Showing papers in "Iran and the Caucasus in 2023"
TL;DR: The chronicle of Qasim Beg Hayati of Tabriz, written during the reign of Shah Tahmasp (d.1576), provides new information on early Safavid history that is absent from the other Persian historical literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract:
The chronicle of Qasim Beg Hayati of Tabriz, written during the reign of Shah Tahmasp (d. 1576), provides new information on early Safavid history that is absent from the other Persian historical literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular, Hayati shows how important the Caucasus was for the rise of Shaykh Junayd (d. 1460) and Shaykh Haydar Safavi (d. 1488). Using plunder and slaves gained from raids on the Circassians and the Georgians, Junayd and Haydar maneuvered themselves into a position of leadership of their familial order to which they were not entitled by birth. The disastrous ends of both men meant that there could be little continuity in the movement, but they still placed their line at the head of the shrine of Ardabil, and bequeathed to the young Shah Isma’il (d. 1524) a few surviving veterans with valuable experience about campaigning.
TL;DR: In this article , the central and widest part of the vessel bears a depiction of a deer hunting scene happening on both sides of a dense tree with scattered branches, an infantryman and two horsemen armed with long spears and accompanied by hunting dogs, chase a doe and a deer.
Abstract:
The article is devoted to one of the jar burials discovered in 2018 during excavations of the Eastern tomb field of Tigranakert of Artsakh. That is a gorgeous painted karas with ornamental and figurative bands of various motifs painted in red on a light background. The central and widest part of the vessel bears a depiction of a deer hunting scene happening on both sides of a dense tree with scattered branches. An infantryman and two horsemen armed with long spears and accompanied by hunting dogs, chase a doe and a deer. Hunting scene has been popular and widespread since ancient times. Deer hunting scene is found among the petroglyphs of the Armenian Highlands, on the bronze belts and other decorative-applied works of art from the ancient sites of Armenia and neighboring countries. This theme is especially prevalent in Achaemenid glyptic, in the fine arts of the Classical period, and in the toreutics of the Sasanian period.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on the concept of linguistic border in the verbal system of contemporary Pashto, an Iranian language mainly spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan and identify four main trends of change, displaying as morphologic regularization, syntactic simplification, morphologic differentiation, and semantic clarification.
Abstract:
This article intends to focus on the concept of linguistic border in the verbal system of contemporary Pashto, an Iranian language mainly spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A careful, systematic, and detailed analysis of used radical simple verbs in different Pashto dialects draws attention to a certain degree of variation in one third of these verbs, which are switching from one category to another. Thanks to our research on Pashto verbs, we could identify four main trends of change, displaying as morphologic regularization, syntactic simplification, morphologic differentiation, and semantic clarification.
TL;DR: A catalogue of the metal quivers found by the Joint Expedition to Hasanlu (1956-1977) led by Robert H. Dyson of the University of Pennsylvania Museum is presented in this paper .
Abstract:
During the remarkable excavations at Hasanlu, in northwestern Iran, thousands of metal objects were discovered, but few have been systematically studied. The goal of this study is to present a catalogue of the metal quivers found by the Joint Expedition to Hasanlu (1956–1977), led by Robert H. Dyson of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. After a brief introduction concerning the site and the evidence for metal quivers in the Ancient Near East as a whole, the examples discovered at Hasanlu will be presented and analyzed within their archaeological contexts.
TL;DR: This article examined the relationship between cemeteries and Yezidi identity by focusing on the Goristana Hesen Beg (Hesen Beg Cemetery), which belongs to the villages of Geliyê Sora (Güneli), Mezre (Çilesiz), Xanik/Berhokê (Mağaracık), and Efşe (Kaleli), and is located in Nusaybin in southeastern Turkey.
Abstract:
This article aims to examine the relationship between cemeteries and Yezidi identity by focusing on the Goristana Hesen Begê (Hesen Beg Cemetery), which belongs to the villages of Geliyê Sora (Güneli), Mezre (Çilesiz), Xanik/Berhokê (Mağaracık), and Efşe (Kaleli), and is located in Nusaybin in southeastern Turkey. It will analyse the tombstones’ architectural features and symbols and question how the Yezidi identity reconstructs and transforms itself in modern monumental funerary architecture in southeastern Turkey. Ritual practices in the Goristana Hesen Begê indicate that death rituals can be employed to strengthen and integrate the social boundaries of the community. Thus, it will discuss the meaning of places of memory and mortuary practices for the exiled Yezidis and their roles as identity markers in the reproduction of social relations within the Yezidi community.
TL;DR: In this article , two basic socio-cultural and socio-political concepts of "homeland" and "nation" are presented in Pashto-language schoolbooks printed in 2009 and 2012.
Abstract:
The article discusses two basic socio-cultural and socio-political concepts of ‘homeland’ and ‘nation’ as they are presented in Pashto-language schoolbooks printed in 2009 and in 2012. To complete the discussion some examples found in the Dari-language 1960s schoolbooks have been added as well. The analysis shows intertextual relations at both the language and meaning level that create the key message of school textbooks, i.e., the pyramid of values: home/family → homeland/nation → national pride, aimed at raising national awareness among today’s Afghans.
TL;DR: The authors investigated the position of bears within the Pahlavi literature and discussed some aspects of their denomination within the Iranian linguistic area with special care for the Mazdean traditions in which bears were considered as having descended from the civilizing hero J̌am and a demoness.
Abstract:
Ancient Iranians knew well “bears”, in spite of the fact that they are not frequently mentioned in the oldest literature of the Zoroastrians. Despite the classification of bears as wild and demonic beasts, their common name was not particularly affected by strong and unexpected changes due to linguistic taboos, at least in the earlier phases. The present article investigates the position of bears within the Pahlavi literature and discusses some aspects of their denomination within the Iranian linguistic area with special care for the Mazdean traditions in which bears were considered as having descended from the civilizing hero J̌am and a demoness.
TL;DR: In this article , an examination of the phrase /garah dmna-/, the most common designation for Paradise in the Gathas, for which the traditional translation "House of Song" is upheld, is presented.
Abstract:
This paper begins with an examination of the phrase /garah dmāna-/, the most common designation for Paradise in the Gathas, for which the traditional translation ‘House of Song’ is upheld. Its dualistic opposite /drujah dmāna-/ ‘House of Wrongness’ for Hell leads to the question of why for Paradise one doesn’t have the expected opposite *‘House of Rightness’ instead of ‘House of Song’. The answer proceeds from the etymologically unrelated Armenian gerezman ‘grave, tomb’, whose origin has been hitherto unknown, despite attempts toward its etymology. In view of the Indo-European phrase for the grave (i.e., burial mound) as ‘the House of Clay’, it is then suggested that the Arm. word is from a Median phrase, which is reconstructed as *gṛda- *zmani- ‘*clay (*zmani-) house (*gṛda-)’. The phonic similarity of this phrase to /garah dmāna-/ (/garah/ ‘song’s’ and /dmāna-/ ‘house’), with referential contrast is then seen as the chief motivation for Zarathushtra’s use of /garah dmāna-/ for ‘Paradise’. Then there ensues a discussion of the archeological-historical contexts for the latter development. Next, a phonologically systematic account is offered for Arm. gerezman becoming “Caucasian Albanian” garazman ‘grave, tomb’, in accord with hitherto unnoted aspects of “Caucasian Albanian” historical vocalism. The modern Udi derivative of garazman, i.e. gärämzä, is also accounted for. The loanwords in “Caucasian Albanian” are then divided into two main strata, first the Armenian (Iranian loans and indigenous Arm. words), including some forms from Armenian antedating Armenian literacy, and second a stratum of words, which are here called “Parthic”, of a vintage par with Manichean Parthian. These “Parthic” words, with their religious references, point to an Iranian group which (after the Armenian phase of loanwords) influenced the development of Christianity among the “Caucasian Albanians”, suggesting the existence of a “Christian Parthian”.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examined multiple entanglements of Afghan exiles' biographies in West Germany with Cold War- and contemporary history, and found that during the time of intense engagement connecting West Germany and Afghanistan, their lives became truly transnational, and the vernacular cosmopolitanism they practised has shaped transnational history from below.
Abstract:
This article examines multiple entanglements of Afghan exiles’ biographies in West Germany with Cold War- and contemporary history. The life stories of six men who have been residing in Germany since the 1970s but were physically and cognitively highly mobile in their engagement for change in Afghanistan highlight the role of human agency in transnational history-making. The analysis shows that during the time of intense engagement connecting West Germany and Afghanistan, their lives became truly transnational, and the vernacular cosmopolitanism they practised has shaped transnational history from below. While all six life stories mirror transgressive biographies in connection with wartime events and differ from the global cosmopolitanism of elites, these life courses are neither standardised nor linear. The findings point to three types of transgressive biographies—skilled survivors, quietists and masters of crossover—that have preserved the transnational dimension that had been so significant earlier in the exiles’ lives to varying degrees and differed regarding related perceptions of failure, loss and regret.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on the deliberate re-use by early Armenian Christians of Iron-Age stelae bearing Urartian cuneiform inscriptions in the region around Lake Van.
Abstract: Abstract This article concerns how Armenian communities throughout the 1st millennium A.D. reinterpreted and redeployed cuneiform inscriptions originally carved in the Iron Age as meaningful traces of the local past. It focuses on the deliberate re-use by early Armenian Christians of Iron-Age stelae bearing Urartian cuneiform inscriptions in the region around Lake Van. Scholars have noted such re-use in passing since the 19th century A.D. , but there has been no concerted effort to collect or interpret relevant evidence holistically. The article distinguishes several distinct trends in Armenian engagements with cuneiform (and hieroglyphic) inscriptions in their native territories over the course of the 1st millennium A.D. Combining literary and archaeological evidence, it contextualizes cases of re-use as clashes of historical consciousness, expressed via material culture, in dynamic situations of colonial contact and religious conversion.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors compare two testimonies: one from the French Consul in Tabriz, Alphonse Nicolas, and the other one from a French military officer in travel through Central Asia, Fernand Anginieur.
Abstract:
As one of the crucial moments of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the siege of Tabriz is logically one of the most commented episodes of the period both in Iranian and foreign historiographies. Among these, the French perception of this episode of the late Qajar era is less known than the British and Russian ones, and of course than Iranian sources. This article puts in comparison two testimonies: one from the French Consul in Tabriz, Alphonse Nicolas, and the other one from a French military officer in travel through Central Asia, Fernand Anginieur. Although Nicolas had a great experience of Iran that Anginieur did not have, their visions are quite similar when it comes to close the roots of the revolution in Tabriz. However, because of the gap between their experiences of the region and their own personalities, their writings about Tabriz in 1908–1909 diverge greatly about the appreciation of the events. Nonetheless, the main value of their writings, for us, remains the factual information they gave.
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TL;DR: A survey of Ubykh personal names can be found in this article , where the traditional structure was binary, consisting of a surname and a postposed personal name, and alternative structures included a preposed family name plus two or more personal names, or a surname, plus a patronymic plus a personal name.
Abstract:
The paper presents a survey of the system of Ubykh personal names. The traditional structure of Ubykh names was binary, consisting of a surname and a postposed personal name. Alternative structures included a preposed family name plus two or more personal names, or a surname, plus a patronymic, plus a personal name. Besides a few native Ubykh names, the majority of names are “Oriental” (Turkish/Turkic, Arabic, Jewish, Persian, etc.), Circassian or Abkhazian, or of unclear origin. There are also hybrid names combining names or formants of different languages.
TL;DR: There are three parallel tracks in the development of actors opposing modernisation, viz., the traditionalist ones (tribes and Islamic clerics), the conscious demodernisers (Bachah-ye Saqao Emirate in 1929 and the Taliban), and forces of political Islam that fit the modernisation paradigm but deliver on the demmodernisation agenda (Islamist political parties cum armed movements of the 1970-1980s) as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: Abstract With the beginning of a partial modernisation in Afghanistan in the late 19th century there emerged a pattern of opposition to this process. Often described as traditionalism it aimed not only at the maintaining of the status quo but had a demodernising twist seeking the establishment of an alternative socio-political order pursuing demodernisation dressed in traditionalist Islamic or tribal rhetoric but undermining the traditional modus vivendi by introducing political tools and institutions specifically promoting demodernisation. There are three parallel tracks in the development of actors opposing modernisation, viz., the traditionalist ones (tribes and Islamic clerics), conscious demodernisers (Bachah-ye Saqao Emirate in 1929 and the Taliban), and forces of political Islam that fit the modernisation paradigm but deliver on the demodernisation agenda (Islamist political parties cum armed movements of the 1970–1980s). The background of these three modernisation-opposing forces and the time and place specific circumstances of their operational environment explain the particular ideological and political track they were taking. Their alternating use of opposing tribal and Islamic institutions in promoting their agendas adds to the understanding of their peculiarities. Counter-modernisation activities may derive from different premises, where deliberate demodernisation and that as a by-product of modernised political endeavours are of theoretical interest.