Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Political memory in and after the Persian Empire

    Silverman, Jason M. & Caroline Waerzeggers. 2015. Political memory in and after the Persian Empire (Ancient Near East Monographs 13). Atlanta: SBL Press.

    Various disciplines that deal with Achaemenid rule offer starkly different assessments of Persian kingship. While Assyriologists treat Cyrus’s heirs as legitimate successors of the Babylonian kings, biblical scholars often speak of a kingless era; in which the priesthood took over the function of the Davidic monarch. Egyptologists see their land as uniquely independently minded despite conquests, while Hellenistic scholarship tends to evaluate the interface between Hellenism and native traditions without reference to the previous two centuries of Persian rule. This volume brings together in dialogue a broad array of scholars with the goal of seeking a broader context for assessing Persian kingship through the anthropological concept of political memory.

    A PDF of the volume is available here.

    Jason M. Silverman is a Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki. He is the editor of Opening Heaven’s Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, Its Contexts and Reception (Gorgias Press) and the author of Persepolis and Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic (T&T Clark).

    Caroline Waerzeggers is Associate Professor at Leiden University. She is the author of Marduk-remanni: Local Networks and Imperial Politics in Achaemenid Babylonia (Peeters) and The Ezida Temple of Borsippa: Priesthood, Cult, Archives (Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten).

  • Ancient Near Eastern Art

    This slightly older publication has just come to my attention:

    Kawami, Trudy & John Olbrantz (eds.). 2013. Source: Breath of heaven, breath of earth. Distributed by University of Washington Press for Hallie Ford Museum.

    Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections encompasses the geographic regions of Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, and Anatolia and Iran, and explores several broad themes found in the art of the ancient Near East: gods and goddesses, men and women, and both real and supernatural animals. These art objects reveal a wealth of information about the people and cultures that produced them: their mythology, religious beliefs, concept of kingship, social structure, and daily life.

    About the authors:

    Trudy Kawami is director of research at the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in New York.

    John Olbrantz is the Maribeth Collins Director of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

  • Persian gods and Avestan gods

    Pirart, Éric. 2015. Dieux perses et dieux avestiques. Journal Asiatique 303 (1), 47–58.

    If we pick up the significant differences they show, the detailed examination of the Old Persian and Avestan theonyms enables us to say that the Zoroastrian Mazdeism of the ancient Persians did not fit into the same tradition as the Avesta.

  • Truth, falsehood and lies in the Indo-Iranian world

    Haudry, Jean. 2014. Vérité, fausseté et mensonge dans le monde indo-iranien. Journal Asiatique 302 (2), 349–364.

    Aside from the inherited designation of truth and its contrary by means of the root of the verb ‘to be’, *sánt-, *satyá-: *ásant-, *asatyá-, Indo-Iranian has an antonymic couple of notions whose expression is asymmetrical: one, *árta-/*ṛtá-, is purely nominal; the other expressed by the root*dhr(a)ugh- furnishes both nominal and verbal forms. Since this root is generally considered to mean ‘to deceive’, *árta-/*ṛtá-, whose meaning is much debated must, one way or another, be linked with the idea of ‘truth’. The original operative field of those notions may be found. In a non dogmatic conception of religion, it cannot be the doctrine. The frequent meaning of ‘to do harm, to prejudice’ of the representatives of the root *dhr(a)ugh- points to the notions of ‘truthfulness’, ‘loyalty’ with their opposites, in a state of the society in which those values and the behaviours which are connected to them are essential.

     

  • La Gâthâ Ahunauuaitī dans l’attente de l’aube

    Kellens, Jean. 2014.  La Gâthâ Ahunauuaitī dans l’attente de l’aube. Journal Asiatique 302 (2), 259–302.

     

  • Scythian messages for Darius the Great

    Delpech, François. 2015. Objets sacrées et armes parlantes: Le message des Scythes à Darius entre le mythe d’origine et l’historiographie. Journal Asiatique 303 (1),  25–46.

  • Mehrgān at Persepolis

    Bahadori, Ali. 2015.  Persepolitan ceremonies: The case of Mehrgān. Ancient West & East 14. 51–71.

    The celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis is a hypothesis that has never been discussed in detail. The present paper explores evidence for the presence of the Mithra cult at the Achaemenid court and, consequently, for celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis.

  • A Newly Discovered Iron Age Site at Sarrez

    Melirad, Sheler & Abbas Razmpoush. 2015. A newly discovered Iron Age site at Sarrez, Iranian Kurdistan. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 52. 207–216.

    Sarrez is an ancient site in Kurdistan Province, Iran, near the present-day country town of Kamyaran. This site was discovered accidentally during dam construction activities. It has yielded some metal artefacts, potsherds and bones that are comparable to Iron Age III instances. The collection in its entirety is discussed in this article. One of the main objects from Sarrez is a decorated beaker with a scene on its wall that is comparable in many ways to examples of Neo-Assyrian art. The purpose of this paper is to publish and date the metal objects of the Sarrez collection based on this bronze beaker, which is one the few beakers from western Iran which has been found in a secure context.

  • Insurgency and terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean

    Howe, Timothy & Lee Brice (eds.). 2016. Brill’s companion to insurgency and terrorism in the ancient Mediterranean (Brill’s Companions in Classical Studies). Brill.

    In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, Tim Howe and Lee Brice challenge the view that these forms of conflict are specifically modern phenomena by offering an historical perspective that exposes readers to the ways insurgency movements and terror tactics were common elements of conflict in antiquity. Assembling original research on insurgency and terrorism in various regions including, the Ancient Near East, Greece, Central Asia, Persia, Egypt, Judea, and the Roman Empire, they provide a deep historical context for understanding these terms, demonstrate the usefulness of insurgency and terrorism as concepts for analysing ancient Mediterranean behavior, and point the way toward future research.

    About the authors:

    Lee L. Brice, Ph.D. (2003), UNC-Chapel Hill, is Professor of History at Western Illinois University. He has published volumes and articles/chapters on the military history of the ancient world and is series editor of Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Brill).

    Timothy Howe studied History, Classical and Archaeology at The Pennsylvania State University. PhD. 2000. He has been at St. Olaf College since 2003, where he is currently Associate Professor of History & Ancient Studies. Since 2013 he has excavated at the Hellenistic/Roman site of Antiochia ad Cragum in Southern Turkey, where he is currently Associate Field Director. Main interests include Greek and Roman agriculture and warfare, Mediterranean archaeology and Alexander the Great. He has written two monographs (Pastoral Politics: Animals, Agriculture and Society in Ancient Greece, Regina 2008 and All Things Alexander the Great, Greenwood 2016).

  • Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman

    Zehbari, Zohreh, Reza Mehr Afarin & Seyyed Rasul Musavi Haji. 2015. Studies on the structural characteristics of Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 52. 217–259.

    The Achaemenid site of Dahan-E Gholaman lies 44 km southeast of Zabol, eastern Iran. Recovered archaeological records and evidence, including residential, public, and administrative-religious structures, indicate pre-planned and intense urbanisation. Unfortunately, the pottery from Dahan-E Gholaman has not been paid the attention it is due, even though pottery from the site has been studied. The studies show that innovation and demands on the pottery industry created local types of beakers, jars, jugs, and bowls and so on. Research on the pottery characteristics shows that the potters of this site were skilled in controlling the kiln temperature and were able to produce high quality wares, while various forms were commonly in use at the site.