Sasanian cities: archaeological perspectives from top down and bottom up (original) (raw)

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.

Merv, an archaeological case-study from the northeastern frontier of the Sasanian Empire

Journal of Ancient History, 2014

This paper re-examines some of the latest archaeological evidence from Merv, beginning with the oasis, followed by the city and finally with aspects of the urban economy. It concludes with a brief exploration of how this cumulative evidence matches that from some other regions of the Sasanian Empire, including frontier regions such as Gorgan, and the Mesopotamian heartlands, and argues that cross-regional archaeological comparison throws new light on how the Sasanian state effectively managed its resources.

Omrani Rekavandi, Sauer, Wilkinson et al. (Priestman contrib.) 2022: The Army and Urbanism at the Sasanian Empire’s Northern Frontiers: Fieldwork on the Linear Barriers, Fortresses and Cities at the Margins of the Gorgan Plain

Omrani Rekavandi, H., Sauer, E.W., Wilkinson, T.J., Abbasi, G.A., Ainslie, R., Caputo, F., Ershadi, M., Fattahi, M., Galiatsatos, N., Hopper, K., Van Rensburg, J.J. MacDonald, E., Mahmoudi, M., Nazifi, A., Nokandeh, J., Oatley, C., Priestman, S., Ratcliffe, J., Roustaei, K., Tamak, E.S., Shabani, B. & Usher-Wilson, L.S. 2022: ‘The army and urbanism at the Sasanian Empire’s northern frontiers: fieldwork on the linear barriers, fortresses and cities at the margins of the Gorgan Plain (results of a joint project between the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organisation and the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham)’. In St J. Simpson (ed) Sasanian Archaeology: Settlements, Environment and Material Culture. Archaeopress: Oxford, 90-102.

SASANIAN AND EARLY ISLAMIC SETTLEMENT PATTERNS NORTH OF THE PERSIAN GULF

Le recenti ricognizioni archeologiche effettuate nella regione prospiciente la costa settentrionale del Golfo Persico hanno rivelato una significativa crescita degli insediamenti in epoca sasanide. Tale crescita è probabilmente da attribuire ad un mirato investimento nei sistemi d'irrigazione e nell'agricoltura. Nel corso delle ricognizioni sono stati scoperti resti di diverse strutture idrauliche, quali canali, mulini ad acqua, qanat e pozzi. La gran parte degli abitati sono situati nelle zone pedemontane ed in questi casi le opere idrauliche si trovano spesso nelle aree alte degli insediamenti. In alcuni casi sono stati identificati anche dei cimiteri. In conclusione si può dire che l'economia del Fars meridionale di epoca sasanide era basata sull'agricoltura ancor più che sul commercio e la rete di strade di comunicazione. 1. PREMISE There has been little research into the effect the Sasanian Empire's collapse had on settlement patterns in the Iranian plateau. The general hypothesis is that the economic system remained unchanged after the Islamic invasion (664 CE) and some researchers even contend that the economic system improved. 5 Recent archaeological surveys, in the hinterlands north of the Persian Gulf, are throwing light on some interesting new information regarding this matter. The results from most of these surveys in the hinterland, share a common feature-they illustrate the expansion of sites during the Sasanian period and the reduction, and in some cases disappearance, of sites after the arrival of Islam. One could conclude from these recent surveys, that new settlement patterns emerged during the Islamic period due to the disappearance of settlement patterns particular to the Sasanian dynasty. In this paper we will be looking in detail at Sasanian policy in relation to economic investment in the hinterlands north of the Persian Gulf. Archaeological evidence suggests that there was huge Sasanian investment in agriculture and an extension of irrigation in the mountainous areas south of Fars province. However, the development of agriculture in the aforementioned area differs from what the Sasanians did in the Susiana plain 6 and Mesopotamia. 7 In these regions huge dams and massive irrigation channels

Bruno Genito, A MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SASANIAN PERIOD: FORMER LIMITATIONS AND NEW PERSPECTIVES

It is never easy to handle theoretical and methodological issues arising from a particular scientific topic in a kind of review of studies, which is, in its way, what is being presented here. Studies of the archaeology of the Sasanian period have been the subject of numerous acute and critical comments by distinguished scholars in the past, including Huff (1986, 302-308) and more recently as well (1998-2011). Those issues which have been handled, too, have clearly always somewhat suffered from a complex of inferiority to other periods of the history of ancient Iran which are considered by far, the most formative and important: the Achaemenid and the Islamic eras.