The Vocabulary and Syntax of Iconography in Sasanian Iran

Journal of Iranian Studies, Jan. 2012/1, pp. 29-58., 2012

Iranica Antiqua, 2006

2014

Although by its title, this book seems to be about a specialized topic, the spread of Mithraic societies and its avatars, in time and geographical expanse, much enhances its relevancy. From Roman legionaries to chivalry orders, from dervish circles to guild organizations, and from Freemasons to French revolutionaries, the hierarchy of Mithraic societies, their initiation rites, and their oaths of secrecy, provided a model for brotherhood organization that was efficient, but also flexible. They could adapt their philosophy to the prevailing politico-religion conditions of the day, because they did not worship any particular god. Mithra was the initial guarantor of their oath, and if need be it could be replaced by Jesus, Allah, or any other divinity. Their “religion” was their brotherhood, and as such they usually provided a counter-balance to the power elite, and had the potential to become politically active. Occasionally, they would even make a bid for power, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. By the same token, they could be comrades in arms with nascent religious movements, as with Christianity, or be an adversary when their paths diverged. In this book, its author traces back the appearance of these societies to the early days of the Achaemenid Empire and to the religious cataclysm that Herodotus has dubbed as Magophonia. The Mithraic magi were pursued and massacred, and to avoid persecution, they went underground, often literally. That’s how—secret—brotherhood societies were born.

Iranica Antiqua, 2013

An inscription on the Naqsh-i Rustam I rock relief identifies the two protagonists in the investiture scene as Ardashir I and Ahura Mazda. All investing authorities on the royal Sasanian reliefs are therefore commonly identified as Ahura Mazda. In view of conflicting historic information and unexplained variations in the iconography of 'Ahura Mazda', a re-interpretation of the investiture reliefs is made. The inscription on Ahura Mazda’s horse at Naqsh-i Rustam appears to have been added at the end of Ardashir’s reign or early in Shapur I’s reign and the earliest reliefs are now considered to depict an investiture by a priest, instead of by Ahura Mazda. Once the inscription had been added to the Naqsh-i Rustam I rock relief, it changed from an investiture by a priest to one by a god, Ahura Mazda. Iconographic details that conflicted with this transformation (such as the barsum, attendant and possibly the 'royal' tamga) were left out of the divine image in later representations of the investiture on horseback. The late Sasanian Taq-i Bustan III investiture on foot, up to now considered to be the investiture of Khusrow II by Ahura Mazda and Anahita, is equally interpreted as an investiture by clergy, in this case by representatives of the cults of these two gods, rather than by the gods themselves.

2003

2015

A major aspect of Zoroastrianism is how they discredited existing Iranian deities, and reused them in an expanded pantheon of gods subordinated to Ahura Mazdā. Their most difficult task was to find ways to reintegrate Apam Napāt (Apam Naphāt?), a deity who was perceived as the main rival to Ahura Mazdā, and the one who was initially branded as daeva. The subtle ways by which they achieved this is a testimony to their mastery in the art of sophistry, at a level seldom seen in the history of religions.

Japan Society for Hellnistic-Islam Archaeological Studies , 2019

The rock-cut relief (Fig. 1) depicting the investiture scene of the Sasanian King of Kings, Narseh (293-302) at Naqsh-i Rustam in southern Iran has been investigated by many scholars since the beginning of the twentieth century CE (Herrmann 1977: 9-11, fig. 2, pls. 8-13). As regards the iconography of this relief, one of a few problems that have not yet gained scholarly consensus is the identification of the female figure (Fig. 2) depicted on the viewer's rightmost side of the relief. She wears a long-sleeved dress covering both feet, and a mural (turreted) crown (Fig. 3) with three or four two-stepped crenellations resembling the crenellated mural crown of Ahura Mazdā (Ōhrmazd)

IRAN 2012, pp. 45-78

The recent discovery of Sasanian figural capitals only slightly damaged-which have been kept in the park at Taq-i Bustan (Kermanshah)-allowed for a series of new identifications of the divine images represented there together with royal figures. Although the royal figures seem to point always at the same king (a very important hint that would suggest one date for all the figural capitals), the divinities have different attributes and also wear different clothes and headgears. In the past, all those divinities have been identified as representations of the goddess Anahita, a hypothesis not to be regarded since at least one god has even a beard. Enigmatic descriptions of those divinities in Avestan literature can be useful for their identification. The textual analysis can be also cautiously adopted to study the iconography of mythological fantastic creatures of Persian traditions such as the Senmurv/Simurgh. INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTION OF TAQ-I BUSTAN