Categories
Events

Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

Sasanian SilkSymposium

Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

Hangzhou, China, Oct. 11th –Oct. 13th, 2015

In June 2014, the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor jointly nominated by China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was inscribed on the World Heritage List, making the ancient Silk Road a common wealth of human beings.

Parallel to the cognominal exhibition, held at the China National Silk Museum from Sept. 15th to Oct. 14th, 2015, which include masterpiece ancient silk textiles and other treasures related to the Silk Road from 24 Chinese museums and archaeological institutions of eight provinces, the symposium will present the following six sections:

  • Silk Road and Technical Exchange
  • Archaeological Findings of Silk in China
  • Archaeological Findings of Silk outside China
  • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Linguistics
  • Maritime Silk Road and Chinese Export Silk
  • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Anthropology

See here  for more details and the programme, speackers and topics.

Some talks relevant to Iranian Studies are:

  • Matthehew Canepa: “Sasanian Persian silks in archaeology findings and stone relief illustration
  • Bi Bo: “Silk in Sogdian Literature”
  • Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi: “Silk in Persian Literature”

 

Categories
Articles

The Ladies of Veh Ardashir

Simpson, St.John. 2013. The Ladies of Veh Ardashir. Palazzo Madama, studi e notizie, 3(2): 10-15.

A short article exploring the evidence provided by a selection of the Sasanian “small finds” excavated at Veh Ardashir by the Centro Scavi di Torino. This research is part of the author’s core research on Sasanian and early medieval portable material culture and a detailed publication of all of these finds from this excavation is in preparation.

Categories
Events

Susa and Elam

International conference: Susa and Elam: History, Language, Religion and Culture

6-9 July 2015, Université catholique de Louvain

Program

Monday 6 July

 Opening lecture: Elizabeth Carter: Reassessing the Elamite contribution to the Luristan Bronzes

Continue reading “Susa and Elam”
Categories
Articles

The Parthian Aristocracy

Dąbrowa, Edward. 2013. The Parthian Aristocracy: its Social Position and Political Activity, Parthica 15, 2013 [2014], 53-62.

Without doubt, the aristocracy occupied an important place in the complicated political and cultural structure of the Parthian state. Sources reveal that the role of this group in its history was determined not only by its social, material or even political position, but also by the strength and authority of individual monarchs. The position of the aristocracy was also axected by external factors. From the moment that the East came into the orbit of Roman policy, political position of the aristocracy was strengthened considerably. The opportunity to attain Roman support for the realization of their own ambitions meant that within the aristocracy opposition to the ruler became more frequent, and certain groups began more ruthlessly to seek not only defense of the rights and privileges they had gained, but above all greater freedom of political actions. In the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD this approach led to a marked weakening in the position of the Arsacid state towards Rome in competition for inkuence in Anatolia, the Caucasus and Armenia as well as even Mesopotamia. Owing to the lack of later sources, we cannot say whether the political gains of the Parthian aristocracy were long lasting.

Categories
Journal

Studies on Aramaic Magic Bowls and Related Subjects

Aramaic Studies, Volume 13, Issue 1, 2015. Special issue: “Studies on Aramaic Magic Bowls and Related Subjects”.

The special issue of the Journal of Aramaic Studies, guest-edited by Siam Bhayro is devoted to the Aramaic magic bowls.

 

 

Table of Contents

Peter T. Lanfer: Why Biblical Scholars Should Study Aramaic Bowl Spells

Ortal-Paz Saar: A Study in Conceptual Parallels: Graeco-Roman Binding Spells and Babylonian Incantation Bowls

Siam Bhayro: On Early Jewish Literature and the Aramaic Magic Bowls

Avigail Manekin Bamberger: Jewish Legal Formulae in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

Marco Moriggi: Jewish Divorce Formulae in Syriac Incantation Bowls

Harriet Walker: Possible Psychological Roles of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls: Therapeutic Functions of Belief in Demons and the Practice of Incantations

Categories
Books

Dēnkard IV

Rezai 2014, Dk IVRezai, Maryam. Dēnkard IV. Transcription, Translation and Glossary. Elmi Publication. Tehran: 2014.

Dēnkard “Acts of the religion”, divided into nine books, is a summary of knowledge of the Zoroastrian religioni, written in Middle Persian (Pahlavi), from which, the first two and the beginning of the third books are lost. Two compilers of Dēnkard are known to us, Ādurfarnbag ī Farroxzādān, first author and Ādurbād Ēmēdān, second author and compiler of the Dēnkard in 9th-century.

The Dēnkard is primarily an apology for Zoroastrian religion, more specifically, Dēnkard IV, the shortest, is a text dealing with different subjects regarding the customs, arts, and sciences, which is from the same genre as one chapter of Book III.  It consists of a philosophical thoughts on the aməša spəntas; an account on the role of the Persian sovereigns in the defense of Mazdayasnian Religion from the Achaemenid Darius III up to Husrauw I; some thoughts on limited and limitless time, fate, action, and free will; some thought on learning Avesta and its commentary; on arts; on the four casts of poeple; as well as on the more abstract concepts of metaphysics, e.g. considerations on the afterlife, the necessity of Mazdayasna religion and the zoroastrian ethical triad.

This volume contains a transcritption of the Dēnkard IV based on the Madan Edition as well as a Persian translation following by a facsimile of the printed Pahlavi text and a Pahlavi-Persian glossary.

In Original:

رضایی، مریم. دینکرد چهارم: آوانویسی, ترجمه، واژه‌نامه. انتشارات علمی. تهران: ۱۳۹۳

reżāyi, maryam. dinkard-e čahārom: āvānevisi, tarğome, vāže-nāme. entešārāt-e ʿelmi. tehrān: 1393

Categories
Books

Husraw I: Reconstruction of a Reign. Sources and Documents

Jullien, Christelle (ed). 2015. Husraw Ier: Reconstruction d’un règne. Sources et documents (Cahiers de Studia Iranica 53). Paris. Peeters.

The reign of Husraw I Anosirwan / Chosroes (531-579), the most remarkable one during the Sasanian dynasty, was pivotal in the history of Iran. During that period, far-reaching projects to restructure the state affected all strata of society, royal power was strengthened and the country experienced significant cultural development. No major scientific gathering was devoted to this subject, and here are published the proceedings of a symposium organized in Paris. Its aim was to bring together international scholars from various fields who work on often difficult-to-access or hitherto unpublished source material in several languages. The resulting interactions and intersecting perspectives help to piece together many facets of that reign, thus providing a rich contribution to the history of the East in the 6th century.

For more information, see the Table of Contents of this volume.

Categories
Books

Military Operations of Rome and Sasanian Iran

Katarzyna Maksymiuk 2015Maksymiuk, Katarzyna. Geography of Roman-Iranian Wars. Military Operations of Rome and Sasanian Iran. Siedlce: Instytut Historii i Stosunków Międzynarodowych Uniwersytetu Przyrodniczo-Humanistycznego w Siedlcach, 2015.
Until the second half of the second century AD the border between Rome and Iran was marked by the Euphrates, with Mesopotamia regarded as an integral part of the Parthian state. In 224 AD the power in Iran was taken over by the Sasanians, who sought to regain influence over the territory previously ruled by the Parthians. The change of the dynasty in Iran was perceived as a threat to the position of Rome in the Near East. It has result a series of conflicts resumed shortly after the overthrow of Parthian rule and Ardašīr I’s foundation of the Sassanid Empire, known as Roman–Sasanian Wars.
This book is an expanded english translation of the in 2012 published original Geografia wojen rzymsko-irańskich. Działania Rzymu i Iranu w okresie sasanidzkim in Polish. The present work is primarily addressed to students and scholars of history. It presents a valuable collection of designing maps depicting topography of Roman-Iranian armed conflicts. The maps have been created on the basis of source texts reporting wars waged by Rome against the Sasanian Iran and only the towns and provinces which were mentioned by ancient writers while reporting specific conflicts have been marked. Moreover, the present work contains only maps of military operations in which Roman and Iranian armies directly participated.
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Categories
Online resources

A newly discovered Yasna manuscript

A newly discovered Yasna manuscript from Yazd, Iran

Yasna
© 2015 Saloumeh Gholami

The newly discovered Avestan manuscript contains an illuminated Yasna ceremony and belongs to the Dinyār family in Yazd, Iran. Prof. Alberto Cantera has already confirmed that the new manuscript is a Yasna manuscript. The only other known Yasna manuscript of a comparable age is kept at the British Library.

Even though the manuscript has no colophon, according to Alberto Cantera it is most probably by the hand of Mihrabān Anōšīrwān Wahromšāh and should be dated around 1630. The scribe’s hand as well as the illuminations also show a close relation to the Vīdēvdād Sāde of the same scribe, dated to 1647 CE / 1016 Y, kept today in the British Library.

This manuscript is discovered and purchased by Vahid Zolfaghari and is now kept in his private collection. Prof. Alberto Cantera and his team at the Avestan Digital Archive (ADA) project seek to publish and make the manuscript available publicly.

Yasna manuscripts contain the long liturgical text recited during the daily performance of the Yasna, the central ritual in Zoroastrianism. It was originally composed in the ancient Iranian language of Avestan between the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE. Different types of Yasna manuscripts are available, those transmitted with the Pahlavi translation (i.e. Pahlavi-Yasna), those without a translation (i.e. Yasna Sāde) and those with the Sankrit translation (i.e. Sanskrit Yasna). Among the manuscripts of the Pahlavi-Yasna one can distinguish two lines of transmission, namly the Indian Pahlavi-Yasna and the Iranian Pahlavi-Yasna.

Categories
Journal

The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as World Literature

The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as World Literature

Iranian Studies, volume 48, Number 3, May 2015. Special issue: “The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as World Literature”

The special issue of the Journal of Iranian Studies, guest-edited by Franklin Lewis is dedicated to studies on Shahname within a  “world literature”  framework.

Iranian Studies is a peer reviewed journal of history, literature, culture and society, covering everywhere with a Persian or Iranian legacy, especially Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus and northern India.

Continue reading “The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as World Literature”