Sasanian Iran in the Context of Late Antiquity The Bahari Lecture Series at the University of Oxford (Ancient Iran)

176 Pages·2021·17.993 MB·English

by  Touraj Daryaee

SASANIAN IRAN
IN THE CONTEXT OF LATE ANTIQUITY
THE BAHARI LECTURE SERIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Ancient Iran Series
Editor in Chief
Touraj Daryaee (University of California, Irvine)
Managing Editor
Sherivn Farridnejad
(Free University of Berlin, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)
Editorial Board
Samra Azarnouche (École pratique des hautes études)
Chiara Barbati (University of Pisa)
Matthew Canepa (University of California, Irvine)
Carlo Cereti (Sapienza University of Rome)
Hassan Fazeli Nashil (University of Tehran)
Frantz Grenet (Collège de France)
Simcha Gross (University of Pennsylvania)
Almut Hintze (SOAS University of London)
Nasir Al-Kaabi (University of Kufa)
Irene Madreiter (University of Inssbruck)
Antonio Panaino (University of Ravenna)
Céline Redard (SOAS University of London)
Robert Rollinger (University of Inssbruck)
Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis (British Museum)
M. Rahim Shayegan (University of California, Los Angeles)
Mihaela Timuş (University of Bucharest)
Rolf Strootman (Utrecht University)
Giusto Traina (University of Paris-Sorbonne)
Yuhan S.-D. Vevaina (University of Oxford)
VOLUME 6
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ais
Ancient Iran Series | Vol. VI
Sasanian Iran in the Context of Late Antiquity
Edited by Touraj Daryaee
© Edited by Touraj Daryaee 2018
Touraj Daryaee is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with
Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
Cover and Layout: Kourosh Beigpour | ISBN: 978-0-9994755-8-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
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SASANIAN IRAN
IN THE CONTEXT OF LATE ANTIQUITY
THE BAHARI LECTURE SERIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Edited by
Touraj Daryaee
2018

In 2014, I was invited to inaugurate the Bahari Chair in Sasanian Studies at Oxford
University. I had the privilege of inviting several distinguished colleagues in the field
working on Sasanian archaeology, numismatics, Middle Persian literature, ancient Iranian
Studies and History. The idea was to present the state of Sasanian Studies and to discuss
the many issues which connect the Iranian world with that of its surrounding neighbors
in late antiquity. Oxford provided a rich intellectual environment to conduct a series
of seminars on the Sasanian world, with Classicists, Orientalists and others attending
the sessions. The following papers are the result of this endeavor. I would like to thank
Professor Edmund Herzig for his invitation for the Trinity term at Oxford, in 2014. I
would also like to thank Professor Dominic Parwiz Brookshaw for his kindness, as well
as Dr. Rowena Abdel Malek who helped organized the weekly seminars. I must thank my
student, Arnold Alahverdian, for his precious help with reading all the papers, as well as
Virginie Rey for the final copy-editing. All of the papers, except my own, were presented at
the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. My keynote lecture was given at
Wadham College. Lastly, I would like to thank Ebadollah and Behin Bahari whose vision
made the endowment of the Chair in Sasanian Studies possible which funded my research
and the seminars at Oxford University.
Touraj Daryaee
Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture
Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture
University of California, Irvine

Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Michael Alram 5
The Numismatic Legacy of the Sasanians in the East
Matthew P. Canepa and Johnathan W. Hardy 39
Persian Palace Architecture, Garden Design and Digital Archaeology
Touraj Daryaee 65
The Tripartite Sasanian Vision of the World
Antonio Panaino 79
Books without Ritual – Ritual without Books
Giusto Traina 107
The Rise of the Sasanians
Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina 121
A Father, a Daughter, and a Son-in-Law in Zoroastrian Hermeneutics
Arash Zeini 149
The King in the Mirror of the Zand
The program of the Bahari Lecture Series 163
Contributors 165