Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Semiramis’ Legacy

    Stronk, Jan p. 2016. Semiramis’ Legacy: The History of Persia According to Diodorus of Sicily (Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia). Edinburgh University Press.

    There are only a few detailed histories of Persia from Ancient Greek historiography that have survived time. Diodorus of Sicily, a first century BC author, is the only one to have written a comprehensive history (the Bibliotheca Historica or Historical Library) in which more than cursory attention is paid to Persia. The Bibliotheca Historica covers the entire period from Persia’s prehistory until the arrival of the Parthians from the East and that of Roman power throughout Asia Minor and beyond from the West, around 750 years after Assyrian rule ended.

    Diodorus’ contribution to our knowledge of Persian history is therefore of great value for the modern historian of the Ancient Near East and in this book Jan Stronk provides the first complete translation of Diodorus’ account of the history of Persia. He also examines and evaluates both Diodorus’ account and the sources he used to compose his work, taking into consideration the historical, political and archaeological factors that may have played a role in the transmission of the evidence he used to acquire the raw material underlying his Bibliotheca.

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  • The Zoroastrian Law to Expel the Demons

    Andrés Toledo, Miguel Ángel. 2016. The Zoroastrian law to expel the demons: Wīdēwdād 10-15. Critical edition, translation and glossary of the Avestan and Pahlavi texts (Iranica 23). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
    The text Wīdēwdād – “Law Serving to Keep the Demons Away” – is one of the longest and most important sources for the study of the Zoroastrianism of the ancient Iranian and the Middle Iranian periods. The ancient Iranian text, written in Avestan, was in the Sassanid era (3rd-7th centuries) translated into Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and provided with glosses and extensive commentaries. The Pahlavi version, called zand, is of particular interest for two reasons: firstly, it is the oldest Middle Persian translation of an Avestan text, and thus of major importance for the linguistic reconstruction of Middle Persian; secondly, the annotations approach complex theological, ritual, and legal questions that examine numerous insufficiently studied areas of the Sassanid society. Despite its outstanding importance, this primary source has, due to the high degree of difficulty of the subject matter, until recently attracted hardly any attention.
    Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo’s book, based upon a careful collation of all 44 still existing manuscripts, is the first critical edition of the Avestan and the Pahlavi text of the Wīdēwdād.
    For more details see the table of the contents of this volume.
    Author:
    Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo is an scholar of Ancient and Middle Iranian Lingustics as well as Zoroastrianism. He is currently a research fellow of the Department of Classical Philology and Indo-European Studies at the University of Salamanca.

  • Philosophy in the Islamic World

    Adamson, Peter. 2016. Philosophy in the Islamic world (A history of philosophy without any gaps 3). Oxford University Press.

    A short editorial note: This book offers a very useful overview, as the title suggests, of philosophy in the Islamic world rather than Islamic philosophy as such. To that end, Part II of the book is dedicated to philosophy in Andalusia, including Jewish philosophy. One chapter deals with the so-called translation movement while others discuss Islamic philosophy developed by “Iranian” philosophers in different eras. I can highly recommend this book as an introductory volume to philosophy in the Islamic world.

    The latest in the series based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, this volume presents the first full history of philosophy in the Islamic world for a broad readership. It takes an approach unprecedented among introductions to this subject, by providing full coverage of Jewish and Christian thinkers as well as Muslims, and by taking the story of philosophy from its beginnings in the world of early Islam all the way through to the twentieth century.

    Source: Philosophy in the Islamic World – Peter Adamson – Oxford University Press

  • 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

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  • Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire

    Hope, Michael. 2016. Power, politics, and tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Ilkhānate of Iran. Oxford University Press.

    This study provides a new interpretation of how political authority was conceived and transmitted in the Early Mongol Empire (1227-1259) and its successor state in the Middle East, the Ikhanate (1258-1335). Authority within the Mongol Empire was intimately tied to the character of its founder, Chinggis Khan, whose reign served as an idealized model for the exercise of legitimate authority amongst his political successors.

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  • Proto-Elamite writing in Iran

    Desset, François. 2016. “Proto-Elamite writing in Iran“, Archéo–Nil 26, 67-104.

    In the Near East, the most ancient writing systems currently known in the world appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC: the proto-cuneiform writing in Southern Mesopotamia and the proto-elamite writing on the Iranian Plateau. Both used for administrative and accounting purposes, these writing systems displayed important parallels, such as the numerical systems and the numerical value signs, and dissimilarities since most of their signs differed from each other. Because of the apparent break in the scribal tradition on the Iranian Plateau around 2800 BC, the proto-elamite writing did not give birth to any offspring which could have helped us in its decipherment, contrary to the proto-cuneiform writing and its heir, the cuneiform writing. For this reason, although it is known for more than one century thanks to the French excavations in Susa, the proto-elamite writing remains still largely undeciphered and only the shared elements with the proto-cuneiform writing (such as the numerical systems) are finally well understood.

  • The Sacred Books of the East

    Molendijk, Arie. 2016. Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East. Oxford University Press.

    This volume offers a critical analysis of one the most ambitious editorial projects of late Victorian Britain: the edition of the fifty substantial volumes of the Sacred Books of the East (1879-1910). The series was edited and conceptualized by Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), a world-famous German-born philologist, orientalist, and religious scholar.

    Arie L. Molendijk is the Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy, University of Groningen.

    Source: Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East – Arie L. Molendijk – Oxford University Press

  • Iranian and Jewish Apocalyptics

    Agostini, Domenico. 2016. On Iranian and Jewish apocalyptics, again. Journal of the American Oriental Society 136 (3). 495–505.

    The relations between the Iranian, in particular Zoroastrian, and Jewish apocalyptic literature as well as their mutual influences have, since the beginning of the twentieth century, constituted a rich and exciting battlefield for the scholars of
    these respective traditions. This article aims to present some topics concerning the definition of Iranian apocalyptics and its relation with its Jewish counterpart, as well as to establish an updated starting point for a new scholarly debate.

  • Disability in Ancient Persia

    Coloru, Omar. 2017. Ancient Persia and silent disability. In Christian Laes (ed.), Disability in antiquity, 61–74. London: Routledge.

    Did disability ever exist in ancient Persia? This provocative question is justified by the scarcity of the documentary evidence the historians face when dealing with the pre-Islamic societies of the Iranian world. As a matter of fact, the tradition of theses populations have always been pre-eminently oral. The rock inscription of Darius I at Behistun, which represents the first text written in the Old Persian language, was only composed in the 6th century BCE, when the nearby Mesopotamian world could boast a diverse textual tradition dating back three millennia. […] Given the nature of the evidence, it is easy to feel discouraged about the possibility of having a clear and definite picture of the condition of the disabled in the Persian world. Nevertheless, we can try to explore the issue by surveying the available documents and comparing and contrasting them with external evidence from the classical world.

    Omar Coloru, is an associate member of the laboratory ArScAN HAROC (Nanterre). His main research interests include Hellenistic history, history of Iran and pre-Islamic Central Asia, and the relations between the Greco-Roman and the Iranian worlds.

  • Germanicus, Artabanos II of Parthia, and Zeno Artaxias in Armenia

    Olbrycht, Marek J. 2016. Germanicus, Artabanos II of Parthia, and Zeno Artaxias in Armenia. klio 98(2). 605–633.

    The aim of this study is to analyse the Roman-Parthian relations under Artabanos II and Tiberius, and the political role played by Armenia, focusing on the agreement between the Roman prince Germanicus and Artabanos II. A scrutiny
    of military and diplomatic measures taken by Rome, Parthia, and minor kings of Kappadokia, Pontos and Armenia suggests a new perspective of the Roman and Parthian policies towards Armenia under Tiberius and Artabanos II. Artabanos IIʼs
    triumph over Vonones compelled Rome to revise her policy toward Parthia. Artabanos agreed on a compromise with the ruler of Kappadokia Archelaos, a Roman client king, that involved installing Archelaosʼ stepson, Zeno, on the throne of
    Armenia. Germanicusʼ intervention in Armenia in A.D. 18 led to the conclusion of a compromise settlement between Rome and the Parthians, securing over a decade of peace between the two powers. Zeno Artaxiasʼ coronation at the hands of Germanicus
    was commemorated by the issue of a set of meaningful silver coins.