Table of Contents

  • ŠĀPUR I: History

    Shapur Shahbazi

    second Sasanian king of kings (r. 239-70) and author of several rock-reliefs and the trilingual inscription on the walls of the so-called Kaʿba-ye Zardošt [ŠKZ].

  • ŠĀPUR I: The Great Statue

    G. R. GAROSI

    With a height of about 6.70 m and a width across the shoulders of more than 2 m, the monumental statue of Shapur I can be considered the most impressive extant sculpture dating from the Sasanian period. It is carved out of a huge stalagmite.

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  • ŠĀPUR I: ROCK RELIEFS

    Bruno Overlaet

    seven rock reliefs from the time of Šāpur I located in Fārs.

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  • ŠĀPUR II

    Touraj Daryaee

    (r. 309-79 CE), longest reigning monarch of the Sasanian dynasty.

  • SĀQI-NĀMA

    Paul Losensky

    (Book of the Cupbearer), a poetic genre in which the speaker, seeking relief from his hardships, losses, and disappointments, repeatedly summons the sāqi or cupbearer to bring him wine.

  • Sāqi-nāme in Dastgāh Māhur

    music sample

  • SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA HISTORY

    Willem Floor

    Saqqā-ḵāna is a term referring to public water dispensers, which were, and in some places still are, a feature of some large institutional buildings in Iran, typically mosques, shrines, and bazaars.

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  • SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA SCHOOL OF ART

    Hamid Keshmirshekan

    a contemporary art movement in Iran in 1962. The term was initially applied to painting and sculpture which used existing elements from votive Shiʿite art. It gradually came to be applied more widely to art works that used traditional-decorative elements.

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  • SAQQEZ

    Bahram Grami

    a semifluid resin obtained from cuts and cracks of the wild pistachio trees, found in its natural habitats in Iran.

  • ŠARAFĀBĀD

    Robert M. Schacht and Henry T. Wright III

    Tepe Šarāfabād was excavated in 1971 by the joint project of the University of Michigan and what was then the Archeological Service of Iran. The staff of the excavation was directed by Henry T. Wright III, and the official representative of the National Research Center for Archeology was Muhammed H.Ḵošābi.

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  • SARBEDĀRS

    Denise Aigle

    a religious movement in northern Khorāsān and eastern Māzandarān that led to the establishment of a dynasty of local rulers based in Sabzevār in the district of Bayhaq, northeastern Iran.

  • SARGOḎAŠTE-E SAYYEDNĀ

    Farhad Daftary

    title of an anonymous Persian work containing the biography of Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ, the founder of the Nezāri Ismaʿili state of Persia, centered at the mountain fortress of Alamut.

  • ŠARḤ-e TAʿARROF

    Nasrollah Pourjavady

    an extensive commentary in Persian on Abu Bakr Moḥammad Kalābāḏi’s Sufi manual Ketāb al-Taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwuf.

  • ŠARIF KHAN, Moḥammad

    Fabrizio Speziale

    (d. ca. 1807), physician at the court of the Mughal emperor, Shah ʿĀlam II (r. 1760-1806), author, and the eponymous founder of the Šarifi family of physicians.

  • ŠARQ

    Nasserddin Parvin

    a literary journal published occasionally in Tehran between 1924 and 1932.

  • SASANIAN COINAGE

    Nikolaus Schindel

    The coinage of the Sasanian empire (ca. 224-651 CE) is not only the most important primary source for its monetary and economic history, but is also of greatest importance for history and art history.

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  • SASANIAN DYNASTY

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    The Sasanian dynasty represented the last Persian lineage of rulers to achieve hegemony over much of Western Asia before Islam, ruled 224 CE–650 CE.

  • SASANIAN ROCK RELIEFS

    G. Herrmann and V. S. Curtis

    one of the primary sources for documentation of the Sasanian period.

  • SASANIAN TEXTILES

    Matteo Compareti

    Classical, Islamic, and Chinese sources celebrate Sasanian textiles as a very precious commodity, but no specific descriptions of them are given. Most studies of Sasanian textile art are originally based on these sources and on examining the reliefs of the larger grotto at Tāq-e Bostān.

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  • SASANIAN WALL PAINTING

    An De Waele

    Murals found on sites within the territory of the Sasanian empire (224- 650 CE) are considered Sasanian. While their main function is decorative, their secondary function can be derived from location, theme, and dimension, and is important because it reflects a world-view.

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