Tag: Old Persian

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Books

The Bīsotūn Inscription – A Jeopardy of Achaemenid History

Ahmadi, Amir. 2020. The Bīsotūn Inscription – A Jeopardy of Achaemenid History. The Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History 27. 3–56.

Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC)
Behistūn Relief

According to the currently favoured view among historians of the Persian Empire, the Bīsotūn Inscription is a deceitful piece of propaganda whose purpose was to resolve Darius’s legitimacy problem. To this effect, Darius cobbles a family relation with Cyrus and fabricates the story of a magus who impersonates Smerdis, son of Cyrus, and usurps the throne. This view, however, contradicts not only the Bīsotūn Inscription but also the ancient Greek testimonies. This article examines the arguments historians have given for their position. Since allviews of the two issues in question are necessarily interpretations of the relevant sources that rely on argumentation, reasons and inferences must stand up to critical scrutiny.

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Articles

An Inscription of Darius I from Phanagoria

Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2019. An Inscription of Darius I from Phanagoria (DFa): Preliminary report of a work in progress. Arta 2019. 005.

The present paper is a preliminary study of an Achaemenid fragmentary inscription recently discovered from Phanagoria, southwestern Russia. After a brief introduction to the discovery of the inscription, the preserved Old Persian text will be analysed and reconstructed.

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Articles

DNf: A New Inscription Emerges from the Shadow

Delshad, Soheil, and Mojtaba Doroodi. 2019. DNf: A new inscription emerges from the shadow. Arta 2019.001.

DNf is a recently-discovered trilingual inscription on the tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rostam. This article presents images, a first edition of the texts, observations on why the inscription was not recognized earlier, and comments on the relationship between the inscription and the sculptured figures below it.

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Articles

On the invention of the Old Persian Cuneiform

Albino, Marcos. 2017 [2018]. Zur Erfindung der altpersischen Schrift. MSS: Munich Studies on Linguistics Issue 71(2): 181-200.

In diesem Aufsatz stelle ich die Hypothese zur Diskussion, dass die altpersische Schrift unter Darius I. erfunden wurde, und zwar auf folgende Weise: ein Gelehrter („der Erfinder“) schrieb erst in aramäischer Schrift den Name des Darius, seines Vaters, seiner Vorfahren und die der anderen persischen Könige. Dann erfand er willkürlich das Zeichen für den ersten Buchstaben in Darius’ Namen und modifizierte dieses Zeichen für die anderen Buchstaben dieses und der anderen Namen: (fast) jedes neue Zeichen ist das Ergebnis der Modifizierung des Vorangehenden oder eines in seiner Nähe in der aramäischen Vorlage.

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Articles

The grammaticalization of progressive aspect in Persian

Davari, Shadi & Mehrdad Naghzguy-Kohan. 2017. The grammaticalization of progressive aspect in Persian. In Kees Hengeveld, Heiko Narrog & Hella Olbertz (eds.), The Grammaticalization of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality: A Functional Perspective (Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 311), 163–190. Berlin: De Gruyter.
This paper investigates the development of the Persian lexical verb dâštan ‘have’, which has grammaticalized into an auxiliary verb functioning primarily as a progressive aspect marker in durative situations, and which is currently developing into a prospective marker with achievement verbs. Possessive progressives are a cross-linguistic rarity and deserve attention. We suggest that the progressive function arose through context-induced reinterpretation based on metonymic relations. The resulting reinterpretation of dâštan ‘have’ to ‘ongoingness of a durative event’ represents a conceptual shift, in the form of metaphoric extension, from possessing a physical object to possessing the continuum of an action in a focal point of utterance. We will also illustrate that the progressive’s focus on subjective notions leads to its development as an expression of the speaker’s attitude that does not describe properties of a situation in the extralinguistic world but rather in the subjective conceptualization of the speaker. The auxiliation process of dâštan ‘have’ in Persian will be analyzed based on the Auxiliation Dimensions Model proposed by Davari and Naghzguy-Kohan (forthcoming), which focuses on the force, the source and the degree of auxiliation. We also point out that these changes are in tune with the overall directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization according to Narrog (2012), namely, increase in speaker-orientation.
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Books

Cosmic, cultic and social spaces in Early Zoroastrianism

Rezania, Kianoosh. 2017. Raumkonzeptionen im früheren Zoroastrismus. Kosmische, kultische und soziale Räume (Iranica, GOF III/NF 14). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Space, like time, is one of the basic categories of our thinking. Their concepts do not remain constant in different cultures or in changing periods, which is why dealing with a historical cultural phenomenon always requires a review of these categories in their specific culture and time. Based on the oldest linguistic and architectural evidence of Iran from the 12th to the 4th century BC, for the first time Kianoosh Rezania offers a comprehensive study of space concepts in Zoroastrianism in ancient Iran.
Based on current and historical theories of space, the Zoroastrian spaces are divided into cosmic, cultic and social spaces. The depiction of the cosmic spaces describes spatial abstractions in ancient Iranian languages as well as Zoroastrian boundary principles. Rezania examines the coordinate systems that ancient Iranians used for orientation in space and how they transformed their cognitive maps into text. This also includes the portrayal of the Zoroastrian worldview according to their older texts. At the intersection of cosmic and cultural spaces, there are transcendent spaces that contain, on the one hand, utopian spaces for communication with gods, some of which are written by poets. Since the study does not rule out dynamics and change processes in the ritual domain, reconstructions of Zoroastrian ritual surfaces in the Avestan period are presented without the inclusion of recent materials. In addition, the spatially represented social structure of the Avestan society and their spatial symbolic orders are presented.
For the table of contents of this volume visit here.
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Articles

Report on Inscribed Fragments Excavated from Drainage System of Southern Courtyard of Tačar

Delshad, Soheil. 2017. Report on inscribed fragments excavated from drainage system of Southern courtyard of Tačar. In Asadi, A. and M. Mansouri (eds.), Excavation reports of the third season of archaeological excavations at Persepolis drainage system, 121–135. Persepolis World Heritage Site.

During the second and third seasons of excavations at Persepolis drainage system (led by A. Asadi and M. Mansouri), three inscribed fragments have been excavated. The exact findspot of those fragments is the water channel at the southern courtyard of Tačara Palace. The first two fragments have been found during the third season of excavations (i.e., 1396: 2017) and the third fragment has been revealed to the excavators in the second season (i.e., 1393: 2014).

In original:
دلشاد، سهیل. 1396. گزارش خرده‌کتیبه های شناسایی شده از آب راه حیاط جنوبی تچر. گزارش فصل سوم کاووشهای باستانشناختی آبراهه‌های تخت جمشید (ا. اسدی-م. منصوری)، پایگاه میراث جهانی تخت جمشید، صفحات 121-135.

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Events

Darius I and Divinity

Greater Glory: Darius I and Divinity in Achaemenid Royal Ideology

A lecture by Matthew Waters (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)
Organised by the Pourdavoud Center

For more information, click on the photo above or follow this link.

Continue reading “Darius I and Divinity”
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Events

Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia

Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia: Linguistic, Ritual, and Socio-Economic Aspects

International Workshop, organized by the Institute of Iranian Studies (IFI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Vienna Linguistic Society and the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press

13.12-15.12.2016, Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences

The Cyrus cylinder © The Trustees of the British Museum

Continue reading “Multilingualism, Communication and Social Reality in Pre-Modern Eurasia”
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Books

Stylistics of Old Persian Royal Inscriptions

Schmitt, Rüdiger. 2016. Stilistik der altpersischen Inschriften. Versuch einer Annäherung. (Veröffentlichungen Zur Iranistik 79). Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW).
The present study makes the first attempt to compile in a systematic manner the figures of speech and other stylistic phenomena attested in the corpus of the Old Persian royal inscriptions. For those texts are different from simple prose in that they show clear traces of a stylization that similarly to using certain words and word forms lend them characteristic features of an artificial language. The phenomena to be treated in that context are presented in transcription according to the author’s text edition (Die altpersischen Inschriften der Achaimeniden, 2009) in form of a list without classifying them according to criteria of sound or those of grammar, lexicon, and syntax. References to comparable phenomena in the related languages (not least also in Avestan) are given only quite rarely in order not to distract the reader’s attention from the Old Persian data. The comparison with Avestan or within the ancient Indo-Iranian languages, i. e. in form of “Comparative Stylistics of Indo-Iranian”, has to be planned only after having finished collecting the evidence of the individual languages in full. Suggesting such a study is one of the intentions of the present book.
Rüdiger Schmitt, from 1979 to his retirement in 2004 Professor of Comparative Indo-European Philology and Indo-Iranian Studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken; born in Würzburg on June 1, 1939; studies from 1958 to 1965 in Würzburg, Erlangen and Saarbrücken, particularly with Manfred Mayrhofer; after publications on Indo-European poetical language, on the Greek and Armenian languages specialized on the ancient Iranian languages, Old Persian epigraphy and, above all, Iranian personal names.