The Ancestry of Iranian Women in the Sassanid Court based on Illustrated and Written Historical Sources

An overall study on the extended periods of Iranian history indicates that the subject of ancestry is one of the significant political and social concerns which was closely related to legitimacy. For more than four centuries, the Sassanids ruled over a large territory of Iran and established an empire that was concerned with matters of purity of blood and originality of lineage. This matter was imperative both regarding paternal and maternal lineages. In order to maintain the purity of blood and ancestry, they recommended incestuous marriages. It seems that in the Sassanid dynasty, kings adopted Iranian and Aneran wives, who are mentioned both in written sources and historical monuments related to the Sassanid era, such as the inscription of the Kaaba of Zoroaster. The dispute in this study is how this approach affects the status of women and their lineage in the Sassanid period. Hence, the goal of this research is to investigate the racial origin and lineage of Iranian women based on written and illustrated historical sources. The method of this research is analytical-descriptive and based on library data. The findings of this study show that during this period, the wives of Sassanid kings were selected more compared to the noble Parthian families, and it can be stated that in the Sassanid dynasty, at least at its commencement, the family title of these women, truly or as propaganda was used to legitimize the kingdom. In addition to these cases, examples of incestuous marriages are mentioned.

1. Examining the lineage of women in the Sassanid court based on written and illustrated historical sources. 2. Investigating the role of marriage in authority relations in the Sassanid period.

Research questions: 

1. What effect did the issue of women's lineage have on political relations in the Sassanid period? 2. Can evidence of intermarriage be found in written and illustrated historical sources?