International Journal of Iranian Heritage Studies
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Autumn-Winter 2018

This article reports on the 2016 activities of the second campaign of the ongoing Iran-France archaeological project at Pasargadae and its surroundings. The main goal of this project is to reveal and analyze the Achaemenid cityscape and regional management integrated into the long occupation history of the area. In 2016, new insights on the site and its territory were provided by data coming from newly implemented approaches: surface ceramics analyses, aerial survey and remote sensing, and palaeoenvironmental studies. We also extended our large-scale mapping of the site through combined topographic and geophysical survey approaches. The systematic mapping of the archaeological landscape, settlement pattern and funerary remaining around the site was also continued. We also present some preliminary results of pollen and sediment analyses of the filling deposits in the large basin which delaminates the Pasargadae Royal Garden to the southeast.

Apostasy in Zoroastrian religion is commonly defined as the rejection of religionin word or deed by a person who has been a behdin. The evidence from Middle Periantexts illuminate the strong challenges between Mazdean faith and other religions suchas Christianity, Manichaeism and Judaism. They also emphasize the strong punishmentcalled marg-arzān designated for the apostates.This article compares the Middle Persian texts on apostasy to find out aboutpossible different views stated in Middle Persian Texts about this issue. According tothese texts, there were strong challenges between Mazdean faith and other religionssuch as Christianity, Manichaeism and Judaism. It is also concluded that whereas capitalpunishment for apostasy could have been enforced during Sasanian times, it was notpracticed when forcible conversion to Islam was commonplace.

The West-East love affair and especially with the Persian empire has always been thesame, following one unflinching ethos: the former Hellenizes the latter and, as a result,remodeling it either by injecting an inherently western trajectory into the core of theEast, or by philosophizing and then reevaluating its national, ideological and culturalgrand narratives.By exploring Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh (1817) as the main point of departure forcultural interventions in the orient, especially Persia or the land of Ēran or Aryāns as aconspicuous source of insight, and crisscross my reading of Moore’s colonial look at Iranwith Joyce’s subtle reading of oriental subjects and orientalism this article examines theways in which the West has historically been re-introducing a different East in the form ofan exotic Orient to not only its local audience but those abroad. To this end, this articlewill introduce and then instrumentalize the concept of Essentialist Irish Orientalism toshed light on an ever-growing interest of the West to meet and re-evaluate the East in thegeneral and Iran in particular. Hence, the paper will first engage with an Irish orientalistreading of the East, especially Iran, by drawing upon theories of Said, Deleuze, Freudand Fanon.

In the course of its development, Old Persian experienced a fast, thorough arestructuring during the Achaemenid period. This development was so great that itmarked the beginning of the Middle era in Western Iranian languages. Similar to someother middle IE languages like English, Western Iranian languages are analytic languageswhich have lost a great part of their complexity in their transition from the Old typeto the Middle one. The present article tries to provide some examples regarding theprocesses of regularization, loss of redundancy, and growth in transparency, as suggestedin sociolinguistic typology (Trudgill 2010). As such, the development of Old Persianinto Middle Persian is shown to be parallel to major developments in the ancient Iraniansociety after the rise of Achaemenids.

The Cheshmeh Ali (CA) cultural period (ca. 5300-4300 b.c), followed by the Sialk Iculture, not only covers the North of Central Iran region (NCI), but also it is evidenced inneighboring regions. The genesis of this culture has coincided with the consolidation ofsedentary-farming in this cultural region. This research is based on the paleoclimatologyof the Mid-Holocene and archaeological data of prehistoric sites belonging to the CAperiod in NCI. The paleoclimate research indicates that climatic condition of the 2nd halfof the 6th mill. bc is indicative of a moderate and humid climate that can well explainthe cultural flourishing of NCI. However, in the early 5th millennium bc, the occurrenceof a warming period probably caused the difficulty of living conditions and the gradualcultural decline of CA societies. According to absolute dating, archaeological sites ofNorthern Sialk, Cheshmeh Ali, Pardis and Ibrahim Abad collapsed between 5000 and4700 bc. During the next phase, which coincided with a relatively favorable climaticperiod, the number of settlements in this region increased but with the onset of anothersevere warm-dry climatic change at ca. 4400/4350 bc, many settlements again declined,and consequently, the CA period ended. Therefore, the result of this study shows thatthe CA period can be divided into two optimal phases, Early (ECA) 5300-5000 bc, Late(LCA) 4700-4300 bc, both of which are between dry periods.

Ahmad Shamlou (1925 – 2000) and Nazem Hekmat (1902 – 1963) are among themost illustrious contemporary poets who by mainstreaming in the development ofPersian and Turkish literature have gained significant position in literary studies. Despitethe differences in language, environment and culture, studying their works revealssimilarities in their thoughts, some of which are rooted in the same spiritual similaritiesof humans, while others are the result of the literary communications between them;accordingly, their common thoughts may be reviewed in the fields of both comparativeliterature and contrastive literature. In addition to the similarity of thought and cultural,social and political parallelism between the two poets, resemblances can be seen in someof their formal and linguistic innovations in Persian and Turkish literature. This researchseeks to study the common thoughts of these two poets in the fields of comparativeand contrastive literature in five general titles, including: “life and death”, “human”,“poetry and poesy”, “lyrics of regret, nostalgia and captivity”, and “hope”. This studyis a descriptive-analytical desk research. The necessity of research in the fields ofcomparative and contrastive literature of Iran and Turkey reveals the importance of thisstudy. Finally, the results highlight the common thoughts of Shamlou and Hekmat and,for better comparing, present them in the form of diagrams.

There are some monuments, in Pārs before Sasanian period, recognized as fire temples. We know fire temples are a characteristic of Zoroastrianism. But Zoroastriansdid not have fire temples before the 4th b.c. So we can ask ourselves what was the function of these fire temples? In this article, we studied five monuments that should have been fire temples: fire temple of Frataraka, Ka’ba Zardušt, fire temple of Istakhr, Zendan-e Soleiman, and fire temple of Bishapur. Our study is based on historical and archeological documents. Finally we conclude these fire temples were dedicated to cult of Anāhitā, the goddess of water in Iranian mythology. When Zoroasrianism became an official religion in Sasanian period, Zoroastrians used these fire temples for their ceremonies.De la Perse antérieure à l’époque sassanide, il nous reste des monuments qu’on a voulu identifier à des temples du feu. À l’époque sassanide, le temple du feu fut directement lié au zoroastrisme, religion officielle des Sassanides. Mais, étant donné qu’il n’était pas la religion officielle auparavant, et que les zoroastriens n’avaient pas de temple du feu avant le IVe siècle avant J.-C., on peut se demander quelles fonctions avaient ces monuments. Dans cet article on examine rapidement cinq monuments identifiés comme temples du feu, pour mieux comprendre leurs fonctions, en s’appuyant sur des témoignages historiques: le temple du feu des Fratarakas, la Ka’ba de Zoroastre, le temple du feu d’Istakhr, la Prison de Salamon et le temple du feu de Bishâpur. Cet examen nous montre que ces temples du feu étaient plutôt liés aux cultes d’Anāhitā, la déesse des eaux, et n’avaient rien à voir avec le zoroastrisme, même si, plus tard, quand le zoroastrisme devint la religion officielle à l’époque sassanide, ces temples furent au service de la religion zoroastrienne.