Arash Zeini

Author: Arash Zeini

  • Yarshater Lectures at SOAS

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    Arash Zeini
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    ‘In the rays of light of imperial favour’: The visual arts of early fifteenth-century Timurid Herat. Four lectures by Professor David J. Roxburgh of the Department of History of Art and Architecture and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Harvard University: 15 January Timurid Herat: The City as a Setting for Art and Literature 16 January The Timurid-Ming…

  • Darius in the shadow of Alexander

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    Arash Zeini
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    Jane Marie Todd’s translation of Briant’s 2003 Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre has just been published: Briant, Pierre. 2015. Darius in the Shadow of Alexander. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The last of Cyrus the Great’s dynastic inheritors and the legendary enemy of Alexander the Great, Darius III ruled over a Persian Empire that stretched from…

  • Early Islamic Balkh

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    Arash Zeini
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    Early Islamic Balkh: History, landscape and material culture 16th–17th January 2015, Wolfson College, Oxford The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project (2011-2015) has been investigating the early Islamic history and archaeology of the city of Balkh, in Northern Afghanistan. Synonymous with ancient Bactra, the “Mother of Cities” continued to flourish after the coming of Islam,…

  • Imagining Xerxes

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    Arash Zeini
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    Bridges, Emma. 2014. Imagining Xerxes: Ancient perspectives on a Persian king. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the richness and variety of Xerxes’ afterlives within the ancient literary tradition. It examines the earliest representations of the king, in Aeschylus’ tragic play Persians and Herodotus’ historiographical account of the Persian Wars,…

  • Textiles and elite tastes

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    Arash Zeini
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    Canepa, Matthew. 2014. Textiles and elite tastes between the Mediterranean, Iran and Asia at the end of antiquity. In Marie-Louise Nosch, Zhao Feng & Lotika Varadarajan (eds.), Global textile encounters (Ancient Textiles Series 20), 1–14. Oxford and Havertown, PA: Oxbow Books. Read the article here.

  • Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran

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    Arash Zeini
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    The latest issue  of the journal Iranian Studies 48(1), dated 2015 and entitled Religious trends in late ancient and early Islamic Iran, is a treasure trove of highly recommended articles. This special issue has been edited by Jason Mokhtarian & David Bennett. Read the editors’ introduction here.

  • The big and beautiful women of Asia

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    Arash Zeini
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    A slightly older but important article by Llewellyn-Jones dealing with the imagery of Achaemenid period seals and gemstones: Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2010. The big and beautiful women of Asia: Ethnic conceptions of ideal beauty in Achaemenid period seals and gemstones. In Hales, Shelley & Tamar Hodos (eds.), Material culture and social identities in the ancient world.…

  • Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios

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    Arash Zeini
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    Alberto Cantera and his team have launched a new journal, entitled Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios, with the aim to promote the study of Iran and Central Asia in Spain. The first volume has already been published and is available from academia.edu. A dedicated website is under construction. The original announcement:

  • Parthians, Greek culture, and beyond

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    Arash Zeini
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    Olbrycht, Mark Jan. 2014. Parthians, Greek culture, and beyond. In Twardowska, Kamilla, Maciej Salamon, Sławomir Sprawski, Michał Stachura & Stanisław Turlej (eds.), Within the circle of ancient ideas and virtues. Studies in honour of Professor Maria Dzielska, 129–142. Kraków. The Greeks living east of the Euphrates beParthians, Greek Culture, and Beyond, in: Within the Circle of…

  • Inside and out

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    Arash Zeini
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    Dijkstra, Jitse & Greg Fisher (eds.). 2014. Inside and Out: Interactions between Rome and the peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian frontiers in late antiquity (Late Antique History and Religion 8). Leuven: Peeters Publishers. In recent years, exciting new discoveries of inscriptions and archaeological remains on the Arabian Peninsula have led to a re-evaluation of…

  • Getting to know Sogdian: Major epigraphy

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    Arash Zeini
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    Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part of his excellent introduction to Sogdian is now online. In this part he talks about Sogdian epigraphy. Read the second part of the introduction here.

  • Tirazziš or Šīrāz

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    Arash Zeini
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    For this blog, 2014 comes to an end with a little write up by Henkelman on the great city of ŠĪrāz. The blog will resume on 05 January 2015, publishing Adam Benkato’s much anticipated second part on Sogdian. And I have some plans for this blog, which I hope to realise in 2015 with the…

  • The genealogy of Artabanos II

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    Arash Zeini
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    The last day of 2014 is busier than most other days on this blog: Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2014. The genealogy of Artabanos II (AD 8/9–39/40), King of Parthia. Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica 15(3). 92–97. One of the most controversial issues in the Parthian history of the early 1st century AD is the lineage of Artabanos…

  • Religious transformation between East and West

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    Arash Zeini
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    Herman, Geoffrey. 2014. Religious transformation between East and West: Hanukkah in the Babylonian Talmud and Zoroastrianism. In Wick, Peter & Volker Rabens (eds.), Religions and trade: Religious formation, transformation and cross-cultural exchange between East and West, 261–281. Leiden: Brill. When religious traditions travel they tend to adapt to their new surroundings. Like new products seeking…

  • Mani at the court of the Persian kings

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    Arash Zeini
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    Gardner, Iain, Jason BeDuhn & Paul Dilley. 2014. Mani at the court of the Persian kings. Leiden: Brill. In Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings the authors explore evidence arising from their project to edit the Chester Beatty Kephalaia codex. This new text presents Mani at the heart of Sasanian Iran in dialogue…