Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T20:13:06.961Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sasanian Persia (ca. 224–651 C.E.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Touraj Daryaee
Touraj Daryaee*
Affiliation:
California State University, Fullerton
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Study of Sasanian History and Society has Received a Good share of attention in the past century. Hundreds of articles and several important books and monographs have contributed to our knowledge of the period. The most important monograph on the history of Iran from the third to the seventh century is that of Arthur Christensen. The book was written in the first half of the twentieth century, and although we have come to understand its shortcomings through advancing textual criticism and changing methodological strategies, it still remains the source referred to by all the scholars in this field. Shorter monographs, such as that of Klaus Schippmann, have added important information and a different approach, giving more attention to primary sources and material culture. Since Christensen's magnum opus, the most complete work on Sasanian Iran is The Cambridge History of Iran, which covers many aspects of Sasanian history, language, and culture.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 3-4: A Review of the “Encyclopaedia Iranica” , Summer Fall 1998, pp. 431 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1. Christensen, A. L'Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard, 1944).Google Scholar

2. Schippmann, K. Grundzüge der Geschichte des Sasanidischen Reiches (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990).Google Scholar

3. The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. Yarshater, E. vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

4. Also note Rawlinson, G. The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy (New York: Welford and Armstrong, 1876)Google Scholar; Justi, F. “Feschichte Irans von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Ausgang der Sāsāniden,” eds. Geiger, W. and Kuhn, E. Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (Strassburg: Zweiter Band, 1896-1904), 395-550Google Scholar; Frye, R. N. The Heritage of Persia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)Google Scholar; Frye, R. N. The History of Ancient Iran (Munchen: C. H. Beck, 1984)Google Scholar; and most recently, Wiesehöfer, J. Ancient Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996).Google Scholar

5. Chunakovoi, O.M. Kniga deianii Ardashira syna Papaka (Karnāmag ī Ardaxšīr ī Pāpagān), Series: Pamiatniki Pis'mennosti Vostoka (Moscow: Nauka, 1984), 44.Google Scholar

6. Shaki, M. “Sasan ka būd? (Who was Sasan?),” Iranshenasi, A Journal of Iranian Studies, Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater, Vol. 2 No. 1 (Spring 1990): 78-80.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., 81.

8. Ibid., 84-86; for another suggestion, see Frye, R. N. “Zoroastrian Incest,” in Orientalia Iosephi Tucci Memoriae Dicata, ed. Gnoli, G. and Lanciotti, L. (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1985, 445-455).Google Scholar

9. Yarshater, E. “Were the Sasanians Heirs to the Achaemenids?” La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome, 1971), 517-31.Google Scholar

10. Daryaee, T. “National History or Keyanid History?: The Nature of Sasanid Zoroastrian Historiography,” Iranian Studies, 28, nos. 3-4 (1995): 129-41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also the important comments in a forthcoming article by Shayagan, R. “Sasanidika II: Early Sasanian Royal Ideology and its Arsacid Antecedents,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 12, (2000).Google Scholar

11. Gnoli, G. The Idea of Iran: An Essay on Origins (Rome, 1989)Google Scholar, concluding chapter.

12. Williamson, A. “Persian Gulf Commerce in the Sassanian Period and the First Two Centuries of Islam,” Bāstān Shenāsī wa Honar-e Iran, 9-10, (1972), 97-109Google Scholar; Kervran, M. “Forteresses, entrepôts et commerce: une histoire à suivre depuis les rois sassanides jusqu’ aux princes d'ormuz,” in Itinéraires d'Orient, hommages à Claude Cahen, ed. Curiel, R. and Gyselen, R. Res Orientales, VI, 1994, 325-50.Google Scholar

13. Ra'in, I. Daryā nawardī-ye irānīān (The Seamanship of Iranians), vol. 1 (Tehran: 1350), 251-55.Google Scholar

14. Piacentini, V.F. “Ardashīr I Papakān and the wars against the Arabs: Working hypothesis on the Sasanian hold of the Gulf,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, vol. 15 (1985), 57-78.Google Scholar

15. Göbi, R. Sasanidische Numismatik (Braunschweig, 1968), 25ff.Google Scholar

16. Reider, C. “Legend Variations of the Coins of Ardashir the Great,” Oriental Numismatic Society No. 147 (Winter 1996), 10-11.Google Scholar

17. Gignoux, Ph. “Church-State Relations in the Sasanian Period,” in Monarchies and Socio-Religious Traditions in the Ancient Near East, ed. Prince, H. I. H. Mikasa, T. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1984), 72-3.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 76.

19. Frye, R. N. “Iran Under the Sasanians,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3 (1), ed. Yarshater, E. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 141.Google Scholar

20. Yarshater, E. “Iranian National History,” in op. cit. vol. 3 (1)Google Scholar; Shaked, S. “Administrative functions of priests in the Sasanian period,” in Proceedings of the First European Conference of Iranian Studies, Part 1, Old and Middle Iranian Studies, ed. Gnoli, G. and Panaino, A. (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1990), 261-74.Google Scholar

21. Tāᵓrīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk, 780-781; Fārsnāma, 108-109.

22. Mochiri, M.I. Etude de numismatique iranienne sous les Sassanides et Arabe-Sassanides, Tome II, Nouvelle edition revué et corrigée (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982), 517.Google Scholar

23. Grenet, F. “Observations sur les titres de Kirdīr,” Studia Iranica, 19 (1990): 87-94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also the review of Skjærvø, P. O. on les quatre inscriptions in Bibliotheca Orientalis, 5:6 (1993): 690-700.Google Scholar

24. Shāhnāmeh, Moscow edition, 1968, Vol. VII, p. 213.

25. Ibid., 213.

26. Zarrinkub, A. H. wrote in his Tārīkh-e mardom-e Īrān pīsh az Islam (History of the People of Iran Before Islam) (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1367/1988), 460Google Scholar, that Bahram was named Gor because his appearance was similar to that of an onager! The common pictorial representation of the monarch is from his coins. I do not see any affinities. I wish he had cited his sources.

27. Cereti, C. G. The Zand ī Wahman Yasn: A Zoroastrian Apocalypse, (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1995) 152.Google Scholar

28. Chronicon Paschale 284-628 C.E., trans, with notes and introduction by Whitby, Michael and Whitby, Mary (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989), 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Whitby, Michael The Emperor Maurice and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 292-303.Google Scholar

30. M.I. Mochiri, op. cit.

31. M.I. Mochiri, op. cit., 504.

32. For BŌRĀN these references are missing: Drouin, E. “Monnaie de Borān reine sassanide,” RN, 11 (1893): 167-75Google Scholar; ibid., “Monnaies de la reine sassanide Borān ou Pourāndokht,” Journale asiatique, 7 (1897): 443-52Google Scholar; Bayani, M. “Studies on numismatics of Puran Dokht, the Sassanian queen,” Journal of the Regional Cultural Institute (Tehran) 2:2 (1969): 117-21.Google Scholar

33. Shaked, S. Dēnkard VI, The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages, (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), 24-25.Google Scholar

34. Shaki, M. ‘The Social Doctrine of Mazdak in the Light of Middle Persian Evidence,” Archiv Orientálni 46(1987): 293.Google Scholar

35. Mazdapur, K. Shāyist Nāshāyist (Tehran: Cultural Studies and Research Institute, 1990), 85.Google Scholar

36. Šāyest nē Šāyest, Chapter I. 2.

37. Tafazzoli, A. Mēnō-ye Xrad, (Tehran: Tus Publishers, 1364/1985).Google Scholar

38. Safa-Isfehani, N. Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahistān, A Study in Zoroastrian Law, vol. 2, ed. Frye, R.N. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Iranian Series, 1980).Google Scholar

39. Marlow, L. “Kings, Peasants and Shoemakers: Social Structure in Firdawsī's Shāhnāmeh,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 2, no. 2 (1995): 88-108.Google Scholar

40. Contra see Chaumont, M.-L. “Vestiges d'un courant ascétique dans le zoroastrisme sassanide d'apres le Vie livre du Dēnkart,” Revue de l'histoire des religions, CLVI, no. 1 (1959): 1-24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Insler, S. The Gāthās of Zarathustra, Acta Iranica 8 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1975), 54-55Google Scholar; H. Humbach basically translates the passage in the same way when the prophet states “protect (me), your poor dependent.” Humbach, H. The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts, Part I (Heidelberg, 1991), 140.Google Scholar See also Yasna 53.9.

42. Shaked, Sh. “Esoteric Trends in Zoroastrianism,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, vol. 3, (Jerusalem The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1969), 175-221.Google Scholar

43. Russell, J.R. “On Mysticism and Esotericism among the Zoroastrians,” Iranian Studies 26, nos. 1-2, (Winter/Spring 1993): 73-94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Rivāyat-i Hēmīt-i Ašawahistān, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Iranian Series, 1980), 289-90Google Scholar, question 44.

45. For some interesting discussion in regard to dīvān in the Sasanian period see Gurnet, F. “Deux notes à propos du monnayage de Xusrō II,” Revue belge de Numismatique 140 (1994): 36-39.Google Scholar

46. Tafazzoli, A. “An Unrecognized Sasanian Title,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, Aspects of Iranian Culture in honor of Richard Nelson Frye, ed. Bromberg, C. A. et al., vol. 4 (1990): 302-303.Google Scholar

47. Gignoux, Ph. “Les quatre régions administratives de l'lran sasanide et la symboliques des nombres trois et quatre,” AION 44 (1984): 555-72Google Scholar; idem, “Pour une nouvelle histoire de l'lran sasanide,” Middle Iranian Studies, Proceedings of the International Symposium organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 17th to the 20th of May 1982, ed. Skalmowski, W. and Van Tongerloo, A. (Leuven: Peeters, 1984), 256-57Google Scholar; idem “L'organisation administrative sasanide: le cas du marzbān, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 4 (1984): 1-30Google Scholar; idem, “Le Spāhbed des sassanides,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 13, (1990): 1-14.Google Scholar

48. Tafazzoli, A. “Un chapitre du Dēnkard sur les guerriers,” Au carrefour des religions, mélanges offerts à Philippe Gignoux, ed. Gyselen, R. (Bures-sur-Yvette, Peeters, 1995), 297-302Google Scholar; there are several other works on the Sasanian military which need to be mentioned: Tafazzoli, A. “La fonction guerrière et le vocabulaire des armes dans la littérature pehlevie,” Annuaire de l'Ecole Partique des Hautes Etudes, tome 100 (1991-92), 181-82Google Scholar; idem, “A List of Terms for Weapons and Armour in Western Middle Iranian,” Silk Road and Archaeology 3, (1993-94): 187-98.Google Scholar

49. Now see von Gall, H. Das Reiterkampfbild in der iranischen und iranisch beeinflussten Kunst parthischer und sasanidischer Zeit (Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1990).Google Scholar

50. See the article by S. N. C. Lieu, “Captives, Refugees and Exiles: A Study of Cross-Frontier Civilian Movements and Contacts between Rome and Persia from Valerian to Jovian,” The Defense of the Roman and Byzantine East, Proceedings of a colloquium held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986, ed. P. Freeman and D. Kennedy, part ii, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Monograph No. 8, BAR International Series 297 (ii) (1986), 473-508.

51. Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Istakhri, Masālik wa Mamdlik, (Tehran, 1347), 105.Google Scholar

52. Macuch, M. “Sasanidische Institutionen in früh-Islamischer Zeit,” Transition Periods in Iranian History (Paris: L'association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, 1987), 178-79.Google Scholar

53. H. M. Malek, “A Seventh-Century Hoard of Sasanian Drachms,” IRAN, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (1996): 85, 87.

54. There has been only a single find of what is called “Sasanian-Islamic” ware produced in Iraq and found in Eastern Africa, “Kilwa: a Preliminary Report,” Azania, The Journal of the British Institute of History and Archaeology in East Africa (1966): 7.

55. Choksy, J. “Loan and Sales Contracts in Ancient and Early Medieval Iran,” Indo-Iranian Journal, 31, (1988): 191-218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. R. C. Blockley lists the amount of gold given to the Sasanians by the Roman kings as mentioned by classical authors in “Subsidies and Diplomacy: Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity,” Phoenix, The Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, 39, no. 1, (Spring, 1985): 62-74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57. Perikhanian, A. G. Sasanidskii Sudebnik (Yerevan, 1973).Google Scholar This text has recently been translated by N. Garsoïan, The Book of a Thousand Judgements (A Sasanian Law-Book) (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1998)Google Scholar and by Macuch, M. Das Sasanidische Rechtbuch (Wiesbaden, 1981).Google Scholar

58. For a good bibliography, see Panaino, A. “The Two Astrological Reports of the Kārnāmag ī Ardashir ī Pābagān (III, 4-7; IV, 6-7),” Die Sprache, Zeitschrift fūr Sprachwissenschaft 36 (1994): 181-98.Google Scholar

59. Tangelušā, with introduction by Homayunfarrokh, R. (Tehran: Danishgah-i milli-yi Iran, 2537).Google Scholar

60. For other references and material not mentioned see Choksy, J. K. “Gesture in Ancient Iran and Central Asia II: Proskynesis and the Bent Forefinger,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, vol. 4 (1990): 201-7.Google Scholar

61. Khaleghi-Motlagh, Dj. “Bār o āyīn-e ān dar Īrān,” Īrān-nāmeh, 5/3 and 6/1 (1987).Google Scholar

62. “Xusrōv i kavātān ut rētak,” Monumentum Georg Morgenstierne, Vol. II, Acta Iranica 22, 47-91.Google Scholar For additional comments see Amuzgar, Z. “Namūnah-ha'ī az honar-e khwalīgarī dar farhang-e kohan-e Īrān,” KELK, vol. 85-88, April-July (1997): 162-66.Google Scholar

63. Russell, J. R. “A Pahlavi Fragment from Holy Echmiadzin, Armenia,” Studia Iranica, 15 (1986): 111-18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. Russell, J. Zoroastrianism in Armenia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

65. For a detailed discussion see Morony, M. G. Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

66. One can cite such journals as Chista, which has dealt mainly with ancient Iran. While some of the articles are less scholarly, others are quite important, especially in regard to the Sasanians and Middle Persian literature. Also Majalle-ye bar-rasī-hā-ye tārīkhī, KELK, Majalle-ye dāneshkade-ye adabiyāt, and recently Farhang, where there is an excellent article by Mazdapur, K. “Garmābe-ye bāstāni-ye Iran (Ancient Bathhouses of Iran),” Farhang, vol. 9, no. 3 (1996): 207-23.Google Scholar These journals contain articles by such scholars as S. Nafisi, S. Kiya, A. Tafazzoli, Z. Amuzgar, H. Mahamedi and others. As for books, one needs only to mention the work of the late M. J. Mashkur, whose 1551-page book on Sasanian political history is rich in information and references: Tārīkh-e Sīyāsī Sasaniān (Tehran: Donya-ye Ketab, 1366/1987).Google Scholar Other important books include the very good work of Sh. Bayani on the very beginning of Sasanian history, Shāmgāh-e Ashkāniyān wa Bāmdīd-e Sasaniān, (Tehran: University of Tehran, 2535)Google Scholar; see also Nafisi, S. Tārīkh-e tamaddun-e Īrān-e Sāsānī, (Tehran: University of Tehran, 1331/1952).Google Scholar