Tag: Achaemenid

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Yahwism under the Achaemenid Empire

Barnea, Gad & Reinhard G. Kratz (eds.). 2024. Yahwism under the Achaemenid Empire: Professor Shaul Shaked in memoriam (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 548). Berlin: De Gruyter.

The Achaemenid period (550–330 BCE) is rightly seen as one of the most formative periods in Judaism. It is the period in which large portions of the Bible were edited and redacted and others were authored—yet no dedicated interdisciplinary study has been undertaken to present a consistent picture of this decisive time period.
This book is dedicated to the study of the touchpoints between Yahwistic communities throughout the Achaemenid empire and the Iranian attributes of the empire that ruled over them for about two centuries. Its approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary. It brings together scholars of Achaemenid history, literature and religion, Iranian linguistics, historians of the Ancient Near East, archeologists, biblical scholars and Semiticists. The goal is to better understand the interchange of ideas, expressions and concepts as well as the experience of historical events between Yahwists and the empire that ruled over them for over two centuries. The book will open up a holisitic perspective on this important era to scholars of a wide variety of fields in the study of Judaism in the Ancient Near East.

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Wine Cultures

Antonetti, Claudia, Bryan De Notariis & Marco Enrico (eds.). 2024. Wine cultures: Gandhāra and beyond (Antichistica 40). Venezia: Venice University Press.

The volume Wine Cultures. Gandhāra and Beyond represents the primary outcome of the MALIWI project (SPIN Ca’ Foscari 2021) directed by Claudia Antonetti. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this work seeks to explore the production techniques, social functions, and cultural significance of intoxicating drinks with particular reference to wine – an extraordinary beverage that has been intertwined with human history for millennia. This volume gathers contributions by scholars interested in studying wine and drinking culture in Gandhāra and neighbouring regions, including Ancient Assyria, Arachosia, and present-day India. The topic is explored from three fundamental perspectives, employing a diverse range of sources, including literary and historical texts, as well as linguistic, iconographic, archaeological, and anthropological evidence.

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Architecture and Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire

Dan, Roberto. 2023. Studies on the architecture and archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire. Dynamics of interaction and transmission between centre and periphery. Roma: ISMEO – The International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies.

The relations between the centre and periphery of the Achaemenid Empire have been, for several years, the focus of numerous in-depth studies. The characteristics of this World Empire, which was a new phenomenon in the ancient Near East, have stimulated this scholarly research, based on written sources, as well as archaeological and cultural evidence. Quite often, the goal of these studies was to assess the impact of the empire’s core? A concept whose cultural outline warrants precise definition?within the regions under its control. For several decades, the basic question on the matter put forward by Roger Moorey (Cemeteries of the First Millennium B.C. at Deve Höyük, 1980: 128), who challenged the significance of the material traces of Persian domination (considered too flimsy), was echoed by many historians, who indeed have asked whether there “ever was a Persian empire.” That question was raised by Amélie Kuhrt and Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg in the introduction of a book whose title was, relevantly, Centre and Periphery (Achaemenid History, IV, 1990).

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A scribal school of forgers

Fattori, Marco. 2022. A scribal school of forgers in “Hamadān”. Rivista degli Studi Orientali XCV(3). 27–44.

In this article it is argued that the Old Persian inscriptions labelled AmH, AsH, D2Ha, D2Hb, A2Hc and A1I are all modern forgeries, whose production was inspired by the discovery of the genuine inscription DHa, published in 1926. First, an overview of the known information concerning the alleged finding of these objects is offered, pointing out that all the previous attempts to provide a historically plausible reconstruction of their original location and function are unconvincing or selfcontradictory. Subsequently, it is shown that all these inscriptions share some palaeographic features which are otherwise unattested in the corpus of authentic Old Persian inscriptions. Instead, these features only appear in some modern manuals available to the public in the years when these objects were reportedly found, which constitutes crucial evidence against their authenticity.

The original publication can be accessed via this DOI.

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Lycia and Persia in the Xanthos stele

Hyland, John. 2021. Between Amorges and Tissaphernes: Lycia and Persia in the Xanthos stele. In Annick Payne, Šárka Velhartická & Jorit Wintjes (eds.), Beyond all boundaries: Anatolia in the first millennium BC (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 295), 257–278. Leuven: Peeters Publishers.

The Xanthos stele, a multilingual Lycian dynastic monument of the late 5th century BCE, testifies to the importance of diplomatic interaction between Xanthos’ rulers and Achaemenid Persian administrators in western Anatolia. Yet the stele’s Persian references are unevenly and selectively distributed between its Lycian and Lycian B inscriptions, and entirely absent from its Greek epigram. Amorges, a satrap’s son turned rebel, appears briefly in the Lycian and Lycian B texts, but scholars debate whether they present him as friend or foe of Xanthos; in contrast, the final section of the Lycian text celebrates the famous satrap Tissaphernes as an ally of Xanthos, but the Lycian B omits him entirely. This paper analyzes the stele’s Persian content and proposes that its designers added the material on Tissaphernes in a late stage of composition, trying to exploit his patronage in the context of local dynastic politics.

Abstract

The whole book is open access and can be downloaded from the link of the book title above.

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Studies on the History of the Achaimenids

Wiesehöfer, Josef. 2022. Iran – Zentralasien – Mittelmeer Gesammelte Schriften, Teil I: Studien zur Geschichte der Achaimeniden. (Philippika – Altertumswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen). (Ed.) Robert Rollinger & Kai Ruffing. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

Josef Wiesehöfer is one of the leading German-speaking historians of ancient history and is a world-renowned scholar, who has made outstanding achievements in his fields of research. In keeping with the diversity of his research interests, especially in the field of Iran and the Iranian Great Empires as well as the history of scholarship of the field, four thematically volumes of his “Kleine Schriften” are planned. These Kleine Schriften are intended to provide an insight into his scholarly work and contain a selection of the 250 scholarly articles Wiesehöfer has published to date in over 45 years of research.

Volume 1, edited by Robert Rollinger and Kai Ruffing, focuses on the history of the Achaimenid Empire and brings together 14 essays, some of which were published in more remote places. The contributions are indexed and Josef Wiesehöfer himself has added a short commentary on the progress of research. The following volumes will be devoted to Hellenism and the Arsacids, the Sasanian and finally the history of scholarship of the field.

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Afterlives of Ancient Rock-Cut Monuments in the Near East

Ben-Dov, Jonathan & Felipe Rojas (eds.). 2021. Afterlives of ancient rock-cut monuments in the Near East. Brill.

This book concerns the ancient rock-cut monuments carved throughout the Near East, paying particular attention to the fate of these monuments in the centuries after their initial production. As parts of the landscapes in which they were carved, they acquired new meanings in the cultural memory of the people living around them. The volume joins numerous recent studies on the reception of historical texts and artefacts, exploring the peculiar affordances of these long-lasting and often salient monuments. The volume gathers articles by archeologists, art historians, and philologists, covering the entire Near East, from Iran to Lebanon and from Turkey to Egypt. It also analyzes long-lasting textual traditions that aim to explain the origins and meaning of rock-cut monuments and other related carvings.

Three chapters of this volume deals specifically Ancient Iranian rock-cut monuments:

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شاه و نخبگان در شاهنشاهی هخامنشی

به کوشش ووتر ف. م. هنکلمن. ۱۴۰۰. شاه و نخبگان در شاهنشاهی هخامنشی: گزیده مقالاتی در باب بایگانی باروی هخامنشی . ترجمه از یزدان صفایی و حمیدرضا نیک‌روش. تهران: موزه ملی ایران.

Henkelman, W.F.M. (ed.). 2021. King and Elite in the Achaemenid Empire: Selected Studies based on the Persepolis Fortification Archive (Treasures of Ancient Iran 1). Translated by Yazdan Safaee & Hamidreza Nikravesh. Tehran: National Museum of Iran.

کتاب شاه و نخبگان در شاهنشاهی هخامنشی مقالاتی را شامل می‌شود که موضوع آنها بر شبکه روابط میان شاه و گروه نخبگان اطراف او تمرکز دارد. این مقالات عمدتاً ماحصل تحقیق بر روی متون بایگانی باروی تخت‌جمشید هستند، یعنی یکی از مهم‌ترین منابع برای شناخت تاریخ هخامنشیان. مقالات مذکور در اصل به انگلیسی منتشر شده بودند و ترجمه فارسی آنها در این کتاب با هدف انتشار بخشی از نتایج پروژه بایگانی باروی تخت‌جمشید در دسترس قرار گرفته است. از این روی کتاب فوق‌الذکر مجموعه‌ای از مقالات محققان پیشتازی است که در این پروژه مشغول به تحقیق هستند: آنالیزا آتزونی، مارک گریسون، ووتر هنکلمن و متیو استولپر.

کتاب حاضر مجلد نخست از مجموعه‌ای است به نام گنج‌آمار ایران باستان: منابع و مطالعات فرهنگ و تاریخ آغازین ایران که به همت موزه ملی ایران منتشر می‌شود که هدف آن انتشار ترجمه‌هایی فارسی از تحقیقات جدید در مورد ایران باستان است.

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A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire

Jacobs, Bruno & Robert Rollinger (eds.). 2021. A companion to the Achaemenid Persian empire. 2 vols. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

The Achaemenid Empire is often addressed as the first World Empire. However, its roots are in Near Eastern traditions, some of which have been the subject of recent intensive reevaluation. This book takes a unique and innovative approach to the subject, considering those predecessors to whom the Achaemenid Empire was indebted for its structure, ideology, and self-expression, by examining both written and archaeological sources. It addresses the empire’s legacy, and its contemporary, later, and even modern reception.

A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire takes into account all relevant historical sources, including archaeological ones. It places particular emphasis on looking at the Achaemenid Empire from its different centers, paying just as much attention to the widely neglected eastern parts as to the commonly covered western parts of the empire. The book considers, not only its political history, but also its social, economic, and religious history, institutions, and art and science, in an effort to draw a complete picture of the empire and to foster an appreciation for its lasting reputation.

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Quatrefoils of Early China and Their Achaemenid Parallels

Kim, Minku. 2021. The Pinnacle Ornament of Flowers: Quatrefoils of Early China and Their Achaemenid Parallels. In Guolong Lai (ed.), Occult Arts, Art History, and Cultural Exchange in Early China: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Li Ling on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press.

Roof tile-ends (wadang) with double quatrefoils. From the site of Shuzhuanglou 梳粧樓, Warring- States Zhao 趙 city of Dabeicheng 大北城, Handan 邯鄲 (Hebei). Fourth to third century BCE.

The quatrefoil is an ornamental design formed by a cruciferous arrangement of four leafor petal-like projections radiating from a mutual hub. The form was widely circulated across the ancient Western world, most distinctively in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau, with a variety of related schemes, including the dual quatrefoil (also known as the petal-and-calyx alternation), as well as those more commonly called the rosettes or lotus flowers. In China, quatrefoils began to be regularly seen during the late Springs and Autumns period, most notably on the assemblage of Jin bronzes. The usage of quatrefoils gradually intensified in the following periods, reaching an apogee during the Han empire, with a range of variants applied to numerous articles of material culture. With the quatrefoils being a design largely unknown prior to the mid-Eastern Zhou period, this essay argues that a foreign stimulus, most notably from the then emerging Achaemenid empire, provided a primary catalyst for the subsequent adaptations of this type of ornament in China.