The Death of Mani in Retrospect

The execution of the prophet Mani (c. 216 – 273) by the Sasanian king Bahram I (r. 271 – 274) received sharply different treatments in the historiography of three of the confessional groups of the Sasanian empire. Variously a persecuted prophet, a blasphemous lunatic or a sinister heresiarch the representations of this moment sought to establish its meaning in the context of communal narratives predicated on the claims of sacred history. Despite this, it is notable that Manichean, Christian and Perso-Arabic accounts clearly share features. This indicates not only that Mani’s death became a site of competition between the constituent groups of the Sasanian empire, but that the internal historiographies of these groups were in some sense entwined, or at least sensitive to the historical claims made by their opponents. This is particularly relevant in the case of the Perso-Arabic narrative. This version, which almost certainly descends from a priestly Zoroastrian source, presents a picture of a confident priesthood stiffening the spine of a wavering king. It is contended that the source of this story was composed as a counterstrike in a historical debate in which Christian and Manichean authors had successfully propagated an image of Bahram’s court as religiously tepid and his priests as slanderers or non-entities. That such an intervention was required signals a disjuncture between early and late forms of Sasanian ideology. Moreover, it presents more evidence in support of theories of a late and deliberate construction of Zoroastrian “orthodoxy”.

Babylonia: A Diaspora Center

This chapter plots out the emergence of a diaspora center in Babylonia, beginning in the late Biblical era and continuing through late antiquity, as it grew into probably the foremost community in the Jewish world by the early Middle Ages. It outlines the geographical settlement of the region and the development of a Babylonian Jewish self-consciousness and self-confidence. Among the key factors in this achievement was the constant and close economic and intellectual contact between Babylonia and Palestine. Although Babylonia and Palestine were, for the most part, ruled by separate empires, often in conflict with one another, the Jews, and significantly the rabbis in both places, maintained close contact. The importance of Babylonia within the Sasanian Empire, and subsequently within the Abbasid caliphate, both economically and militarily, also contributed to the development and preeminence of the region in global terms.

New historical records about the construction of the Arch of Ctesiphon and their impact on the history of structural engineering

A piece of historical research about the construction of the ancient Arch of Taq-iKisra, part of the imperial palace of the Sasanian Empire in the city of Ctesiphon, has been carried out. The information obtained, an analysis using graphic statics, the use of a physical model with hanging chains, and an ad hoc optimization program written in MATLAB have shown that the designer of this sixth century ad arch, a Byzantine named Farghán, was aware of the effects of the uneven distribution of loads and the differential settlements of the foundations on the equilibrium shape of structures working exclusively in compression and was able to control them. This discovery predates the earliest statement about the link between the shape of the catenary and that of an arch, by Robert Hooke, by eleven centuries and makes this building relevant not only because of its historical, archaeological, and architectural importance, but also because of its importance in the history of structural engineering. The building is currently in need of restoration to stop its collapse, and an awareness of the way it was designed could be of practical use for the definition of the intervention needed.

Banned and Branded: The Mesopotamian Background of Šamata

The verb √šmt and noun šamata, attested in the dialects of Eastern Aramaic in the Sasanian period, would seem at first to be synonymous with the Palestinian term nidui, ‘excommunication’. However, a closer examination reveals that šamata has a different semantic value. It is not simply conceived as a social sanction of excommunication but is understood as a curse involving divine violence; is closely associated with binding; and is often perceived as the property of powerful agents. In this article I argue that √šmt is derived from the Akkadian šamātu, ‘to mark’, ‘to brand’, especially in its more restricted sense ‘to brand temple slaves’ and ‘to dedicate a person to a deity’. Understanding the Mesopotamian roots of šamata might help us better explain its unique regional features, shared by the Aramaic speaking groups in the Sasanian Empire.

SYNCING THE CHRONICLES OF ROME AND EGYPT

Based on a thorough analysis of details of military campaigns and astronomical phenomena from the chronicles of Ancient and New Rome, Ancient Egypt and Persian sources, the author confirmed the chronological shift in the history of Ancient Egypt by 1780 years in the past. The author also revealed the complot of historians to conceal the existence of Ancient Egypt in I millennium by masking the deeds of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the New Kingdom for the non-existent activity of the Kings of the Sasanian Empire.

Surrealism and the Reliefs of the Sasanian High Priest Kartir

Kartir was the most important religious leader in early Iran at the time of the Sasanian empire. The rock reliefs and inscriptions left by him contain some important features that occur for the first time in Iranian art history. Specifically, Kartir’s rock reliefs reveal that someone who was not a king could still be influential enough to commission a monument in which he was the central figure. Kartir’s inscriptions appear next to the reliefs of the previous king, or were even inserted into the same panel. In this way, the traditional construction of these reliefs was altered, as were their respective meanings. Furthermore, Kartir describes an imaginary journey to another world in his inscriptions. The article considers the role of dreams in Kartir's art and what influence this had on this new style of composition, comparing it with what we now call ‘surrealism’.

Being Roman in the Sasanian Empire

Over the past several decades, scholars have challenged longstanding assumptions about Christian narratives of persecution. In light of these revisionist trends, a number of scholars have reconsidered the “Great Persecution” of Christians under the fourth-century Sasanian king Shapur II. Where scholars previously argued that the cause of Sasanian imperial violence against Christians was a perceived connection between them and the increasingly Christian Roman Empire, these new accounts reject this explanation and downplay the scope of violence against Christians. This article reexamines Sasanian violence against Christians in the fourth century, navigating between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis of positivist and revisionist approaches. It argues that the accusations against Christians must be situated within the broader Roman-Sasanian conflict. In this context, fifth-column accusations were a pervasive anxiety, animated—and deployed—by empires and inhabitants alike. Yet, rather than inexorably leading to indiscriminate violence against all Christians, fifth-column accusations operated in a variety of ways, resulting in targeted violence but also, it is argued, in imperial patronage. Seen in this light, concerns for Christian disloyalty were responsible for the drastic vacillations in Christian experience under Sasanian rule during the fourth and early fifth centuries, unparalleled for other non-Iranian Sasanian communities, such as Jews. It was the particular circumstances of Christians, caught between the Sasanian and Roman Empires, that account for their experience under Sasanian rule.

The Persian Keys of the Quranic Paradise

The descriptions of paradise are numerous and precise in the Qur’ān: in relation to their total coherence with one another, they surely come from a unique source. Furthermore, they reflect a social model present in many regions of the seventh-century Near East: the Persian banquet, as enjoyed in the Sasanian Empire. Not only the vocabulary, but the objects, the people, the physical or mental attitudes, the food, and the beverages are all taken from the imagery of the banquets at the Persian court. Hence the quranic paradise is clearly not of religious, but of profane origin. And this offers evidence that one should consider not only Palestine, but also Mesopotamia, as a source of inspiration for the authors of the Qur’ān – and as a site of excavation for the original quranic milieu.