“Achaemenid and Seleukid Royal Funerary Practices and Middle Iranian Kingship.” (original) (raw)

In this study, dedicated to the memory of Zeev Rubin, I explore one important facet of Iranian kingship between Alexander and Islam: the art and ritual of Achaemenid and Seleucid funerary monuments and their impact on later Macedonian and Middle Iranian kingship in Western and South Asia. The relationship of Achaemenid royal traditions to those of their Hellenistic and Iranian successors is one of the perennial problems of the Middle Iranian period, and impacts this topic as well. I explore to what extent – if at all – did Seleucid and Middle Iranian monumental and ritual practices engage the traditions of the Achaemenids, and to what extent were new royal practices created and 'Iranized,' with contemporary Macedonian, steppe nomadic or even South Asian royal traditions appropriated as raw material.