The narrative stories and physical landscapes of the Sasanian Empire run parallel to each other, intersecting in areas where historical source and physical remnant of the material culture collide. This…
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The early Sasanian royal city foundations of Gūr and Bīšāpūr and their respective surrounding areas were actively shaped by the new ruling dynasty with the goal of making an imprint…
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Founded by the Seleucids, successively occupied by the Arsacids (Parthians) and Romans, and spectacularly conquered in a Sassanian siege, the borderland town of Dura-Euopos (Syria) was home throughout its history…
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For verbal expression and nonverbal cognitive processing of spatial relations between two objects, the speakers of a language use different frames of reference. (Psycho)linguistics classifies these into three main groups:…
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Current Trends in Avestan Studies This lecture discusses the major progress made in our understanding of the Avestan corpus/texts in the last years. Based on her recent publication co-written with…
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It was only in December 2005 that radiocarbon samples established beyond doubt a Sasanian-era construction date for the Gorgan Wall, the longest fort-lined barrier of the late antique world. Until…
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Greek ‘Concubines’ and Achaemenid Dynastic Politics The civil war of 401 BC between Cyrus the Younger and his older brother King Artaxerxes II (r. 405/4-359/8 BC) is well known to Achaemenid historians,…
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Official Sources and the Reconstruction of History: The Case of the Last Great War of Antiquity The last and longest war of classical antiquity was fought in the early 7th…
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Often called the first world empire, the Achaemenid Empire is rooted in older Near Eastern traditions. A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire offers a perspective in which the history…
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The Yasna Ritual in Performance Up to the present day Zoroastrian priests perform a millennia old ritual, the Yasna, in which the recitation of ancient Avestan texts accompanies the performance…
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