AncientIranianNumismatic Badiyi (original) (raw)
Related papers
Those Sassy Sasanians: Persian Coinage of Late Antiquity
For over 4 centuries, the Sasanian (or " Sassanian ") empire of Iran battled with Rome and Constantinople, held off waves of invaders from the steppes of central Asia, and kept the Silk Road to China open. It maintained a stable currency in a multi-ethnic state often wracked by religious and political conflicts. About 30 Sasanian kings and two short-lived queens issued coins. Some, mainly in silver, are common. Others are very rare.
Sasanian Cities: Archaeological Perspectives on the Urban Economy and Built Environment of an Empire
'Sasanian Persia. Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia' (edited by E. W. Sauer), 2017
The Sasanian empire had many large, multicultural and heavily defended cities yet there has been little study of them. This timely overview presents the archaeological evidence for the appearance and distribution of some of these urban centres, discusses their forms and goes on to use the archaeological evidence from three sites in Iraq, Iran and Turkmenistan to illustrate the physical appearance of residential and/or commercial quarters. It concludes with some observations on the importance of the urban economy to the Sasanian empire. A pdf copy of the paper is available on request as it cannot be posted on this site for copyright reasons.
The creation process of early cities and their components in ancient Persia
In ancient era, many reasons caused the creation of early cities such as geographical position, weather, and earth fertility so; its issue and background are worth pondering in the history of Iran. Based on my resources and historical research methods, I tried to follow the creation of the ancient cities and their fundamental reasons, so I bring up and express essential affecting factors on the emergence of cities such as geographical conditions, rituals, and beliefs, military-commercial-political and economic factors.
Sasanian cities: archaeological perspectives from top down and bottom up
The programme of this conference is attached. This particular paper re-examined old and new archaeological evidence for Sasanian urban planning, and attempted to show the huge impact this had on the Sasanian economy. It began with a discussion of circular and massive rectilinear foundations, some only briefly surveyed or or simply recorded from satellite imagery, and ended with a brief presentation of some of the excavated findings from Merv, Qasr-i Abu Nasr and Veh Ardashir to show how much (or little) we know about the appearance of these cities. The conclusions to this paper should be read alongside earlier papers on Sasanian Mesopotamia and the Merv oasis.
The shahs of the early Sasanian dynasty faced the challenge of establishing their legitimacy as the rulers of an imperial polity after rising to power through military insurrection. The early shahs of the dynasty sought to locate themselves within the religious, mythic, and historical context to link themselves to the glorious rulers and dynasties of Iranian myth and history, while simultaneously espousing Mazdean virtue. Through the concepts of Ērānšahr and Farr, the notion of the territorial unity of the Mazda-worshiping peoples prescribed in the Avesta and the divinely-bestowed glory of rulers, respectively, the motivations that underlaid Sasanian statecraft during the first four generations of the dynasty are contextualized. The idea of Ērānšahr as a sacrosanct territorial delimitation of the homelands of the Mazdean peoples was first employed to validate and legitimize the rebellion of the Sasanians against the Parthian Aškānīān dynasty. After the civil war that established Ardašīr I as šāhanšāh, the defense of Ērānšahr as both a tangible expanse of territory and a religious concept was used to justify punitive and retaliatory military action in the west against the Roman Empire, as well as to acquire the Central Asian holdings of the Kushan Empire. The claim to the sole possession of Farr was similarly employed to justify first rebellion, and then conflicts with the Kushan Empire, whose own rulers claimed Farr from Mazdean divinities. Establishing the religious, mythic, and historical contexts to which the early Sasanian dynasts were subject illuminates the motivations for imperial policy and allows the scrutiny of those policies and actions to transcend the biases inherent in non-Iranian sources for the period. Furthermore, privileging autochthonous sculptural, epigraphic,and numismatic productions produces an innovative analysis of early Sasanian statecraft cognizant of, and rooted within, Iranian cultural paradigms.
The shahs of the early Sasanian dynasty faced the challenge of establishing their legitimacy as the rulers of an imperial polity after rising to power through military insurrection. The early shahs of the dynasty sought to locate themselves within the religious, mythic, and historical context to link themselves to the glorious rulers and dynasties of Iranian myth and history, while simultaneously espousing Mazdean virtue. Through the concepts of Ērānšahr and Farr, the notion of the territorial unity of the Mazda-worshiping peoples prescribed in the Avesta and the divinely-bestowed glory of rulers, respectively, the motivations that underlaid Sasanian statecraft during the first four generations of the dynasty are contextualized. The idea of Ērānšahr as a sacrosanct territorial delimitation of the homelands of the Mazdean peoples was first employed to validate and legitimize the rebellion of the Sasanians against the Parthian Aškānīān dynasty. After the civil war that established Ardašīr I as šāhanšāh, the defense of Ērānšahr as both a tangible expanse of territory and a religious concept was used to justify punitive and retaliatory military action in the west against the Roman Empire, as well as to acquire the Central Asian holdings of the Kushan Empire. The claim to the sole possession of Farr was similarly employed to justify first rebellion, and then conflicts with the Kushan Empire, whose own rulers claimed Farr from Mazdean divinities. Establishing the religious, mythic, and historical contexts to which the early Sasanian dynasts were subject illuminates the motivations for imperial policy and allows the scrutiny of those policies and actions to transcend the biases inherent in non-Iranian sources for the period. Furthermore, privileging autochthonous sculptural, epigraphic, and numismatic productions produces an innovative analysis of early Sasanian statecraft cognizant of, and rooted within, Iranian cultural paradigms.