The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran

Edited by D. T. Potts

Oxford Handbooks

Comprehensive profiles of a critical historical region
Excellent overviews of some of the most important sites in ancient Iran

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran

Edited by D. T. Potts

Description

Iran's heritage is as varied as it is complex, and the archaeological, philological, and linguistic scholarship of the region has not been the focus of a comprehensive study for many decades. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran provides up-to-date, authoritative essays on a wide range of topics extending from the earliest Paleolithic settlements in the Pleistocene era to the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD. The volume, authored by specialists based both inside and outside of Iran, is divided into sections covering prehistory, the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Achaemenid period, the Seleucid and Arsacid periods, the Sasanian period, and the Arab conquest. In addition, more specialized chapters are included which treat numismatics, religion, languages, political ideology, calendrics, the use of color, textiles, Sasanian silver and reliefs, and political relations with Rome and Byzantium. No other single volume covers as much of Iran's archaeology and history with the same degree of authority. Drawing on the results of the latest fieldwork in Iran and studies by scholars from around the world, this volume addresses a longstanding gap in the literature of the ancient Near East.

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran

Edited by D. T. Potts

Oxford Handbooks

Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Background and beginnings
1. The history of archaeological research in Iran: A brief survey
Ali Mousavi
2. Key questions regarding the palaeoenvironment of Iran
Matthew D. Jones
3. The Paleolithic of Iran
Nicholas J. Conard, Elham Ghasidian and Saman Heydari-Guran
4. The development and expansion of a Neolithic way of life
Lloyd R. Weeks
Part II. The Chalcolithic period
5. The Chalcolithic of northern Iran
Barbara Helwing
6. The Chalcolithic in the central Zagros
Abbas Moghaddam and Ardashir Javanmardzadeh
7. The Later Village (Chalcolithic) period in Khuzestan
Abbas Moghaddam
8. The Chalcolithic in southern Iran
Cameron A. Petrie
Part III. The Bronze Age
9. The Early Bronze Age in northwestern Iran
Geoffrey D. Summers
10. The Bronze Age in northeastern Iran
Christopher P. Thornton
11. Luristan and the central Zagros in the Bronze Age
D. T. Potts
12. Khuzestan in the Bronze Age
Javier Álvarez-Mon
13. Early writing in Iran
J.L. Dahl
14. The use of Akkadian in Iran
Katrien De Graef
15. Bronze Age Fars
Bernadette McCall
16. Eastern Iran in the Early Bronze Age
Holly Pittman
Part IV. The Iron Age
17. The Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in northwestern Iran
Michael D. Danti
18. Luristan during the Iron Age
Bruno Overlaet
19. The central Alborz region in the Iron Age
Ali Mousavi
20. Linguistic groups in Iran
Ran Zadok
21. Iranian migration
M. Witzel
22. Assyria and the Medes
Karen Radner
23. Elam in the Iron Age
Javier Álvarez-Mon
24. Elam, Assyria, and Babylonia in the early 1st millennium BC
Matt Waters
25. Iron Age southeastern Iran
Peter Magee
Part V. The Achaemenid period
26. Southwestern Iran in the Achaemenid period
Rémy Boucharlat
27. Administrative realities: The Persepolis Archives and the archaeology of the Achaemenid heartland
Wouter F.M. Henkelman
28. Avesta and Zoroastrianism under the Achaemenids and early Sasanians
P.O. Skjærvø
29. Royal Achaemenid iconography
Mark B. Garrison
30. Color and gilding in Achaemenid architecture and sculpture
Alexander Nagel
31. Eastern Iran in the Achaemenid period
Bruno Genito
32. Old Persian
Jan Tavernier
33. Greek sources on Achaemenid Iran
Maria Brosius
VI. Seleucid, post-Achaemenid and Arsacid archaeology and history
34. Alexander the Great and the Seleucids in Iran
Paul Kosmin
35. Media, Khuzestan and Fars between the end of the Achaemenids and the rise of the Sasanians
Pierfrancesco Callieri and Alireza Askari Chaverdi
36. Fratarak? and Seleucids
Josef Wiesehöfer
37. The Arsacids (Parthians)
Stefan R. Hauser
38. Parthian and Elymaean rock reliefs
Trudy S. Kawami
39. Arsacid, Elymaean and Persid coinage
Khodadad Rezakhani
40. Aramaic, Parthian and Middle Persian
Seiro Haruta
41. The use of Greek in pre-Sasanian Iran
Georges Rougemont
VII. The Sasanian period
42. Sasanian political ideology
M. Rahim Shayegan
43. Sasanian coinage
Nikolaus Schindel
44. Sasanian interactions with Rome and Byzantium
P. Edwell
45. Sasanian rock reliefs
Matthew P. Canepa
46. Kuh-e Khwaja and the religious architecture of Sasanian Iran
Soroor Ghanimati
47. Sasanian administation and sealing practices
Negin Miri
48. Luxury silver vessels of the Sasanian period
Kate Masia-Radford
49. Sasanian textiles
Carol Bier
50. Pre-Islamic Iranian calendrical systems in the context of Iranian religious and scientific history
Antonio Panaino
51. The Islamic conquest of Sasanian Iran
Michael Morony

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran

Edited by D. T. Potts

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Edited by D. T. Potts, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

D. T. Potts is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.

Contributors:

Javier Álvarez-Mon, University of Sydney
Alireza Askari Chaverdi, Shiraz University
Carol Bier, Textile Museum
Rémy Boucharlat, University of Lyon
Maria Brosius, University of Newcastle
Pierfrancesco Callieri, University of Bologna
Matthew Canepa, University of Minnesota
Nicholas Conard, University in Tübingen
Jacob L Dahl, University of Oxford
Michael Danti, Boston University
Katrien De Graef, Macquarie University
Mark B. Garrison, Trinity University
Bruno Genito, University of Naples 'L'Orientale'
Soroor Ghanimati, University of California at Berkeley and University of California at Merced
Elham Ghasidian, University of Tübingen
Seiro Haruta, Tokai University
Stefan R. Hauser, University of Konstanz
Barbara Helwing, German Archaeological Institute and the Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen
Wouter F.M. Henkelman, German Archaeological Institute
Saman Heydari-Guran, University of Tübingen
Ardeshir Javanmardzadeh, Tehran University
Matthew D. Jones, University of Nottingham
Trudy Kawami, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, New York
Paul J. Kosmin, Harvard University
Peter Magee, Bryn Mawr College
Bernadette McCall, University of Sydney
Negin Miri, Shahid Beheshti University
Azad University, Tehran
Abbas Moghaddam, Iranian Center for Archaeological Research in Tehran
Michael G. Morony, UCLA
Ali Mousavi, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Alexander Nagel, Freer|Sackler Galleries
Bruno Overlaet, Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels
Antonio C. D. Panaino, University of Bologna
Cameron Petrie, University of Cambridge
Holly Pittman, University of Pennsylvania
D.T. Potts, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
Kate Masia-Radford, Independent scholar in Sydney
Karen Radner, University College London
Khodadad Rezakhani, London School of Economics
Georges Rougemont, University of Lyon II
Nikolaus Schindel, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna
Rahim Shayegan, UCLA
Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Harvard University
Geoffrey Summers, University in Ankara
Jan Tavernier, University of Louvain
Christopher P. Thornton, University of Pennsylvania Museum
Matthew Waters, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Lloyd Weeks is an Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham (UK).
Josef Wiesehöfer, University in Kiel
Michael Witzel, Harvard University
Ran Zadok,Tel Aviv University

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran

Edited by D. T. Potts

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

"The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran commendably achieves its goal of providing an authoritative, up-to-date, multidisciplinary overview of this region for all periods up to the Islamic conquest, thanks in large part to the meticulous oversight of its editor D. T. Potts. ... This is a volume in which experts in history, archaeology, numismatics, linguistics, and other fields have been brought together to give a rich, multifaceted picture. ... The volume is sweeping, ambitious, and exemplary. Classicists will find within these thousand pages many nuggets of scholarly gold." - ICJ-Online, a service of The Classical Journal

"The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran at last provides a comprehensive overview and bibliography of the archaeology of pre-Islamic Iran. Potts has done a remarkable job bringing together scholars from every country that has played an important role in the archaeology of Iran. This book will certainly become the first source to turn to when embarking on a study on aspects of ancient Iran." - Steve Renette, BiOr no. LXXI 3/4