Mīrzā Muḥammad Naṣīr Furṣat al-Dawla and the Archaeology of Iranian Archaeology

Unlike other related studies which are focusing on either excavations or excavators, this essay explores some aspects of the early development of archaeology in Islamic Iran as a particular moment in intellectual history. In particular, the study is aimed at discussing the elusive turning point between traditional antiquarianism and modern archaeology which occurred some time during the mid-Qajar period (1860s and 70s). Less emphasis is laid on the first foreign archaeological work in Iran as it is discussed in more detail elsewhere. Instead, the study will address how these foreign investigations affected the growing local awareness of the surrounding vestiges of Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Iran and how these led to local experiments in archaeological research. Mīrzā Muḥammad Naṣīr Furṣat al-Dawla, a protagonist in this process, will serve as a case study: his surveys, writings, drawings, and – sometimes contradictory – interpretations will serve to trace the first steps towards the modern Iranian appropriation of ancient heritage

The Cross-Cultural Heritage of a Byzantine Reliquary

A unique artifact from the late XIIth or XIIIth century, the staurotheke of the Cathedral Treasury of Esztergom has frequently been discussed in the context of Byzantine art during the Komnenian period. Being one of the highlights of later Byzantine cloisonné enamel work, its centerpiece, containing a relic of the True Cross, can justly be regarded as a classical example of its kind. However, it features other aspects through which the Byzantine makers of the staurotheke endeavored cross-cultural communication, and these aspects, which might reflect the shock of the Seljuq conquest of Anatolia, as well as the more recent Latin conquest of Constantinople, have not yet been sufficiently explored. Moreover, the object should not be regarded as a one-layered piece of art because it includes, on the one hand, an elaborate frame which has often but perhaps incorrectly been identified as a later addition by Balkan metalworkers, and, on the other hand, it also features a precious silk cover of the back, which is most probably the product of a Near Eastern loom. Taken together, the Esztergom reliquary, attributed in this study to the Empire of Trebizond, illustrates the ways in which a society can negotiate, using the creative visual language of an artifact, the perilous geopolitical constraints which were imposed on it by external forces

Béla Rakovszky and the Import of Islamic Arts in Bosnia and Herzegovina

In parallel with the debates regarding the arts of Asia, loads of modern Islamic, chiefly Persian and Central Asian, artworks were acquired by various museums in Vienna and Budapest, especially during the 1890s, to be redistributed into regional centres between Prague and Sarajevo. In addition to theorists and antiquarians, there were more practical-minded participants of this discourse who set out for collecting expeditions to Iran and Central Asia to provide samples for craftspeople in the Balkans and enhance their crafts according to predetermined recommendations. In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Central Asian mission of Baron Béla Rakovszky deserves attention. Fragmentary as they are, memories of his expedition may add to our picture of early Persian art scholarship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and, moreover, they may enrich our perceptions of the ideological uses of Islamic art in the historical context of South-East European colonialism. In addition to enquiries into the impact of this collecting tour, this essay will introduce some newly-emerged documents and objects which can help us viewing the expedition from a wider perspective

Abolala Soudavar. Reassessing Early Safavid Art and History. Thirty-Five Years after Dickson & Welch 1981

The volume consists of seven individual studies which are bound together by their strong reliance on The Houghton Shahnameh (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) by Martin Bernard Dickson and Stuart Cary Welch and the deference of the author to this two-volume work. While the author engages multiple problems in the respective chapters, his overarching concern is for “Dickson & Welch 1981”: a seminal volume which Soudavar believes to have been unjustly marginalised, ignored, and/or criticised by subsequent..

Viola Allegranzi. Aux sources de la poésie ghaznavide. Les inscriptions persanes de Ghazni (Afghanistan, XIe - XIIe siècles)

This comprehensive survey is published more than half a century after the last – and first – monograph about the subject, The Kūfic Inscription in Verses in the Court of the Royal Palace of Masʻūd III at Ghazni (Rome, 1966), written by Alessio Bombaci. When Bombaci found out that most of the epigraphy from the palace were to be read in Persian, the discovery was justly hailed as a major scientific breakthrough, given that earlier attempts at deciphery (including Bombaci’s own initial efforts)..

David J. Roxburgh. « “Many a Wish Has Turned Dust”: Pir Budaq and the Formation of Turkmen Arts of the Book »

The essay is an attempt to throw light on Turkmen manuscript patronage, long considered to have been eclipsed by Timurid bibliophilism, which it emulated, and Safavid book production, which it preceded. Pīr Būdāq (d. 1466) has been selected as a case study for examining the realities for princely book production during the unstable period of late Qaraqūyunlū rule when Pīr Būdāq was appointed by his father, Jahānšāh (r. 1438-1467), as governor of Shiraz (1456-1460) and Baghdad (1460-1466) befo..

Three Qajar Easel Paintings and their Journey from Tehran to Sofia

The reserve collections of the National Art Gallery of Bulgaria include three large-scale oil paintings showing full-length depictions of elaborately-dressed personages. One of them holds flowers and a fruit-basket, while the two others are shown playing musical instruments, i. e., daf and santur, respectively. The paintings belong to a genre of Qajar art which has sometimes been conveniently considered as portraiture although these representations are certainly too generic to qualify for true portraits. In fact, we know several related “portraits” from the Qajar period, of which some are still preserved in Iran, while others scattered in international collections. A few of them had reached Eastern and Central Europe as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. While connections between Bulgaria and the Qajar dynasty has been established much before Bulgaria’s declaration of independence in 1908, it seems that the artworks under scrutiny would find their way to Sofia later, in the middle of the twentieth century, reflecting the evolving personal, political, and cultural contacts between the two countries. Questions pertaining the iconography, style, authorship, and provenance of these artefacts will be discussed in this paper

Rocco Rante (ed.). Greater Khorasan. History, Geography, Archaeology and Material Culture. Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East

Following a major study by Christine Nölle-Karimi (2014) which posited that historical Khorasan was where Herat was perceived as an imaginary centre, this newest volume about the same region assumes a decentralised approach to the Iranian East. It shows Khorasan to be a multipartite entity made of irrigated arable lands and oases under the dominance of four cities, Nīšāpūr, Marv, Herat, and Balkh, and bordered by the Dašt-e Kavīr and Qara Qūm deserts, the Āmū Daryā, and the Hindu Kush range. ..