh light to highlight the significance of transcultural networks across Asia in late antiquity.

Website Summary
Categories
Books

The Art of Teaching Persian Literature

Lewis, Franklin,Asghar Seyed-Gohrab & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (eds.). 2024. The Art of Teaching Persian Literature: From Theory to Practice. Leiden: Brill.

This unique book is the first publication on the art of teaching Persian literature in English, consisting of 18 chapters by prominent early-career, mid-career and established scholars, who generously share their experiences and methodologies in teaching both classical and modern Persian literature across various academic traditions in the world. The volume is divided into three parts: the background to teaching Persian literature: pedagogy, translation and canon, and thematic and topical approaches to the Persian literature class. It includes such topics as the history of teaching Persian literature, the traditional teaching of Persian literature, the political and ideological intentions revealed in the formation of the Persian literature curriculum, the necessity to include marginalized modern Persian literature, such as women’s or diaspora literature, and more applied approaches to curriculum development and teaching.