Arash Zeini

Author: Arash Zeini

  • Yarshater Lectures at SOAS

    ‘In the rays of light of imperial favour’: The visual arts of early fifteenth-century Timurid Herat.

    Four lectures by Professor David J. Roxburgh of the Department of History of Art and Architecture and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University:

    • 15 January Timurid Herat: The City as a Setting for Art and Literature
    • 16 January The Timurid-Ming Embassy of 1419-22: Art after China
    • 19 January Modelling Artistic Process: The Kitābkhāna and ΄Arzadāsht
    • 20 January Baysunghur’s Books: Codifying Form and Aesthetic Value

    For more information, see the series’ SOAS webpage or the poster.

  • Darius in the shadow of Alexander

    Jane Marie Todd’s translation of Briant’s 2003 Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre has just been published:

    Briant, Pierre. 2015. Darius in the Shadow of Alexander. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    The last of Cyrus the Great’s dynastic inheritors and the legendary enemy of Alexander the Great, Darius III ruled over a Persian Empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus River. Yet, despite being the most powerful king of his time, Darius remains an obscure figure. […] While Darius seems doomed to be a footnote in the chronicle of Alexander’s conquests, in one respect it is Darius who has the last laugh. For after Darius’s defeat in 331 BCE, Alexander is described by historians as becoming ever more like his vanquished opponent: a Darius-like sybarite prone to unmanly excess.

    Jan P. Stronk, University of Amsterdam, reviewed the original for the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR). Other reviews include:

    • Brosius, M.2006. Review of Pierre Briant: Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre. Gnomon 78(5). 426–430.
    • Stoneman, R. 2006. Darius III and Alexander: Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre by P. Briant. The Classical Review 56(2). 415–417.
    • معماران کاشی، مهرداد. ۱۳۸۴. نقد و بررسی کتاب: داریوش در سایه اسکندر. بخارا ۴۶. ۳۵۸–۳۶۴.

  • Early Islamic Balkh

    Early Islamic Balkh: History, landscape and material culture
    16th–17th January 2015, Wolfson College, Oxford
    The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project (2011-2015) has been investigating the early Islamic history and archaeology of the city of Balkh, in Northern Afghanistan. Synonymous with ancient Bactra, the “Mother of Cities” continued to flourish after the coming of Islam, becoming one of the  most important urban centres of the eastern Islamic world, at the junction of India, China and Transoxiana. This conference presents the interdisciplinary research of the Project’s international collaborative team, and hosts a discussion of the state of research on Balkh in the 7th-12th centuries C.E.
    For more information, see here.

  • Imagining Xerxes

    Bridges, Emma. 2014. Imagining Xerxes: Ancient perspectives on a Persian king. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the richness and variety of Xerxes’ afterlives within the ancient literary tradition. It examines the earliest representations of the king, in Aeschylus’ tragic play Persians and Herodotus’ historiographical account of the Persian Wars, before tracing the ways in which the image of Xerxes was revisited and adapted in later Greek and Latin texts. The author also looks beyond the Hellenocentric viewpoint to consider the construction of Xerxes’ image in the Persian epigraphic record and the alternative perspectives on the king found in the Jewish written tradition.

  • Textiles and elite tastes

    Canepa, Matthew. 2014. Textiles and elite tastes between the Mediterranean, Iran and Asia at the end of antiquity. In Marie-Louise Nosch, Zhao Feng & Lotika Varadarajan (eds.), Global textile encounters (Ancient Textiles Series 20), 1–14. Oxford and Havertown, PA: Oxbow Books.

    Read the article here.

  • Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran

    The latest issue  of the journal Iranian Studies 48(1), dated 2015 and entitled Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran, is a treasure trove of highly recommended articles. This special issue has been edited by Jason Mokhtarian & David Bennett.

    Read the editors’ introduction here.

    (more…)

  • The big and beautiful women of Asia

    A slightly older but important article by Llewellyn-Jones dealing with the imagery of Achaemenid period seals and gemstones:

    Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2010. The big and beautiful women of Asia: Ethnic conceptions of ideal beauty in Achaemenid period seals and gemstones. In Hales, Shelley & Tamar Hodos (eds.), Material culture and social identities in the ancient world. Cambridge: CUP.

    Read the article here.

  • Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios

    Alberto Cantera and his team have launched a new journal, entitled Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios, with the aim to promote the study of Iran and Central Asia in Spain. The first volume has already been published and is available from academia.edu. A dedicated website is under construction.

    The original announcement: (more…)

  • Parthians, Greek culture, and beyond

    Olbrycht, Mark Jan. 2014. Parthians, Greek culture, and beyond. In Twardowska, Kamilla, Maciej Salamon, Sławomir Sprawski, Michał Stachura & Stanisław Turlej (eds.), Within the circle of ancient ideas and virtues. Studies in honour of Professor Maria Dzielska, 129–142. Kraków.

    The Greeks living east of the Euphrates beParthians, Greek Culture, and Beyond, in: Within the Circle of Ancient Ideas and Virtues. Studies in Honour of Professor Maria Dzielska”, eds. K. Twardowska, m. Salamon, S. Sprawski, M. Stachura, S. Turlej, Kraków 2014, 129-142.came an important component of the population of the Arsacid Empire, but they were certainly not its dominant part. At the same time the Parthians appreciated the vivacity of the Greek culture and many of them were its avid enthusiasts. The Arsacids were superbly adroit in combining the preservation of the main components of the Iranian and nomadic culture that made up the core of their ethos with the political pragmatism which may be observed in their pro‑Hellenic propaganda.

    Read the article here.

  • Inside and out

    Dijkstra, Jitse & Greg Fisher (eds.). 2014. Inside and Out: Interactions between Rome and the peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian frontiers in late antiquity (Late Antique History and Religion 8). Leuven: Peeters Publishers.
    In recent years, exciting new discoveries of inscriptions and archaeological remains on the Arabian Peninsula have led to a re-evaluation of the peoples on the Arabian frontier, which through their extensive contacts with Rome and Persia are now seen as dynamic participants in the Late Antique world. The present volume contributes to this recent trend by focusing on the contrast between the ‘outside’ sources on the peoples of the frontier – the Roman view – and the ‘inside’ sources, that is, the precious material produced by the Arabs themselves, and by approaching these sources within an anthropological framework of how peripheral peoples face larger powers. For the first time, the situation on the Arabian frontier is also compared with that on the southern Egyptian frontier, where similar sources have been found of peoples such as the Blemmyes and Noubades. Thus, the volume offers a richly-documented examination of the frontier interactions in these two vibrant and critically-important areas of the Late Antique East.
     For more information, see the publisher’s website.

  • Getting to know Sogdian: Major epigraphy

    Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part of his excellent introduction to Sogdian is now online. In this part he talks about Sogdian epigraphy.

    Read the second part of the introduction here.

  • Tirazziš or Šīrāz

    For this blog, 2014 comes to an end with a little write up by Henkelman on the great city of ŠĪrāz. The blog will resume on 05 January 2015, publishing Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part on Sogdian. And I have some plans for this blog, which I hope to realise in 2015 with the help of my friends and colleagues.

    Happy New Year!

    Henkelman, Wouter. 2014. Tirazziš. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie 14(1/2). 59–60.

  • The genealogy of Artabanos II

    The last day of 2014 is busier than most other days on this blog:

    Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2014. The genealogy of Artabanos II (AD 8/9–39/40), King of Parthia. Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica 15(3). 92–97.

    One of the most controversial issues in the Parthian history of the early 1st century AD is the lineage of Artabanos II. The resolution of this problem determines the image of Parthian history in the 1st century AD, moulded to a large extent by an internecine struggle for the legitimation of rival parties’ claim to power.

    Read it here.

     

  • Religious transformation between East and West

    Herman, Geoffrey. 2014. Religious transformation between East and West: Hanukkah in the Babylonian Talmud and Zoroastrianism. In Wick, Peter & Volker Rabens (eds.), Religions and trade: Religious formation, transformation and cross-cultural exchange between East and West, 261–281. Leiden: Brill.

    When religious traditions travel they tend to adapt to their new surroundings. Like new products seeking to penetrate a foreign market, they often undergo a process of modification and re-packaging that makes them comprehensible and inviting to their potential clientele. This can often be a subconscious process whereby the elements in the imported tradition that evoke more familiar local practices rise to prominence and develop further whereas others sink into the background. This article seeks to account for the development of the ritual observance of the festival of Hanukah, a festival that was brought from Judaea to Babylonia. It pinpoints the holiday’s evolution upon its reception in Babylonia. Observing similarities in ritual between the receiving community – Babylonian Jewry, and the prevalent practices found among the Zoroastrians of the region it suggests a connection between the two. This connection intimates that the ritual celebration of Hanukkah was radically and fundamentally transformed in its new religious environment as a result of its encounter with local religious custom.

    Find the article here.

  • Mani at the court of the Persian kings

    Gardner, Iain, Jason BeDuhn & Paul Dilley. 2014. Mani at the court of the Persian kings. Leiden: Brill.

    For more information, see here.