Canepa, Building a New Vision of the Past in the Sasanian Empire: The Sanctuaries of Kayānsīh and the Great Fires of Iran (original) (raw)
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Technologies of Memory In Early Sasanian Iran: Achaemenid Sites and Sasanian Identity
This article analyzes the techniques by which the kings of the early Sasanian dynasty engaged the past and shaped the experience of future generations. I concentrate on the innovations and legacy of the first two kings of kings of the dynasty, Ardashir I (r. 224–239/40 C.E.) and his son Shapur I (239/40–270/2 C.E.). These sovereigns fashioned a new and politically useful vision of the past to establish their dynasty's primacy in Persia and the wider Iranian world, eclipsing their Seleucid, Fratarakid, and Arsacid predecessors. I identify and examine the artistic, architectural, and ritual means by which the early Sasanians conformed the built and natural environment of their homeland to their grand new vision of the past. I argue that the Achaemenid patrimony of the province of Pars played an important role in these efforts, serving as inspirations and anchors for the Sasanians' new creations.
Javier Martínez Jiménez and Sam Ottewill-Soulsby (eds.), Remembering and Forgetting the Ancient City (Oxford, 2022), pp. 247-74.
As you stand beneath the cliff of Naqsh-e Rostam, in the heart of Fārs province, ancient Persis, you see a series of great rock reliefs depicting the Sasanian emperors of Iran: larger than life, processing, riding, jousting, receiving crowns. The aspects of the figures are dreamlike; an emperor faces a god, both on horseback, their legs trailing to the floor beneath their mounts, proportions distorted by the raw power behind their commissioning. The timeless, iconic stillness of a moment of investiture is juxtaposed against the frenetic impact of horse-borne clashes: ribbons and pennants screaming behind riders, horses' legs strained wider than a cheetah's at full pace, a speared horseman caught in the moment of death spun with his mount crashing head down, overturned into oblivion. There is burly power and immediacy to these images of kingship: shoulders are broad, biceps and pectorals bulge, but there are ghosts too. An Elamite king, alone, unheeded, carved a millennium beforehand, peers at Bahram II standing proudly amidst a crowd of his courtiers. The greatest ghosts, though, are of the Achaemenid emperors whose gargantuan tombs tower storeys above the Sasanian reliefs. Great doorways to the tombs of Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes open behind engaged columns supporting panels above that show the emperors standing, stately, before fire altars, beneath winged symbols of royal authority, on great throne-platforms borne aloft by tens of diverse figures representing the peoples of their empire. Naqsh-e Rostam stands around 4 miles from Persepolis, the dynastic centre of the Achaemenid Persian emperors (r. 550-330 BC), and adjacent to the later site of Iṣṭakhr, the original base of the Sasanian dynasty (r. AD 224-651), which retained religious and ceremonial importance throughout their rule. Matthew Canepa has shown how the rock reliefs commissioned at Naqsh-e Rostam by the early Sasanians interacted with the imagery and layout of earlier Achaemenid carvings, converting the site into
The attributions of the Oluz Höyük systematic archaeological excavations, started in 2007, to the Iron Age of the Kızılırmak (Halys) Basin have begun to reveal religious aspects alongside their cultural, historical and military characteristics. Some remnants and small findings unearthed in the 2B and 2A architectural layers offer very significant information for understanding the early periods of Zoroastrianism and the fire cult, of which much more remains unknown than known. The Oluz Höyük evidence has shown that evidence for the Zoroastrian period should be sought in north-central Anatolia (Pontica Cappadocia) and Cappadocia as well as in South Azerbaijan (Media) and the lands southeast of the Caspian Sea (Margiana, Bactria). Moreover, the archaeological evidence being unearthed at Oluz Höyük points to the existence of different rituals from which we can draw a picture of early Zoroastrianism and the fire cult of fifth century BC. The archaeological excavations of the 2B and 2A architectural layers point to a society at Oluz Höyük that worshipped fire, believed in the sacrament of water, and practised sacrifices and libations. Fire played a significant role in the rituals of archaic societies from the Early Bronze Age. When the historical progression of Zoroastrianism is examined, it can be seen that the burning of open-air fires in the early period (fifth century BC), the sacred ashes of which were conserved in jars (bothroi), began to take on an institutional structure from the late Achaemenid period. The rituals and practices of early Zoroastrianism emerged during its formation and expansion in the periods of the Median kingdom and the early Achaemenid. Therefore it is necessary to evaluate north-central Anatolia (Pontica Cappadocia) and Cappadocia in the sacred geography of Zoroastrianism.
2022
The inaugural issue of Sasanian Studies: Late Antique Iranian World 1 (2022) is characterized by a selection of innovative and fresh researches, done by excellent scholars in the field. The contributions cover already all major aspects of the study of the Sasanian and late Antique word, including the study of the Sasanian rock and stucco reliefs, Sasanian rituals in context of the Zoroastrian manuscripts, genealogy of the Sasanian kings, philological and historical studies on the basis of unpublished Pahlavi papyri from Sasanian period, Sasanian art and iconography, historical surveys on the late Sasanian period and the advent of the Islam, the Sasanian political history in Caucasus, new aspects of the Sasanian numismatic, Sasanian literary tradition as well as the specific aspects of the study of the religions during the Sasanian period.
Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies, 2021
As it is well known, the tradition of studies on the post-Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods in general, and on the Iranian Plateau in particular, has always maintained that in that period the urbanization processes of the territory were given a great boost. This was true for both the large quantity of information given by the Alexandrian and post-Alexandrian sources on the subject, and the archaeological evidence which, albeit in a sometimes-contradictory way, would show the characteristics of a major and large urban occupation of the territory with respect to the previous times. Proper cities (very rare and most of them out of the Iranian plateau!), urban layouts, settlements, fortifications, castles, regional walls etc. have always been tenaciously sought and identified (sometimes difficultly) on the ground! However, remains of urban occupation in clear and reliable archaeological contexts have very rarely been completely recognized in the Iranian plateau. One of the cases that we want to bring to the attention here is the one of Qalʽa-ye Sam, already identified in the middle of the last century, and approached by the activities of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Sistan (Iran) between 1959 and 1961 under the direction of Umberto Scerrato. The Italian archaeologist led some surveys and excavation tests on the site, which some foreign scholars called “Qalʽa”, an Arabic-Persian term meaning “fortification”. In this case, Qalʽa-ye Sam (the fortress, or the castle of Sam, whose name derives from the homonymous prince, ancestor of Rostam of the Sistanic cycle of the Šāhnāme in the Ferdousi saga) is the toponymic solution, often used locally, as it happens many times in other cases in the popular ancient toponomastics of Iran. In the general picture of the urbanization processes during the Parthian time in the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia, the author tries to outline a series of possible plans, forms and functional comparisons in the archaeological evidence, first with an overview of the most important settlements and cities of Hellenistic and Parthian times, known also thanks to the sources, and then by outlining other less known remains which have been documented only recently through the archeological data and topographical investigations.
The Land behind Rishahr: Sasanian Funerary Practices on the Bushehr Peninsula
AfarinNameh. Essays on the Archaeology of Iran in Honour of Mehdi Rahbar, 2019
This paper reviews archaeological discoveries of pottery jars and stone ossuaries containing human remains made during the nineteenth century at different places on the Bushehr peninsula and described by several travellers and other authors. Some of these ossuaries and human remains were presented to the British Museum where they have been examined in detail. The results suggest that open body exposure was practised and the human remains then gathered and interred in reused pottery jars as well as purpose-made stone ossuaries. This is the first time that anthropological analysis has been used to confirm this practice and indicates that the population was Zoroastrian. The nineteenth century finds resemble others excavated more recently by Mr Rahbar. They also provide the funerary counterpart for archaeological survey evidence which indicates a high level of population across the Bushehr peninsula during the Sasanian period.
A Zoroastrian Cult Scene on Sasanian stucco reliefs at Bandiyān (Daregaz, Khorāsān-e Razavī)
Sasanian Studies: Late Antique Iranian World I, 2022
Monchi-Zadeh, in editing the text, forces the issue by attempting to correct the text based on the traditional boundaries of the Sasanian empire, where he replaced the Nile River with that of forāt "Euphrates"; cf. Monchi-Zadeh, D. 1975: Topographischhistorische Studien zum iranischen Nationalepos (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 41, 2). Wiesbaden, p. 8.