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Articles

Seleukid Sacred Architecture, Royal Cult and the Transformation of Iranian Culture in the Middle Iranian Period

Matthew P. Canepa. 2014. Seleukid sacred architecture, royal cult and the transformation of Iranian culture in the Middle Iranian period. Iranian Studies 48(1). 1-27.

This article proposes a new approach to three of the most persistent problems in the study of Iranian art and religion from the coming of Alexander to the fall of the Sasanians: the development of Iranian sacred architecture, the legacy of the Achaemenids, and the development of the art and ritual of Iranian kingship after Alexander. Canepa explores the ways in which the Seleukids contributed basic and enduring elements of Iranian religious and royal culture that lasted throughout late antiquity. Beyond stressing simple continuities or breaks with the Babylonian, Achaemenid or Macedonian traditions, this article argues that the Seleukids selectively integrated a variety of cultural, architectural and religious traditions to forge what became the architectural vocabularies and religious expressions of the Middle Iranian era.

 

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Books

Xerxes: A Persian life

Stoneman, Richard. 2015. Xerxes: A Persian life. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire from 486–465 B.C., has gone down in history as an angry tyrant full of insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the 300 against his army at Thermopylae is a byword for courage, while the failure of Xerxes’ expedition has overshadowed all the other achievements of his twenty-two-year reign.In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective. This illuminating volume does not whitewash Xerxes’ failings but sets against them such triumphs as the architectural splendor of Persepolis and a consideration of Xerxes’ religious commitments. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man who ruled a vast and multicultural empire which the Greek communities of the West saw as the antithesis of their own values.

About the author:
Richard Stoneman is Honorary Visiting Professor, University of Exeter, and the author of numerous books. He lives in Devon, UK.

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Events

Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives

1–3 July 2015, University of Warwick
Call for papers.

Introductory speaker: Dr James Hodkinson, the University of Warwick
Keynote speaker: Prof Ali Ansari, the University of St Andrews.

The conference cordially invites scholars from diverse fields to contribute towards a wide-ranging interdisciplinary conference which aims to further our understanding of Iranian perceptions of the West and Westerners and Western perceptions of Iran and Iranians, from c. 500 BC until the present day. The aim of this conference is to improve our understanding of Iranian and Western cultural perceptions of the other’s culture, people, and politics, both from popular and elite viewpoints, and the points of convergence and divergence between them.

for more information click here

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Books

Magic, Myth and Folklore in Iran

Donaldson, Bess. 2015. The wild rue of Persia: Magic, myth and folklore in Iran. London: I. B. Tauris.

The Wild Rue is a unique study of myth and magic in Iran. Bess Donaldson spent thirty years in Iran as both missionary and teacher and in this classic work she records the beliefs and superstitions of country at a time when they were increasingly under threat from the tremendous changes brought about by the Shah’s program of modernization. This earlier way of life, with its belief in angels and the evil eye, and with its age-old rituals surrounding childbirth and burial, is recounted in an informed yet highly readable text. A unique study of magic, myth and folklore with chapters on cosmology, names and numbers, snakes, dreams, talismans and signs, childbirth, angels, the evil eye, and the calendar. A classic work, long unavailable but now back in print.

A preview of the book is available here.

About the author:

Bess Allen Donaldson was an American Presbyterian missionary and teacher. She began teaching at the Iran Bethel Girl’s School in 1910,  eventually becoming its principal. Bess Donaldson spent thirty years in Iran, during which time she gathered the material for The Wild Rue.

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Events

Animals in Ancient Material Cultures: Conference at the Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam

Call for Papers:

Animals in Ancient Material Cultures

Conference at the Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam

In the wake of recent interest on both sides of the Atlantic in the subject of Animals in Antiquity, papers are invited for an international conference to be held at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam on 15 – 16 October 2015. Speakers from all disciplines are welcomed to present papers on the theme of Animals in Ancient Material Cultures, broadly from ca. 5000 BCE to 500 CE, from the Near East to Europe. The focus of the papers will be on representations of animals in the material world and visual evidence of archaeological objects and/or works of art. Speakers are encouraged to make ample reference to objects from the collection of the Allard Pierson Museum.

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Books

A new etymological dictionary of Persian language

HassandoustHassandust, Mohammad. 2015. The etymological dictionary of Persian. 5 Vols. Tehran: Academy of Persian Language and Literature.

The Etymological Dictionary of Persian is the most comprehensive and up-to-date work in the field of Classical and Modern New Persian historical lexicology and etymology. Since the publication of P. Horn’s Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie (1893) and H. Hübschman’s Persische Studien (1895), enormous progress has been made in the field, and many etymologies have been revised or proposed. This new etymological dictionary, with more than 5500 entries, covers the entire principal vocabulary of Persian lexicon of both Iranian and non-Iranian origin, as well as the inherited lexicon of Persian and synthesizes the achievements of Iranian, and Indo-European, comparative linguistics over the last century. It covers also the vocabularies from diffrent sources of the Persian language attested in Classical poetry, historical narratives, mediaeval Farhangs “dictionaries”, as well as the vocabularies from modern urban and daily vernaculars.

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Events

The Zoroastrian and Manichaean religious controversy

CdF_Seite_1_Seite_1Symposium on the Zoroastrian and Manichaean Religious Controversy:

«Ils disent que…». La controverse religieuse zoroastriens et manichéens.

12—13 June 2015, Collège de France

The two day conference seeks to investigate different topics regarding the “Zoroastrian and Manichean Religious Controversy”. It is organized within the framework of the chair “History and culture of pre-Islamic Central Asia”, Frantz Grenet (Collège de France) and with the scientific support of Jean-Daniel Dubois (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Studies).

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Books

Vom Aramäischen zum Alttürkischen

J. P. Laut, K. Röhrborn (eds.). 2014. Vom Aramäischen zum Alttürkischen: Fragen zur Übersetzung von manichäischen Texten (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften Zu Gottingen. Neue Folge, Band 29). De Gruyter.

Manichaeism claimed to be a world religion. Thus, the problem of translating the Holy Scriptures was of paramount importance. The twelve studies in this volume examine the linguistic and cultural diversity and unique features of the translated texts of Eastern Manichaeism. This book will be of great interest to scholars of religious studies and to researchers in the fields of cultural history and language contact.

For more information, see the ToC of this volume.

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Books

A concise history of the Achaemenid Empire

Waters, Matthew W. 2014. Ancient Persia: A concise history of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire, at its greatest territorial extent under Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE), held sway over territory stretching from the Indus River Valley to southeastern Europe and from the western Himalayas to northeast Africa. In this book, Matt Waters gives a detailed historical overview of the Achaemenid period while considering the manifold interpretive problems historians face in constructing and understanding its history. This book offers a Persian perspective even when relying on Greek textual sources and archaeological evidence. Waters situates the story of the Achaemenid Persians in the context of their predecessors in the mid-first millennium BCE and through their successors after the Macedonian conquest, constructing a compelling narrative of how the empire retained its vitality for more than two hundred years (c. 550–330 BCE) and left a massive imprint on Middle Eastern as well as Greek and European history.

For more information, see here the Preface to this volume and the ToC.

About the author:

Matt Waters is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

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Articles

In the margins of the Rabbinic curriculum

Kiel, Yishai . 2015. In the margins of the Rabbinic curriculum: Mastering ʿUqṣin in the light of Zoroastrian intellectual culture. Journal for the Study of Judaism  46( 2): 251 – 281.

The study situates the Babylonian rabbinic discussion concerning the spread of ritual pollution in produce in a broader cultural and intellectual context, by synoptically examining the rabbinic discussion against the backdrop of contemporaneous Zoroastrian legal discourse. It is suggested that the intimate affinity exhibited between the Babylonian rabbinic and Pahlavi discussions of produce contamination supports a fresh examination of the cultural significance of tractate ʿUqtzin in the Babylonian Talmud and the implications of its mastery on the intellectual and cultural identity of the Babylonian rabbis. The study posits that the self-reflective Talmudic reference to the knowledge and interest later generations of Babylonian rabbis possessed in tractate ʿUqtzin and the spread of ritual pollution in produce reflects the relative significance of these topics in the broader intellectual agenda of the Sasanian period. The later Babylonian rabbis boasted about their knowledge of tractate ʿUqtzin, which extended far beyond the capacity of earlier generations, precisely because this topic best reflected the intellectual currents of their time.