Ancient Iranian Culture and Languages

The article deals with some Iranian names of the rivers, fixed in the Classical sources. It intends to show that such names as Ἀκεσίνης, Χέσινος, Činab and Sinus go back to OIr *axšaina- and have the same meaning: “pale”, “not clear”, “turbid”. The linguistic peculiatities of these names are supposed to demonstrate the development of the Middle Iranian features in the Iranian languages from North-West India to Northern Pontic steppes.

Fashion in the twenty-first century in Iran has become highly inventive, surprisingly innovative, and undoubtedly glamorous. This is a surprise to some in the West who are accustomed to seeing images of large public gatherings of men and women in drab clothing engaged in religious or political activities that seem to be decidedly lacking in any elements that could be called “fashionable.”

Women in particular are portrayed in the all-enveloping
chador, usually solid black, which has become a Western trope for female repression. Fashion in Iran has, in fact, been remarkable for its flexibility and for its role in cultural communication. It has been directly responsive to social and political events in the country for as long
as documentation has existed. Iranians take enormous care in their dress, exhibiting a great deal of attention and individualism.

Every element of Iranian fashion is socially coded, making it easy to determine the political, social, and personal attitudes of the wearer. Because dress is such a potent public statement, attempts on the part of the Iranian state to impose standards and requirements
on the population have been a universal phenomenon over many centuries.

Before one can understand the current status of fashion in Iran, it is necessary to understand the elements from which fashion is constructed. These consist both of material element, like fabrics and tailoring, ethnic traditions from the many cultural groups that live under the rubric of Iranian culture, and historical social forces that have inspired the expression of Iranian identity
over the years. These three elements: material, cultural, and historical, have shifted and interacted with each other to create fashion variation.

Herodots skythische Etymologien der Völkernamen ’Αριμασποί und Οἰόρπατα sind hinfällig (‚einäugig‘ = ἄριμα ‚eins‘ + σποῦ ‚Auge‘ bzw. ‚männertötend‘ = οἰόρ ‚Mann‘ + πατά ‚töten‘). Es werden im Aufsatz dafür neue skythische Erklärungen vorgeschlagen (*arjataspāh ‚pferdereich‘ bzw. *aiwawarakāta ‚einbrüstig‘). Es wird sich außerdem herausstellen, dass der Völkername Ἀμαζόνες, der bisher keine befriedigende Erklärung gefunden hat, von Herodots Diskussion erläutert werden mag (*amajanah ‚Manneskraft zerstörend‘). Die Hypothese einer iranischen Herkunft dieser Namen führt zur Frage, zu welcher Zeit die Entlehnungen erfolgt sind. Schließlich geht der Aufsatz auch auf die Bedeutung der sprachlichen Argumente in Herodots Darstellung ein.

Alexander's adoption of Iranian regalia, garments, customs, and institutions was made in eastern Parthia in late summer or early fall 330. The reforms affected many fundamental questions of government as well as military. Possibly, they had to do with Alexander's founding of his first colony in Iran, Alexandropolis (Plin. 6.113). The reforms in Parthia, followed by other novelties in Central Asia (328-327), in India (327-325), in Persis, at Susa, and at Opis (324), demonstrate that Alexander formulated a comprehensive program of pro-Iranian policy. Alexander deliberate-ly styled himself as an Iranian, not just Persian ruler; significantly he initiated his reforms of court and ceremonial, as well as his colonization, not in Persis, but in north-eastern Iran (Parthia). His pro-Iranian policy remained consistent until 323. Alexander's concept was proclaimed in eastern Iran and first applied to Iranians in that region, later to embrace Bactrians and Sogdians. Eventually, it was extended to all Iranian peoples on the Iranian Plateau and in Central Asia including Persians and Medes

Abstract
According to the Middle Persian texts Marg-arzān is a sin that is punished by death. In the list of degrees of sin, Marg-arzān is the heaviest sin. In several texts from Middle Persian have been spoken about the sin and its punishment. In the texts is offered a list of capital offences in a separate chapter but in the others, has spoken about this sin sporadicly. In this article, has been mentioned to capital offences according to Pahlavi texts and its trial procedures. capital offence is divided into "offenses /sins regarding opposite party (= hamēmālān)" and " offenses which endanger the soul of the criminal (= ruwānīg)". Sins such as killing, stealing, perjury, because of harming to opposite party, have been placed in Group "hamēmālān" and the sins such as convert to another religion, deception, burying the dead, because of harming to oneʼs soul, in group of "ruwānīg". The paper also examines legal and religious process to crime of sinner

At the easternmost edge of the Iranic world, settled rather than saddled Scythians ran the kingdom of Khotan as Iranian-speaking Buddhists who traded and tussled with their T’ang and Tibetan neighbours. Straddling the Sino-Tibetan and Irano-Indic oecumenes, these Saka dynasts of the southern ‘Silk Road’ were conquered and converted by the Turkification and Islamisation of the Tarim Basin. Their effect, both historical and artistic, merits consideration in Scythian studies for their own achievements. This survey is based on the existing corpora of administrative and religious texts in Khotanese, an amply documented Middle Iranian language, which enables the tracing of the trajectory of these Scythian legatees until the end of antiquity.

This article presents a detailed reconsideration of the well-established and canonized theory of “Sasanian iconoclasm” postulated by Mary Boyce in 1975. The Sasanians did not develop any prohibition against anthropomorphic representations of the gods, and in the surviving Zoroastrian literature and inscriptions there is no evidence of either theological disputes over idols or of a deliberate eradication of them by the Persian kings. Sasanian cult was aniconic, but the historical and archaeological evidence clearly demonstrates that Sasanian visual culture was anything but iconoclastic. It seems that the Persian iconoclastic identity was constructed in the early Sasanian period as a response to the challenges posed by Christianity. By joining the common monotheistic discourse against idolatry, the Zoroastrian clergy adopted the conventions of the world in which they lived. Attacks against “idols” and “idolatry” should be understood in the context of internal and external polemical discourse against beliefs deemed to be erroneous by the Zoroastrian priesthood.

The article investigates the agricultural lexicon of Indo-Iranian, especially its earlier records, and what it may tell us about the spread of farming. After some general remarks on " Neolithic " vocabulary, a short overview of the animal husbandry terminology shows that this field of vocabulary was evidently well-established in Proto-Indo-Iranian, with many cognate terms. Words for cattle, horses, sheep and goats are well developed and mostly inherited, while evidence for pigs is more limited, ad the words for donkey and camel look like common loans. A more extensive discussion of plant terminology reveals that while some generic terms for grain are inherited, more specific words for different kinds of cereals show few inherited terms and/or irregular variation, and the same is even clearer for pulses and some other vegetables. The terminology for agricultural terminology is largely different from that of most European branches of Indo-European. The conclusion is that the cultural background behind these linguistic data points to spreading of a mainly pastoralist culture in the case of Indo-Iranian.

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

Jewish-Iranian encounters in ancient times.
The Iranian religious oral and written traditions
The use of Gathic phraseolgy in the Videvdad (Vendidad) and  the Achaemenid inscriptions.
Scholarly discussions about pollution in the Pahlavi literature from late Sasanian times.

Marek Jan Olbrycht, Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.). At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History. Leiden/Boston: Brill 2021 (Series: Mnemosyne, Supplements, Volume: 440).

In his new monograph Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.): At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History, Marek Jan Olbrycht explores the early history of the Arsakid Parthian state. Making use of literary and epigraphic evidence as well numismatic and archaeological sources, Olbrycht convincingly depicts how the Arsakid dynasty created a kingdom (248 B.C.-A.D. 226), small at first, which, within a century after its founding, came to dominate the Iranian Plateau and portions of Central Asia as well as Mesopotamia. The “Parthian genius” lay in the Arsakids’ ability to have blended their steppe legacy with that of sedentary Iranians, and to have absorbed post-Achaemenid Iranian and Seleukid socio-economic, political, and cultural traditions.

The present paper aims at surveying numerals in Khotanese. It also explains the manner of construction of ordinal, distributive, approximative and composite numbers in this language. It likewise alludes to the most common linguistic phenomenon related to numerals, namely the repetition of numbers and its usages in Khotanese. This topic is also examined in ancient languages such as Sanskrit and Avestan.

Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, 8. asır sonu veya 9. asır başlarında tamamlanmış önemli bir
Pehlevice (Orta Farsça) tarihîcoğrafya metnidir. Metin, Ērānšahr kentlerinin bir listesini
vermekte ve bu kentlerin tarihsel gelişimlerini açıklamaktadır. Ērānšahr coğrafyası Orta Asya,
Arap Yarımadası, Mısır ve Suriye gibi ülkeleri de kapsamaktadır. Bu nedenle Šahrestānīhā ī
Ērānšahr sadece İran tarihi hakkında değil Türk, Arap ve Yunan-Roma tarihi hakkında da
bilgiler vermektedir. Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr hakkındaki bu makale,birinci elden tarihîbir
kaynağı Geç Antik Çağ ve Erken İslâm tarihi ile ilgilenen araştırmacılara tanıtmayı
amaçlamaktadır.
ABSTRAC
Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr is a important Middle Persian (Pahlavi) historical geography
text which was completed in the late eighth or early ninth centuries AD.The text gives a
numbered list of the cities of Eranshahr and explains their history. The land of Eranshahr
includes many countries such as Inner Asia, Arabian peninsula, Syria and Egypt. Therefore
Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr not only gives information on history of Iran but also history of
Turks, Arabs and Greek-Romans. This article about of Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr aims to
introduce a source of first-hand historical to investigatives interested in Late Antique Age and
history of Early Islamic.

The term aṣ̌a- stands in the centre of the ancient Iranian thought. It is a pivotal concept in the Zoroastrian religious lore, but is not, in its significance, coeval with Zoroastrianism. As an object of eschatological longing, aṣ̌a- has Indo-Iranian roots. It is, in Old and Middle Persian texts, primarily understood as a synecdoche for the divine sphere where the religiously dutiful expects to lead a blessed mental existence after death. aṣ̌a- is also a deity of the Old Avestan pantheon, thus a deified concept. Finally, the term is regularly used in the Gāthās as both the authoritative instance of measuring human (religious) conduct, and the normative goal of therapeutic (eschatological) activity. In this latter usage, too, and in agreement with its form and etymology, aṣ̌a- signifies a concrete phenomenon. There are good reasons to think that this phenomenon is the world as it was “put together” by Ahura Mazdā, and only subsequently sickened by the forces of deception. The translations to date, such as “truth” and “order”, are examined, all of which are shown to have serious problems. In conclusion I propose to translate aṣ̌a- as “cosmos”.

The specific sense that the word xratu- possesses in the Gāthās has not received the attention it deserves.  As we will see, this specific sense points to the eschatological foundation of Zoroastrianism. Eschatological concerns did not first develop in the frame of an established “monotheistic” religion; rather, Zoroastrianism arose from those concerns. The xratu- has a strictly eschatological function in the Gāthās. The noun retains this semantic capacity not only in the Young Avestan but also in the Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts. Iranian languages share the noun with Vedic and (archaic) Greek, where it has the basic meaning of the mental capacity to achieve proposed goals, hence practical intelligence, resourcefulness, or efficacy. If this is in fact the general sense that xratu- has in Iranian, as I will briefly point out, the specifically eschatological meaning that it acquires in the Gāthās must indicate the type of religious discourse to which these compositions belong. The noun may, further, have had developed its eschatological meaning before the time of the Gāthās and had already become a technical term. In this case, it would be legitimate to ask whether there are traces in the Gāthās that point to the institutional background of the term. Now, I believe that there are indeed such traces. The term seems to have been used in the technical sense of the mental power to attain the divine sphere in the daēva cult.

این مطلب چکیده گفتگویی است که با محمود ملاباشی دبیر پیشکسوت ادبیات، پیرامون ویژگی های کاری و حرفه ای محمدعلی نجفی، کارگردان سینما انجام شده است. ملاباشی علاوه بر اینکه ارتباط خانوادگی با محمدعلی نجفی دارد از او به عنوان یک دوست سالیان دراز از کودکی تا امروز یاد می کند. او در چند پروژه سینمایی از جمله افسانۀ شهر لاجوردی نیز به عنوان بازیگر با محمدعلی نجفی همکاری داشته است

Kavis/Kayanids are amongst the most important building-blocks of the ancient Iranian culture. The Avestan texts reveal the royal character of Kavis. However, myths of Kauui-Usan/KayUs reveal a Proto-Indo-Iranian inheritance. It is argued that the Avestan texts hint to distinguishing legends of Kauui-Usan/KayUs not to be an integral part of the proper Kayanid dynasty. Also, it is argued that the house of Kauui Vištāspa of the Old Avestan period antedate considerably the proper Kayanid dynasty, which is to be placed in the Young Avestan period. The enumerated traits of the Kayanid dynasty in particular Kauui Haosrauuah in Avestan texts lead to an appreciation of their role in the genesis of Iranian nationality. The historiography evident in the Avestan texts and the place of the Kayanid dynasty in it make it probable that this ideological historiography originated from the Kayanids. In other words, unification of Iranian countries under Kauui Haosrauuah and victory over Turiias were seen as the ultimate encounter of dualism of good and evil mirroring the slaying of Aži Dahāka by Θraētaona. In post-Avestan period, KayUs who was probably the eponym of the Kayanids was diffused into the dynasty. Likewise, the house of kauui Vištāspa was thought of a minor branch of Kayanid dynasty, post-dating the main dynasty and similarly as national Iranian kings. As such, representation of Kavis as a continuous dynasty evident in the Middle Persian and the Perso-Arabic literature is an outcome of evolution of the oral tradition amongst Iranians.

RUḤAWŻI, a comic type of traditional folk musical drama in Iran, often characterized by improvised funny remarks with social and/or cultural overtones and usually performed by professionals at ceremonies and festivities such as wedding and circumcision celebrations. It was traditionally performed on boards that were placed on the top of a small pool (ḥawż) in the courtyard and covered with rugs, thus serving as the stage, hence the designation ruḥawżi (lit. [done] on the top of the pool). This paper provides an overview of this performance form

This paper conducts a functional analysis of one of the most frequently repeated formulas in the Zoroastrian rituals in the Avestan language, namely, the initial choice of the type of sacrifice to be performed, the time of its celebration, and the gods to which it is dedicated. The analysis will show that the variations of this formula correspond to the ritual variety, confirming the ritual nature of almost all extant texts. Furthermore, the scrutiny of its usage in the Long Liturgy sheds light on the structure and nature of this ceremony.

در متون فارسی میانه، واژه‌های «درویشی»، «شکوه» و «نیاز» بر فقر و تنگدستی دلالت می‌کند؛ از این میان «درویش» دارای دو مفهوم متفاوت است. در متون فارسی میانه به تفصیل به مفهوم درویشی پرداخته و تصویری روشن از آن ارائه شده است. بر اساس این متون، درویش از یک سو بر فرد تنگدست دلالت می‌کند که از وضعیت خود ناخرسند است و از سوی دیگر به فرد وارسته‌ای دلالت دارد که به دلیل خرسندی، تن و روانش در آرامش به سر می‌برد؛ این فرد در نوشته‌های فارسی میانه «درویش راستین» نام دارد. در این پژوهش تلاش بر آن است که مفهوم خاص درویش، یعنی درویش راستین، در متون فارسی میانه بررسی و به این سؤالات پاسخ داده شود: درویش راستین به چه کسی گفته می‌شود، تفاوت درویش راستین و فقیر در چیست و آیا راه و رسم درویشی راستین را در این نوشته‌ها می‌توان یافت؟

The paper deals with the etymology and dialectology of Turkic armut, Persian armud 'pear'. The interrelations of these phytonymical families were treated a few years ago by Prof. Uwe Bläsing who considered the Turkic words borrowed from a Middle Iranian language (viz. Pahlavi, because of some isolated attestation in this language), but also the Ira-nian words probably borrowed from a third (unknown) language of the Irano-Caucasian area. On the basis of an extensive areal study (with original materials from the archive of the Balochi Etymological Dictionary Project, L'Orientale University, Naples) the author argues for a back dating of the Iranian attestations, and the preservation in many modern Iranian dialects of a lexical type believed to be isolated in Middle Persian.

Ancient Iranian prevervs - changes:
Ancient Iranian speakers have been limiting the meaning of verbs through combining preverbs with them and herewith could make Particle Complex Verbs out of them. In the first phase of long term history of preverbs, different mechanisms were working in the case of grammaticalization to generate them from Proto-Indo-European particle adverbs. Next in the second phase, some other mechanisms made morphological, semantic and phonological changes. They changed preverbs to verbal prefixes and then to dead prefixes. Finally Iranian languages made new preverbs through changing ancient adverbs and prepositions and started to use them instead of the old. These newly invented preverbs were being used widely in the middle Iranian languages and continued to being used with a few changes even in New Persian. The purpose of this paper is to investigate mechanisms involving the changes of ancient preverbs from Proto-Indo-European to ancient Iranian and then to middle Iranian languages.

توضیح: این مقاله‌ی زنده‌یاد خانلری در سال‌های اخیر در بسیاری از سایت‌های اینترنتی به شکلی ناقص انتشار یافته است. نتوانستم پاسخی برای این پرسش بیابم که آیا این خود نویسنده بوده که در چاپ و انتشاری بعدی، بخش‌هایی از نوشته‌اش را حذف کرده، یا این دیگران‌اند که بنا به «مصلحت» روزگار کنونی، به خودشان اجازه داده‌اند برخی از جمله‌های او را، به‌ویژه در رابطه با اسلام در ایران، سانسور کنند. درهرحال، این مقاله در حال حاضر، بی‌هیچ توضیحی در مورد بخش‌های حذف‌شده‌اش، در بسا سایت‌های ایرانی به چشم می‌خورد (نمونه در سایت آموزشی خوارزمی). یک جا هم دیدم که بخش‌هایی از گفتار استاد را به یکی از مقامات جمهوری اسلامی نسبت داده‌اند (پیام نوروزی استاندار چهارمحال و بختیاری در سایت صدانیوز). متن کاملی که به دست من رسید ایرادهای جزئیِ تایپی داشت، اما ازآنجاکه به دست‌نوشته‌ی خود استاد دسترسی ندارم، آن را بنا به روش تایپی خودم ویرایش و نشانه‌گذاری کردم تا یادگار استاد ارجمند به‌آسانی بیشتری قابل مطالعه باشد. البته یک اشتباه مهم در بازنویسی گفتار زردشت در پایان مقاله دیدم که تصحیح نکردم، چون با خودم گفتم شاید سهوی از خود استاد خانلری باشد: نام امشاسپند اهورامزدا که پس از «خرداد» می‌آید، نه «مرداد» بلکه «امرداد» است. کاربرد «مرداد» از این لحاظ کاملاً غلط است که معنایی برعکس «امرداد» (نمردنی) می‌دهد. مهرداد مهربان، بیست و نهم اسفند، بیستم مارس ۲۰۱۵ میلادی.

E. Shavarebi, "An Inscription of Darius I from Phanagoria (DFa): Preliminary report of a work in progress", ARTA 2019.005 (Juillet 2019), pp. 1-16.
http://www.achemenet.com/pdf/arta/ARTA_2019_005_Shavarebi.pdf

Abstract: The present paper is a preliminary study of an Achaemenid fragmentary inscription recently discovered from Phanagoria, southwestern Russia. After a brief introduction to the discovery of the inscription, the preserved Old Persian text will be analysed and reconstructed.

This memorial volume is dedicated to one of the most prolific and renowned scholars in the field of Ancient Iranian Archaeology and History, the late Professor Klaus Schippmann (1924-2010), who held the chair of “Near Eastern Archaeology with special reference to Iran” at Georg-August-Universität of Göttingen until his retirement in 1990.
The volume consists of eleven papers written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of Iranian Studies as well as some of his lifetime friends and colleagues. The articles are essentially concerned with different aspects of Ancient Iranian Art, Archaeology, History, Numismatics and Religion, reflecting Klaus Schippmann’s scholarly interests. The volume also presents parts of his unpublished private diary (1959) from his Nachlass, reflecting his ideas, visions and memories of his excavations as well as a report of his last trip to his favourable archaeological site of taḫt-e soleymān (Iran), written by his personal tour leader. The book is illustrated by numerous plates.