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.
Khan, Geoffrey. 2014. Arabic documents from early Islamic Khurasan (Einstein Lectures in Islamic Studies 3). Berlin.
Categories
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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Iran and the West
Call for Papers for a conference at the University of Warwick:
Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives
1-3 July 2015
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Forgotten origins of modern humanities
From the book’s webpage: ‘The humanities today face a crisis of relevance, if not of meaning and purpose. Understanding their common origins—and what they still share—has never been more urgent’.
Turner, James. 2014. Philology: The forgotten origins of the modern humanities. Princeton University Press.
Many today do not recognize the word, but “philology” was for centuries nearly synonymous with humanistic intellectual life, encompassing not only the study of Greek and Roman literature and the Bible but also all other studies of language and literature, as well as religion, history, culture, art, archaeology, and more. In short, philology was the queen of the human sciences. How did it become little more than an archaic word? In Philology, the first history of Western humanistic learning as a connected whole ever published in English, James Turner tells the fascinating, forgotten story of how the study of languages and texts led to the modern humanities and the modern university.
For more information, see here.
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The early Islamic world
This very interesting volume has an article by Jairus Banaji On the Identity of Shahrālānyōzān in the Greek and Middle Persian Papyri from Egypt:
Schubert, Alexander & Petra Sijpesteijn (eds.). 2014. Documents and the history of the early Islamic world. Leiden: Brill.
Historians have long lamented the lack of contemporary documentary sources for the Islamic middle ages and the inhibiting effect this has had on our understanding of this critically important period. Although the field is richly served by surviving evidence, much of it is hard to locate, difficult to access, and philologically intractable. Presenting a mixture of historical studies and new editions of Greek, Arabic and Coptic material from the seventh to the fifteenth century C.E. from Egypt and Palestine, Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World explores the untapped wealth of documentary sources available in collections around the world and shows how this exciting material can be used for historical analysis.
For more information, see here.
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Biographical notices
BL’s Asian and African studies blog has a highly recommended piece on George Percy Churchill’s biographical notices of Persian statesmen and notables.
Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond (ed.). 2014. Miscellaneous hymns: Middle Persian and Parthian hymns in the Turfan Collection (Berliner Turfantexte 31). Brepols Publishers.
This is an edition of a large number of fragments of Middle Persian and Parthian Manichaean hymns in the Berlin Turfan Collection. M. Boyce in the register of her 1960 Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichaean script in the German Turfan Collection identified fragments of hymns ‘to the Third Messenger’ (group 44); ‘Parthian hymns written in couplets, unclassified’ (group 58) and ‘Hymns, unclassified, including poems’ (group 81). Though some of these fragments have been published in the meantime and others are very small, this yields more than 250 previously unpublished fragments, many of considerable size. The fragments are presented in diplomatic edition together with a transcription and translation into English. Since most of the hymns are abecedarian they are presented as far as possible in strophic form. An extensive introduction, notes, a complete glossary and facsimiles of joined fragments accompany the edition.
For more information, see the publisher’s website.
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Review: Sasanian coins
Heidemann, Stefan. 2013. Review of Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, M. Elahé Askari & Elizabeth J. Pendleton: Sasanian Coins: A sylloge of the Sasanian coins in the National Museum of Iran (Muzeh Melli Iran), vol. 1 & 2. London: Royal Numismatic Society in assoc. with the British Institute of Persian Studies. JOSA 45. 117–123.
Read the review here.