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Looking through The Two Eyes of the Earth: A Reassessment of Sasanian Rock Reliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abolala Soudavar
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Abstract

Matthew Canepa's recent study of the cultural and political interactions between Rome and Sasanian Iran, has provided an opportunity to reassess Sasanian rock reliefs in light of the claims and counter claims between these two empires. Since victory over Romans meant a victory over an-Erān, and generated the most potent of all farrs, i.e. the Aryan farr, many rock reliefs were conceived to show its reflection on the king. What is most interesting, though, is the array of nuances that are incorporated in them to account for the differences that were particular to each situation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 29 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2012

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Footnotes

Unless otherwise mentioned, all photos are by the author.

References

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10 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 426–27.

11 Soudavar, “The Significance of Av. čithra,” 174.

12 See, for instance, Splendeur des sassanides (Brussels, 1993), 81.

13 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 427; A. Soudavar, “Farr(ah)/xvar?nah, Iconography of,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (online edition, 2010).

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20 Soudavar, Aura, 68–71; Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 419–21. The latest identification of the bust comes again from Ursula Weber, where deities on Bahrām II's relief are also identified as princes; Weber, U., “Wahrām III, König der Könige von Ērān und Anērān,” Iranica Antiqua, 45 (2010): 382–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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22 Soudavar, Aura, 73–77.

23 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 427.

24 Soudavar, Aura, 74.

25 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 428.

26 Soudavar, Aura, 73–73.

27 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 423–24).

28 See also her effigy on Bahrām II's bowl in Teflis (Soudavar, Aura, 74–75), which unfortunately has been once again labeled as the queen; Weber, “Wahrām III,” 386.

29 Following Alram, Weber correctly argues that while the coinage of Narseh is devoid of dates, the type that had a crown with a fluted contour continued to be struck under Narseh's successor and was therefore the later type; Weber, “Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” 308.

30 Vanden Berghe's remark reads as follows: “Nous avons, en plus, voulu mettre l'accent sur le fait que ces scènes dites d'investiture, n'illustrent ni le couronnement, ni l'intronisation du roi, mais bien plus la transmission du ‘Khvarnah’ c'est-à-dire l'octroi au roi déjà couronné, de la gloire divine, du pouvoir suprême et de la postérité tout au cours de son règne,” as quoted in Weber, “ Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” 308.

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34 See Persian translation of my Aura of the Kings (Soudavar, A., Farreh-ye izadi dar āyin pādshāhi-ye Iran-e bāstan, (Houston, 2005), 4;Google Scholar see also Dehkhodā dictionary: http://www.loghatnaameh.com.

35 Soudavar, “The Formation of Achaemenid Imperial Ideology and its Impact on the Avesta,” in The World of Achaemenid Persia—History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, ed. Curtis, J. and St Simpson, J. (London, 2010), 126.Google Scholar

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38 Hollard, “Julien.”

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43 A similar mistake was made by the late Prof. Oleg Grabbar when he attributed the making of the magnificent Il-Khānid Shāhnāmeh (nicknamed Abu-Sàidnāmeh) to the less than six-month reign of Arpā Kaon (1335–36), whose rule was contested from the start, and who spent the first half of his reign fending off the attacks of his cousins of the Golden Horde, and the second fighting his rivals. Such a project needed years for completion; Soudavar, A., “The Saga of Abu-Sàid Bahādor Khān, The Abu-sa'idnāmeh,” in At the Court of the Il-Khāns, 1290–1340, ed. Raby, J. and Fitzherbert, T. (Oxford 1996), 171.Google Scholar

44 Information provided by R. Gyselen who has a photo of the undamaged part of the statue underneath the horse's belly.

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48 http://rbedrosian.com/seb8.htm.

49 Abol-Hasan, Mas`udi Hosayn-e, `Ali b., Les prairies d'or, trans. Pellat, C. (Paris, 1962), I: 24,Google Scholar corrected in Soudavar, “The Significance of Av. čithra,” 174.

50 Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 437–40. As their legends used a hybrid syntax mixing image and text, the plain reading of only the written words by Gyselen had produced an incongruent text.

51 Daryaee, T., ed., Shahrestānihā i Erānshahr; A Middle Persian Text on Late Antique Geography, Epic and History (Costa Meza, 2002), 5;Google Scholar “ایرانشهر از رود آمویست تا دریای مصر”

52 Soudavar, Aura, 82–84.

53 Facella, M., “Darius and the Achaemenids in Commagene,” Organization des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l'empire achéménide, ed. Briant, P. and Chauveau, M. (Paris, 2009), 384.Google Scholar

54 The Fārsnameh, for instance, defines the Persian lands: “from the Oxus until the waters of the Euphrates”; Ebn-e Balkhi, The Fārsnāma of Ibnu'l Balkhi, ed. G. Le Strange and R. A. Nicholson (London, 1968), 120.

55 See Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” figs. 16, 17. I am indebted to D. Huff for pointing out Darius' crenellated crown to me.

56 Félix, M., Le livre des Rois Mages (Paris, 2000), 15, 25.Google Scholar

57 Boyce, M., “Apam-Napāt,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (1987) II: 149–50.Google Scholar A different translation used by Alain Williams for the same passage of the Bondahesh gives an erroneous image of the deities involved (A. Williams, “Čamruš,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (Online edition, 1990)).