Earthly Paradises

Chapter 17 investigates the development of the Iranian institutions of estates and gardens. It examines the continuities and changes in the development of the paradise as well its ideological role from the Achaemenid to the Sasanian period.

The Palace of the Lord of the Sevenfold World

Chapter 16 offered a portal into a different reality or perceptual plane and, for those privileged, a means to inhabit, at least momentarily, this hyperreality. That is not to say that everyone who beheld such spaces need be convinced or overawed. Indeed, the casual observer or outsider might only see a crowd milling around a large building. Yet if one were allowed- or physically, cognitively and ritually compelled- to enter into the implied realities of the microcosm of the ayvān, you as viewer or ritual participant were afforded, or perhaps confronted with, depending on the degree to which one identified with the regime, a stunning view of the cosmos and the Iranian king’s place within it.

The Destruction of Achaemenid Persia and the Creation of Seleucid Iran

Chapter 3 offer a new approach to the evidence that takes into account not just continuities with Persian practice, but also the Seleucid Empire’s breaks with Achaemenid traditions. I argue that the Seleucid Empire strategically introduced stark and deliberately instituted changes in the Iranian world’s topography of power, architecture and religious traditions to create a new vision of Iranian, though not necessarily Persian, kingship. The Seleucids’ new topography of power and visual and ritual expressions of Irano-Macedonian charismatic kingship subsumed and transcended the traditions of Persia and Babylon alike. Ultimately, they laid the groundwork for new Iranian kingship.

Introduction

This chapter explores Iranian cosmology, its changing relationship to the geography of Western, Central and South Asia, and the diverse range of dynasties, kingdoms and empires that engaged or laid claim to it. It provides an introduction to Iranian history and religions.

Epilogue

The Iranian Expanse has presented a new approach to understanding Iranian kingship, cosmology, and identity. Its chapters have explored the role of highly significant spaces and places in constructing, maintaining, and transforming the identity of their patrons and viewers. In the course of doing so this book has investigated the development of landscapes of power and memory, cities, sanctuaries, palaces, and paradise estates in Persia and across the wider ancient Iranian world. At these sites imperially and religiously formulated cosmologies promoted by royal elites were most explicitly and tangibly experienced. Putting ancient Iranian theories of mind and matter into dialogue with contemporary theoretical debates, I have argued that Iranian sovereigns sought to reshape the “conceptual” (Av. ...

The Seleucid and Arsacid Transformations of Iranian Palatial Architecture

Chapter 15 argues that the Seleucids selectively appropriated the Persian palatial traditions to subsume and supersede the Achaemenid legacy. It argues that the Seleucids also used select Achaemenid palaces as anti-monuments, particularly, Susa. The chapter establishes that contours of Seleucid palatial architecture in Iran from the available evidence. It then tracks how the Arsacids engaged the Seleucid palatial tradition before creating new architecture forms with lasting effects on the Iranian. Namely, domed and vaulted architecture.

Ancient Sacred Landscapes and Memories of Persian Religion in Anatolia and the Caucasus

Chapter 9 explores the impact of Persian religion on Anatolia and the Caucasus and the means by which the Orontids, Artaxiads, Pharnabazids, Mithradatids and Ariarathids engaged ancient Persian royal traditions while cultivating pre-Persian cults.

The Seleucid Transformation of Iranian Sacred Spaces

Chapter 8 argues that temple building played a key role in the Seleucids’ ambitious and successful program of claiming and reshaping the Achaemenid Empire’s political landscape. The dynasty systematically appropriated ancient cultic traditions by constructing new Seleucid temples for the cult even as they constructed innovative temples in their newly founded settlements It argues that in provinces without a deeply embedded tradition of temple architecture, or in their newly founded cities, the Seleucids introduced a new repertoire of temple architecture that deliberately blurred the lines between Greco-Macedonian and Western Asian traditions.

Rival Visions and New Royal Identities in Post-Achaemenid Anatolia and the Caucasus

Chapter 5 examines post-Achaemenid Anatolia and the Caucasus. It explore how the kingdoms of founded or ruled by dynasts who traced their roots to Persian satrapal houses navigated between the Hellenistic and Iranian worlds.

Persian Religion and Achaemenid Sacred Spaces

Chapter 7 examines the problem of the architecture and spatial contexts of Achaemenid religion. It argues that the dynasty did not impose a tradition of fire temple architecture on their empire. It is important to assert this at the outset because throughout the last century scholars have repeatedly assumed the existence of- and often attempted to reconstruct- a trans-millennial tradition of Iranian temple architecture built to house a sacred, ever-burning fire in the manner of a late antique or medieval Zoroastrian fire temple, retrojecting them onto the ancient evidence. It explores the evidence we do have to understand the Achaemenid approach to temples and sacred spaces.