Archaeology
Sa’di Saeedyan
Abstract
Despite the prominent place of ancient Iranian civilizations in the study of the history of the Ancient Near East, it has been overshadowed by an overwhelmingly hostile press that is embedded in the European tradition originated in Greco-Roman sources. In fact, there are few works and authors who have ...
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Despite the prominent place of ancient Iranian civilizations in the study of the history of the Ancient Near East, it has been overshadowed by an overwhelmingly hostile press that is embedded in the European tradition originated in Greco-Roman sources. In fact, there are few works and authors who have not been affected by this negative west-centric approach. Maria Brosius’s book “The Persians” is one of the latest works dealing with the socio-cultural achievements of three great kingdoms of Pre-Islamic Iran, i-e Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanians taking an unbiased approach and up-to-date sources. The present article deals with the advantages and disadvantages of this book and the form and content of it will be examined within the framework of an academic review. The result of the present study indicates that in spite of many advantages of the book such as modernity, unbiased approach, coherent structure, logical order, simple and fluid text, and good translation, it has its own weak points just like any other compilation. Among the most important disadvantages of work can be lack of some significant chapters like Elamite, Median and Seleucid empire and absence of any discernable summary or conclusion.
History
Esmaeil Sangari; Alireza Karbasi
Abstract
The approach of contemporary western historians on the term of “Philhellen” on the coins of the Parthian kings has two types of interpretations. Some consider the superiority of Greek culture to Persian culture in Parthian period, and it is considered as a kind of unconditional and cultural ...
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The approach of contemporary western historians on the term of “Philhellen” on the coins of the Parthian kings has two types of interpretations. Some consider the superiority of Greek culture to Persian culture in Parthian period, and it is considered as a kind of unconditional and cultural surrender to Greek culture. Some other viewpoints, most of which are based on the later Western historians’ viewpoints, are that this term was used as a "political trick" by Parthian kings in order to control the Greek settlers in their territory. In this view, the use of the term on Parthian coins has not meant the unconditional surrender of Iranian culture to Greek culture, and its whole meaning has not been summed up in political goals, necessarily. What was created during Helenism and especially under the influence of stoic thoughts and its Iranian roots of thought was a global approach to the concept of humanity, which was fundamentally different from that of the Greeks before. This issue was compatible with Iranians’ perception from the global society that was rooted in Zoroastrian thoughts in Achaemenid period. Thus, the Parthian kings, using this interpretation, in fact, admire a kind of Greek culture that has a global and non-transcendental attitude towards human society and so that paved the way for its absorption in Iranian culture. This paper aims to provide a moderate judgment with a cultural-sociological approach by showing the cultural difference between Greeks and Iranians in the Hellenistic period and before that, using literary and archaeological evidence, with a descriptive-analytical method.
