Nishapur Revisited

Nishapur Revisited PDF

Author: Rocco Rante

Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781842174944

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Nishapur in eastern Iran was an important Silk Road city, its position providing links to central Asia and China, Afghanistan and India, the Persian Gulf and the west. Despite previous excavations there are many unresolved questions surrounding the site; when was the city founded? Is Nishapur a Sasanian city? Was it founded by the Sasanian king Shapur I or II? The question of chronology of occupation and the ceramic sequence is also problematic particularly for late antiquity and the medieval period, as well as a complete topography of the site. The Irano-French archaeological mission at Nishapur (2004 to 2007) (CNRS-MAEE-Musée du Louvre) focused on the Qohandez, or citadel, the oldest part of Nishapur. Excavations were conducted in different areas of the mound, in order to address these questions. After an introduction to the site and the former American and Iranian excavations, this book presents the stratigraphy and the pottery of the site. The difficulties involved in establishing a precise history of the site, as well as the complexities of studying the pottery led to a program of analysis undertaken by the Research Centre of French Museums (C2RMF). Chemical and petrographic analysis, thermoluminescence (TL) dating and archaeomagnetism analysis as support to the TL results were done. A pottery database has been created regrouping the stratigraphical and laboratory analyses data, in order to manage and present an organised corpus of 1000 samples. The combination of the data from the stratigraphical and laboratory analyses gives an accurate and completely new chronology of the site. Moreover, the study also brought to light a new typological sequence of the ceramic, as well as new data about the pottery production at Nishapur.

Greater Khorasan

Greater Khorasan PDF

Author: Rocco Rante

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 3110390019

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The modern sense of “Greater Khorasan” today corresponds to a territory which not only comprises the region in the east of Iran but also, beyond Iranian frontiers, a part of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. In the past this entity was simply defined as Khorasan. In the Sassanidera Khorasan defined the “Eastern lands”. In the Islamic era this term was again taken up in the same sense it previously enjoyed. The Arab sources of the first centuries all mention the eastern regions under the same toponym, Khorasan. Khorasan was the gateway used by Alexander the Great to go into Bactria and India and, inversely, that through which the Seljuks and Mongols entered Iran. In a diachronic context Khorasan was a transit zone, a passage, a crossroads, which, above all in the medieval period, saw the creation of different commercial routes leading to the north, towards India, to the west and into China. In this framework, archaeological researches will be the guiding principle which will help us to take stock of a material culture which, as its history, is very diversified. They also offer valuable elements on commercial links between the principal towns of Khorasan. This book will provide the opportunity to better know the most recent elements of the principal constitutive sites of this geographical and political entity.

The Eastern Frontier

The Eastern Frontier PDF

Author: Robert Haug

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-06-27

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 178831722X

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Transoxania, Khurasan, and ?ukharistan – which comprise large parts of today's Central Asia – have long been an important frontier zone. In the late antique and early medieval periods, the region was both an eastern political boundary for Persian and Islamic empires and a cultural border separating communities of sedentary farmers from pastoral-nomads. Given its peripheral location, the history of the 'eastern frontier' in this period has often been shown through the lens of expanding empires. However, in this book, Robert Haug argues for a pre-modern Central Asia with a discrete identity, a region that is not just a transitory space or the far-flung corner of empires, but its own historical entity. From this locally specific perspective, the book takes the reader on a 900-year tour of the area, from Sasanian control, through the Umayyads and Abbasids, to the quasi-independent dynasties of the Tahirids and the Samanids. Drawing on an impressive array of literary, numismatic and archaeological sources, Haug reveals the unique and varied challenges the eastern frontier presented to imperial powers that strove to integrate the area into their greater systems. This is essential reading for all scholars working on early Islamic, Iranian and Central Asian history, as well as those with an interest in the dynamics of frontier regions.

Social Change in Town and Country in Eleventh-Century Byzantium

Social Change in Town and Country in Eleventh-Century Byzantium PDF

Author: James Howard-Johnston

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020-06-04

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0198841612

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The eleventh century saw both the heyday of Byzantium and its almost immediate subsequent decline following serious military defeats and heavy territorial losses. The papers in this volume view the social order as a prime determinant of change, tracking it through archaeological and documentary evidence to deepen our understanding of the period.

Medieval Central Asia and the Persianate World

Medieval Central Asia and the Persianate World PDF

Author: A.C.S. Peacock

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-08-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0857727435

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A.C.S. Peacock is Lecturer in Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews, and holds a PhD in Oriental Studies from Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is the author of Early Seljuq History: A New Interpretation (2010), and is the co-editor of The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (I.B.Tauris, 2012) and Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran: Art, Literature and Culture from Early Islam to Qajar Persia (I.B.Tauris, 2013).D.G. Tor is Assistant Professor of Medieval Middle Eastern History at the University of Notre Dame, and holds a PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. She is the author of The Great Selkuq Sultanate and the Formation of Islamic Civilization: A Thematic History (forthcoming) and Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry and the 'Ayyar Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (2007).

Great Seljuk Empire

Great Seljuk Empire PDF

Author: A. C. S Peacock

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2015-01-23

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 0748698078

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The first English language general history of the Great Seljuk Empire outlines its chronological history and will explores its religious and institutional history.

The Oasis of Bukhara, Volume 3

The Oasis of Bukhara, Volume 3 PDF

Author: Rocco Rante

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-08-21

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 9004693998

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The Oasis of Bukhara, Volume 3: Material Culture, Socio-territorial Features, Archaeozoology and Archaeometry, focuses on the study of material culture (pottery and glass), as well as on the archaeoscience activities that took place during the archaeological mission MAFOUB (2009-2023). The topics in this third, concluding volume concern environmental aspects, preliminary results on archaeozoology, the reconstruction of the evolution of the fauna over nineteen centuries, and politico-territorial aspects. It completes the urban and demographic framework that was presented in the previous two volumes. Contributors: Anne Bouquillon, Jacopo Bruno, Yvan Coquinot, Delphine Decruyenaere, Christel Doublet, Ayano Endo, Nathalie Gandolfo, Takako Hosokawa, Marjan Mashkour, Djamal Mirzaakhmedov, Andrey Omelchenko, Elisa Porto, Silvia Pozzi, Gabriele Puschnigg, Rocco Rante, Pascale Richardin, Yoko Shindo, Toshiyasu Shinmen, Tamako Takeda, Manon Vuillien, Antoine Zink The volume is co-published by Brill, Leiden, and the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Cities of Medieval Iran

Cities of Medieval Iran PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-06-11

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 900443433X

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Cities of Medieval Iran brings together studies in urban geography, archaeology, and history of medieval Iranian cities, covering the millennium from 500 to 1500 AD, with a focus on urban actors themselves.

Sasanian Persia

Sasanian Persia PDF

Author: Eberhard W. Sauer

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2017-06-05

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1474401023

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Details Persias growing military and economic power in the late antique worldThe Sasanian Empire (3rd7th centuries) was one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching from Mesopotamia to modern Pakistan and from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. This mega-empire withstood powerful opponents in the steppe and expanded further in Late Antiquity, whilst the Roman world shrunk in size. Recent research has revealed the reasons for this success: notably population growth in some key territories, economic prosperity, and urban development, made possible through investment in agriculture and military infrastructure on a scale unparalleled in the late antique world. Our volume explores the empires relations with its neighbours and key phenomena which contributed to its wealth and power, from the empires armed forces to agriculture, trade and treatment of minorities. The latest discoveries, notably major urban foundations, fortifications and irrigations systems, feature prominently. An empire whose military might and culture rivalled Rome and foreshadowed the caliphate will be of interest to scholars of the Roman and Islamic world.Challenges our Eurocentric world view by presenting a Near-Eastern empire whose urban culture and military apparatus rivalled that of Rome Covers the latest discoveries on foundations, fortifications and irrigation systemsIncludes case studies on Sasanian frontier walls and urban culture in the Sasanian Empire

The History and Culture of Iran and Central Asia

The History and Culture of Iran and Central Asia PDF

Author: D. G. Tor

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2022-04-15

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 0268202087

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This volume examines the major cultural, religious, political, and urban changes that took place in the Iranian world of Inner and Central Asia in the transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic periods. One of the major civilizations of the first millennium was that of the Iranian linguistic and cultural world, which stretched from today’s Iraq to what is now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. No other region of the world underwent such radical transformation, which fundamentally altered the course of world history, as this area did during the centuries of transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period. This transformation included the religious victory of Islam over Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, and the other religions of the area; the military and political wresting of Inner Asia from the Chinese to the Islamic sphere of primary cultural influence; and the shifting of Central Asia from a culturally and demographically Iranian civilization to a Turkic one. This book contains essays by many of the preeminent scholars working in the fields of archeology, history, linguistics, and literature of both the pre-Islamic and the Islamic-era Iranian world, shedding light on some of the most significant aspects of the major changes that this important portion of the Asian continent underwent during this tumultuous era in its history. This collection of cutting-edge research will be read by scholars of Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Iranian, and Islamic studies and archaeology. Contributors: D. G. Tor, Frantz Grenet, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Etsuko Kageyama, Yutaka Yoshida, Michael Shenkar, Minoru Inaba, Rocco Rante, Arezou Azad, Sören Stark, Louise Marlow, Gabrielle van den Berg, and Dilnoza Duturaeva.