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Ancient Arms Race: Antiquity's Largest Fortresses and Sasanian Military Networks of Northern Iran
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 928

Ancient Arms Race: Antiquity's Largest Fortresses and Sasanian Military Networks of Northern Iran

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2023-03-13
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  • Publisher: Oxbow Books

Which ancient army boasted the largest fortifications, and how did the competitive build-up of military capabilities shape world history? Few realise that imperial Rome had a serious competitor in Late Antiquity. Late Roman legionary bases, normally no larger than 5ha, were dwarfed by Sasanian fortresses, often covering 40ha, sometimes even 125-175ha. The latter did not necessarily house permanent garrisons but sheltered large armies temporarily – perhaps numbering 10-50,000 men each. Even Roman camps and fortresses of the Early and High Empire did not reach the dimensions of their later Persian counterparts. The longest fort-lined wall of the late antique world was also Persian. Persia bu...

Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East: Excavations, surveys and restorations : reports on recent field archaeology in the Near East
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 804

Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East: Excavations, surveys and restorations : reports on recent field archaeology in the Near East

.".. 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East held in Rome on May 5th-10th, 2008 (www.6icaane.it)"--Foreword.

The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 1239

The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire

The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Archaemenid Empire is the first modern academic study to provide a synthetic, diachronic analysis of the archaeology and early history of all of Iran from the Palaeolithic period to the end of the Achaemenid Empire at 330 BC. Drawing on the authors’ deep experience and engagement in the world of Iranian archaeology, and in particular on Iran-based academic networks and collaborations, this book situates the archaeological evidence from Iran within a framework of issues and debates of relevance today. Such topics include human–environment interactions, climate change and societal fragility, the challenges of urban living, individual and...

Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 359

Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity

From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia , the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis. Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule.

Dariali: The 'Caspian Gates' in the Caucasus from Antiquity to the Age of the Huns and the Middle Ages
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 1072

Dariali: The 'Caspian Gates' in the Caucasus from Antiquity to the Age of the Huns and the Middle Ages

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2020-04-30
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  • Publisher: Oxbow Books

The Huns, invading through Dariali Gorge on the modern-day border between Russia and Georgia in AD 395 and 515, spread terror across the late antique world. Was this the prelude to the apocalypse? Prophecies foresaw a future Hunnic onslaught, via the same mountain pass, bringing about the end of the world. Humanity’s fate depended on a gated barrier deep in Europe’s highest and most forbidding mountain chain. Centuries before the emergence of such apocalyptic beliefs, the gorge had reached world fame. It was the target of a planned military expedition by the Emperor Nero. Chained to the dramatic sheer cliffs, framing the narrow passage, the mythical fire-thief Prometheus suffered severe ...

Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 284

Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires

A captivating history of civilization that reveals the central role of the horse in culture, commerce, and conquest. No animal is so entangled in human history as the horse. The thread starts in prehistory, with a slight, shy animal, hunted for food. Domesticating the horse allowed early humans to settle the vast Eurasian steppe; later, their horses enabled new forms of warfare, encouraged long-distance trade routes, and ended up acquiring deep cultural and religious significance. Over time, horses came to power mighty empires in Iran, Afghanistan, China, India, and, later, Russia. Genghis Khan and the thirteenth-century Mongols offer the most famous example, but from ancient Assyria and Per...

Persia
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 436

Persia

  • Categories: Art

A fascinating study of Persia’s interactions and exchanges of influence with ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. The founding of the first Persian Empire by the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great in the sixth century BCE established one of the greatest world powers of antiquity. Extending from the borders of Greece to northern India, Persia was seen by the Greeks as a vastly wealthy and powerful rival and often as an existential threat. When the Macedonian king Alexander the Great finally conquered the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE, Greek culture spread throughout the Near East, but local dynasties—first the Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE) and then the Sasanian (224–651 CE)—reestablished th...

Sasanian Archaeology: Settlements, Environment and Material Culture
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 538

Sasanian Archaeology: Settlements, Environment and Material Culture

This collection of essays offers an examination of the Sasanian empire based almost entirely on archaeological and scientific research, much presented here for the first time. The book is divided into three parts examining Sasanian sites, settlements and landscapes; their complex agricultural resources; and their crafts and industries.

Empires and Walls
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 390

Empires and Walls

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2013-11-15
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  • Publisher: BRILL

Why do empires build walls and fences? Are they for defensive purposes only, to keep the ‘barbarians’ at the gate; or do they also function as complex offensive military structures to subjugate and control the colonized? Are the colonized subjects also capable of erecting barriers to shield themselves from colonial onslaughts? In Empires and Walls Mohammad A. Chaichian meticulously examines the rise and fall of the walls that are no longer around; as well as impending fate of ‘neo-liberal’ barriers that imperial and colonial powers have erected in the new Millennium. Based on four years of extensive historical and field-based research Chaichian provides compelling evidence that regardless of their rationale and functions, walls always signal the fading power of an empire.

The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 241

The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers

The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers demonstrates that different areas of the Islamic polity previously understood as “minor frontiers” were, in fact, of substantial importance to state formation. Contributors explore different conceptualizations of “border,” the importance of which previously went unrecognized, examining frontiers in regions including the Magreb, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Nubia, and the Caucasus through a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence. Chapters highlight the significance of these respective regions to the emergence of new sociopolitical, cultural, and economic practices within the Islamic world. These studies successfully overcome t...