Jacobs 2013, Berossos and Persian Religion (original) (raw)
J. Haubold / G. B. Lanfranchi / R. Rollinger / J. Steele (eds.), The World of Berossos – Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on »The Ancient Near East between Classical and Ancient Oriental Traditions«, Durham 7th–9th July 2010, Classica et Orientalia 5 (Wiesbaden 2013) 123-135
Of Berossos’ fragments on Persian religion, only F 11 remains as usable testimony. The notice on the Sacaea in F 2 cannot be convincingly applied to Persian customs. Fragment F 12, dealing with Zoroaster, the Magi and Greco-Persian identifications of divinities, is totally muddled, and should be discarded as not providing usable information. This leaves the information about the erection of statues by Artaxerxes II (F 11) isolated and does not allow us to attribute to Berossos a special interest in Persian religion, even though one might expect a professional interest in such matters on the part of a priest. Perhaps we should ask whether Berossos talks about the erection of cult statues merely because one of them – the first he mentions – was set up in Babylon, just as, with regard to history, he presents himself as exclusively interested in Babylonia, for example mentioning Assyria only when Babylonia is involved. There is no reason to doubt that the information about the erection of cult statues by Artaxerxes II is basically correct. However, since the notion that idolatry was introduced by this king ‘many decades later’ does not go back to Berossos but was inserted by Clement of Alexandria, F 11 does not provide a terminus ante quem non for the erection of cult statues or a basis for conclusions about fundamental changes in Persian religion during the reign of Artaxerxes II. The theory that in Achaemenid times there was a development in Persia from an aniconic idea of the gods to idolatry lacks any foundation.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Related papers
2015
This volume is dedicated to cult in the ancient region of Pisidia. The findings of the archaeological research at the ancient city of Sagalassos are combined with the results of archaeological survey projects conducted in the region, as well as epigraphic, numismatic and iconographic studies, to create an evolutionary overview of religious practice from Alexander the Great until the rise of Christianity. Set against their indigenous background, the volume assesses the impact on local cult habits of the two acculturation processes occurring within this historical timeframe - Hellenisation and Romanisation - by examining changes and continuities in the constituent elements of religious practice, namely the pantheon of worshipped deities, the sacred space where the communication with the divine sphere took place, the cultic personnel in charge of this interaction, and the rituals involved.
Persian Religion in the Achaemenid Period / La religion perse à l'époque achéménide
Classica et Orientalia, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2017
Including twelve English, French, and German papers originally presented at a colloquium convened by Jean Kellens at the Collège de France (2013), this volume addresses a range of issues relating to Persian religion at the time of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE). Moving away from the reductive question whether the Achaemenid kings were Zoroastrians or not, the contributors have tried to focus either on newly identified or recently published sources (Central Asian archaeological finds, Elamite texts and seal impressions from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, Aramaic texts from Bactria, the Persepolis Bronze Plaque), or on current (and ongoing) debates such as the question of the spread of the so-called long liturgy to western Iran. In doing, different perspectives are chosen: whereas some have stressed the Iranian or Indo-Iranian tradition, others have pointed out the importance of the Elamite and Assyro-Babylonian contexts. At the same time, the volume shows a broad agreement in its insistence on the essential position of primary sources, problematic as they may be, and on the important role the Achaemenid rulers and the imperial project played in the evolution of Iranian religion.
The Persians and Atum Worship in Egypt's 27th Dynasty
Current Research in Egyptology 2010: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Symposium, edited by Maarten Horn, Joost Kramer, Daniel Soliman, Nico Staring, Carina van den Hoven, and Lara Weiss, 97-104. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2011
Common Dwelling Place of all the Gods Commagene in its Local, Regional and Global Hellenistic Context , 2021
The Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene exerted an outsized influence on the volatile world of post-Seleucid Western Asia given its small size and relatively recent independence. While Commagene is now starting to find a place within the Hellenistic Mediterranean, it is only beginning to be fully and meaningfully integrated into the history of the Iranian world. Building on recent work, this chapter thus offers an inquiry into the origins of Commagene’s Persian royal legacy and Iranian religious traditions under Antiochos I, and the cultural and geopolitical contexts that informed their development. Its primary goal is to provide historical nuance for the ‘Persian traditions’ that scholarship has frequently treated as a complete invention or the outgrowth of a monolithic and essentialized Zoroastrianism. It considers the extent to which these traditions grew from an Iranian constituency in place within Commagene since the Achaemenid period or, more likely, arose from a more restricted courtly or dynastic milieu. In so doing, it analyses the dynastic legacy of the Orontids of Sophene and Armenia and the techniques by which they crafted their royal identity and the nature of their impact on Commagene. In particular, it seeks to strike a balance between the epigraphic and archaeological evidence offered by the Antiochos I’s monuments, which provide the most abundant evidence, and what we can descry about the region’s and the dynasty’s earlier traditions from the archaeological record and fragmentary textual sources.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Related papers
The Gods of the Others: Images of Foreign Deities in the Hellenistic Cult Place of Kharayeb
in T. Galoppin, E. Guillon, A. Lätzer-Lasar, S. Lebreton, M. Luaces, F. Porzia, E.R. Urciuoli, J. Rüpke, C. Bonnet (eds.), Naming and Mapping the Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean: Spaces, Mobilities, Imaginaries, Berlin-Boston 2022, pp. 493-518.