Publications so far
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| 1. |  | Bernbeck, Reinhard; Eberhardt, Gisela; Pollock, Susan (Ed.): Coming to Terms with the Future. Concepts of Resilience for the Study of Early Iranian Societies. Sidestone Press, Leiden, 2023, ISBN: 9789464261462. (Type: Book | Abstract | Links | BibTeX)@book{nokey,The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions. In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales. This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments. CONTENTS Climate and palaeoenvironment Holocene Paleoenvironmental Change and Phases of Drought in the Iranian Highlands. A Review Martin Kehl, Babak Rafiei-Alavi, Hamid Alizadeh Ketek Lahijani The Impact of Climate on Human Occupations in Iran from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age: An Attempt to Link Archaeological and Paleoclimate Records Babak Rafiei-Alavi, Martin Kehl, Hamid Alizadeh Ketek Lahijani Evidence of Neanderthal Resilience from Forty-five to Thirty-nine Thousand Years Ago at the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, Kermanshah, Zagros Highlands Saman Heydari-Guran, Nemat Hariri, Martin Kehl, Samran Asiabani, Faramarz Azizi, Elham Ghasidian Water Stress and Imperial Politics in the Southern Zagros Mountains: An Interdisciplinary Approach in Long-Term Perspective Andrea Ricci, Silvia Balatti, Elodie Brisset, Morteza Djamali, Abdolmajid Naderi Beni, Ahmad Azadi, Pejman Firoozbakhsh Settlement, subsistence and mobility Resilience in Practice: A View from the Kura-Araxes Cultural Tradition in Iran Sepideh Maziar Reaching the Breaking Point? Developments in the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age Varamin Plain Susan Pollock, Morteza Hessari, Reinhard Bernbeck The Bronze and Iron Age of Mazandaran (3200–1000 BCE): Resilience and Cultural Adaptability Hassan Fazeli Nashli, Mojtaba Safari, Yunshi Huang, Zhenhua Deng, Hadi Davoudi, Xiaohong Wu The Environmental Limitations for the Pastoral-Nomadic Way of Life in the Karadagh Highlands of Northwestern Iran: Evidence from the Iron Age I-II and Modern Times Bahram Ajorloo Political and economic institutions Second-Year Cows for Manlari. Elamite State Investment in Cattle Husbandry in the Southern Zagros Mountains Azam Rayat and Walther Sallaberger Coping with Problems of Mining: Approaching Resilience Strategies through the Study of Resource-Scapes in the Iranian Highlands Thomas Stöllner Imperial Control and Highland Resilience in the Parthian Zagros Michael Brown and Shelir Amelirad Resilience in Centralized State Systems. The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Achaemenid Institutional Longevity Wouter F. M. Henkelman, Kai Kaniuth, Kourosh Mohammadkhani Prestigious Building and Urban Development in Ilkhanid Iran: The Rabʿ-i Rashīdī in Tabrīz as an Example of Resilience and Vulnerability in a Long-Term Perspective Birgitt Hoffmann, Lorenz Korn, Thomas Lorain, Jonas Elbers, Maryam Moeini Dynamics of Development and Resilience in Western Fars: The Bozpar Valley Stefan R. Hauser, Giuseppe Labisi, Elnaz Rashidian |
| 2. |  | Henkelman, Wouter F. M.; Jacobs, Bruno: Roads and Communication. In: A companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire 1, vol. 1, pp. 219-735, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, 2021. (Type: Book Chapter | Abstract | Links | BibTeX)@inbook{nokey,A refined and extensive net of roads ran through the Achaemenid Empire, known as “royal roads” in the classical sources. They served messengers and embassies as well as being used for the transport of taxes and tributes. Because of their considerable width, they were suited for the movement of troops and transport by larger vehicles. Roads such as the well-documented connections between Sardis and Susa or between Persepolis and Susa crossed and opened up the entire empire. There were also countless auxiliary roads. Furthermore, travel and transport by water played an important role. The transport network guaranteed a speedy flow of information and empire-wide communication, and thus provisioning for travelers was secured, way stations were maintained, and a high standard of safety was guaranteed. |
| 3. |  | Maziar, Sepideh; Zalaghi, Ali: Exploring Beyond the River and Inside the Valleys: Settlement Development and Cultural Landscape of the Araxes River Basin Through Time. In: Iran, iss. 59, pp. 36–56, 2020. (Type: Journal Article | Abstract | Links | BibTeX)@article{nokey,Geographical landmarks, especially rivers, have always played an important role in forming or hampering interplay between societies. In some cases, they act as a “communication route” and in some others as “obstacles”. In north-western Iran, it is possible that the Araxes River played such a decisive role by sculpting its surroundings. While our studies are not yet sufficiently adequate to understand the exact role of this river in different time spans, we can begin in some way to conceptualise its role in different periods. The Araxes Valley Archaeological Project (AVAP) was developed with the general aim of investigating settlement development from the fifth to the third millennium BC. Furthermore, studying the possible and probable routes of interaction, both inter- and intra-regional, between the Jolfa and Khoda Afarin plains and the southern Caucasus and north-western Iran, networks of contacts and exchange, and gaining a better understanding of the geographical characteristics of this area and its landscape were among our aims. In this article, the general history of occupation along this river is given to provide a preliminary database to understand the geographical and socio-political potential of this part in order to pursue more comprehensive studies in the future. |
| 4. |  | Garrison, Mark B.; Henkelman, Wouter F. M.: Sigillophobe suppliers and Idiosyncratic Scribes: Local Information Handling in Achaemenid Pārsa. In: The art of empire in Achaemenid Persia: Studies in honour of Margaret Cool Root, pp. 167–286, Leiden, 2020. (Type: Book Chapter | Abstract | Links | BibTeX)@inbook{nokey,Greek sources, starting with Herodotus, marvelled about the Persian royal roads and the speed of travel and communication they permitted within the vast Achaemenid expanse. Much has been written about this vital network, the spine of empire: about the degree of connectivity it afforded, about the courses of the roads, the people who travelled on it, and the advantages that Alexander and his armies drew from it. The same Greek sources were much less interested in the logistic operation behind the network, with the notable exception of a passage in Pseudo-Aristotle’s Oeconomica, where Antimenes, a high administrator and Alexander appointee, is said to have bidden “the satraps replenish, in accordance with the law of the country, the storehouses/granaries (θησαυροὺς) along the royal roads.” Though offering little detail, this statement opens a view on the efforts necessary to maintain the way stations with sufficient supplies in flour, wine (or beer), fodder and, in the case of halting places for express messengers, fresh horses. |
2023 |
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| Bernbeck, Reinhard; Eberhardt, Gisela; Pollock, Susan (Ed.): Coming to Terms with the Future. Concepts of Resilience for the Study of Early Iranian Societies. Sidestone Press, Leiden, 2023, ISBN: 9789464261462. (Type: Book | Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Administration, Economy, Environmental conditions, Institutions, Integration, Mobility, Resilience, Resources, Settlement and subsistance systems, Structure development)@book{nokey,The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions. In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales. This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments. CONTENTS Climate and palaeoenvironment Holocene Paleoenvironmental Change and Phases of Drought in the Iranian Highlands. A Review Martin Kehl, Babak Rafiei-Alavi, Hamid Alizadeh Ketek Lahijani The Impact of Climate on Human Occupations in Iran from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age: An Attempt to Link Archaeological and Paleoclimate Records Babak Rafiei-Alavi, Martin Kehl, Hamid Alizadeh Ketek Lahijani Evidence of Neanderthal Resilience from Forty-five to Thirty-nine Thousand Years Ago at the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, Kermanshah, Zagros Highlands Saman Heydari-Guran, Nemat Hariri, Martin Kehl, Samran Asiabani, Faramarz Azizi, Elham Ghasidian Water Stress and Imperial Politics in the Southern Zagros Mountains: An Interdisciplinary Approach in Long-Term Perspective Andrea Ricci, Silvia Balatti, Elodie Brisset, Morteza Djamali, Abdolmajid Naderi Beni, Ahmad Azadi, Pejman Firoozbakhsh Settlement, subsistence and mobility Resilience in Practice: A View from the Kura-Araxes Cultural Tradition in Iran Sepideh Maziar Reaching the Breaking Point? Developments in the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age Varamin Plain Susan Pollock, Morteza Hessari, Reinhard Bernbeck The Bronze and Iron Age of Mazandaran (3200–1000 BCE): Resilience and Cultural Adaptability Hassan Fazeli Nashli, Mojtaba Safari, Yunshi Huang, Zhenhua Deng, Hadi Davoudi, Xiaohong Wu The Environmental Limitations for the Pastoral-Nomadic Way of Life in the Karadagh Highlands of Northwestern Iran: Evidence from the Iron Age I-II and Modern Times Bahram Ajorloo Political and economic institutions Second-Year Cows for Manlari. Elamite State Investment in Cattle Husbandry in the Southern Zagros Mountains Azam Rayat and Walther Sallaberger Coping with Problems of Mining: Approaching Resilience Strategies through the Study of Resource-Scapes in the Iranian Highlands Thomas Stöllner Imperial Control and Highland Resilience in the Parthian Zagros Michael Brown and Shelir Amelirad Resilience in Centralized State Systems. The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Achaemenid Institutional Longevity Wouter F. M. Henkelman, Kai Kaniuth, Kourosh Mohammadkhani Prestigious Building and Urban Development in Ilkhanid Iran: The Rabʿ-i Rashīdī in Tabrīz as an Example of Resilience and Vulnerability in a Long-Term Perspective Birgitt Hoffmann, Lorenz Korn, Thomas Lorain, Jonas Elbers, Maryam Moeini Dynamics of Development and Resilience in Western Fars: The Bozpar Valley Stefan R. Hauser, Giuseppe Labisi, Elnaz Rashidian |
2021 |
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| Henkelman, Wouter F. M.; Jacobs, Bruno: Roads and Communication. In: A companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire 1, vol. 1, pp. 219-735, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, 2021. (Type: Book Chapter | Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Achaemenid, Administration, Institutions, Structure development)@inbook{nokey,A refined and extensive net of roads ran through the Achaemenid Empire, known as “royal roads” in the classical sources. They served messengers and embassies as well as being used for the transport of taxes and tributes. Because of their considerable width, they were suited for the movement of troops and transport by larger vehicles. Roads such as the well-documented connections between Sardis and Susa or between Persepolis and Susa crossed and opened up the entire empire. There were also countless auxiliary roads. Furthermore, travel and transport by water played an important role. The transport network guaranteed a speedy flow of information and empire-wide communication, and thus provisioning for travelers was secured, way stations were maintained, and a high standard of safety was guaranteed. |
2020 |
|
| Maziar, Sepideh; Zalaghi, Ali: Exploring Beyond the River and Inside the Valleys: Settlement Development and Cultural Landscape of the Araxes River Basin Through Time. In: Iran, iss. 59, pp. 36–56, 2020. (Type: Journal Article | Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bronze Age, Caucasus, Chalcolithic, Georgia, Iron Age, Kura-Araxes, Landscape, Mobility, Neolithic, Settlement and subsistance systems, Settlement mobility, Settlement structure, Structure development)@article{nokey,Geographical landmarks, especially rivers, have always played an important role in forming or hampering interplay between societies. In some cases, they act as a “communication route” and in some others as “obstacles”. In north-western Iran, it is possible that the Araxes River played such a decisive role by sculpting its surroundings. While our studies are not yet sufficiently adequate to understand the exact role of this river in different time spans, we can begin in some way to conceptualise its role in different periods. The Araxes Valley Archaeological Project (AVAP) was developed with the general aim of investigating settlement development from the fifth to the third millennium BC. Furthermore, studying the possible and probable routes of interaction, both inter- and intra-regional, between the Jolfa and Khoda Afarin plains and the southern Caucasus and north-western Iran, networks of contacts and exchange, and gaining a better understanding of the geographical characteristics of this area and its landscape were among our aims. In this article, the general history of occupation along this river is given to provide a preliminary database to understand the geographical and socio-political potential of this part in order to pursue more comprehensive studies in the future. |
| Garrison, Mark B.; Henkelman, Wouter F. M.: Sigillophobe suppliers and Idiosyncratic Scribes: Local Information Handling in Achaemenid Pārsa. In: The art of empire in Achaemenid Persia: Studies in honour of Margaret Cool Root, pp. 167–286, Leiden, 2020. (Type: Book Chapter | Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Achaemenid, Administration, Institutions, Mobility, Structure development, Textual sources)@inbook{nokey,Greek sources, starting with Herodotus, marvelled about the Persian royal roads and the speed of travel and communication they permitted within the vast Achaemenid expanse. Much has been written about this vital network, the spine of empire: about the degree of connectivity it afforded, about the courses of the roads, the people who travelled on it, and the advantages that Alexander and his armies drew from it. The same Greek sources were much less interested in the logistic operation behind the network, with the notable exception of a passage in Pseudo-Aristotle’s Oeconomica, where Antimenes, a high administrator and Alexander appointee, is said to have bidden “the satraps replenish, in accordance with the law of the country, the storehouses/granaries (θησαυροὺς) along the royal roads.” Though offering little detail, this statement opens a view on the efforts necessary to maintain the way stations with sufficient supplies in flour, wine (or beer), fodder and, in the case of halting places for express messengers, fresh horses. |