Explore Iranica

ARCHELAUS, the assumed author of a Christian polemic against the Manicheans composed before A.D. 348. The only complete text of the Acta Archelai is a Latin version from the end of the 4th century. Authorship. The work is attributed to a certain Hegemonius, of whom nothing is known. The statements…

ARCHEOLOGY i. Pre-Median: history and method of research. ii. Median and Achaemenid. iii. Parthian. iv. Sasanian. v. Pre-Islamic Central Asia. vi. Islamic Iran. vii. Islamic Central Asia. viii. Republic of Azerbaijan. For Afghanistan, see Afghanistan viii. Archeology.

ARCHEOLOGY i. Pre-Median: History and Method of Research 1. The sequence of events. The history of archeological research in Iran may be divided into two periods, before and after the Second World War. The early period can in turn be subdivided into a first phase of mainly French activity (ca….

ARCHEOLOGY ii. Median and Achaemenid Median archeology. The rise of the Medes and the Achaemenids was in part a product of changes that took place far beyond the bounds of the ancient kingdoms of the Near East. The establishment of Indo-European populations on the steppe lands west of the Tien…

ARCHEOLOGY iii. Seleucid and Parthian Seleucid period. Very few monuments from this period have been discovered in Iran, and probably none from the time of Alexander the Great, though it has been argued by H. Luschey that the long known life-size stone lion of Hamadān was erected by Alexander as…

ARCHEOLOGY iv. Sasanian Archeological field work has played a comparatively smaller part in forming the image of Sasanian history and culture than the large number of preserved monuments, buildings, and rock reliefs, collections of coins and objects of art. Most of these did not come from scientific excavations, a fact…

ARCHEOLOGY v. Pre-Islamic Central Asia [In this article the Russian rendering of place names based on local pronunciation is generally followed. For archeological expeditions and discoveries prior to 1920 see Central Asia.] The study of Central Asian archeological remains began on a large scale in the 1920s and 30s with…

ARCHEOLOGY vi. Islamic Iran From the outset Islamic archeology in Iran was overshadowed by the numerous and splendid sites of earlier periods, and archeological investigation of Islamic sites began appreciably later in the Iranian world than in western Islam and in the Indian subcontinent. It was not until the 1930s…

ARCHEOLOGY vii. Islamic Central Asia The study of the archeology of the Islamic period was initiated in Central Asia in the late 19th century by Turkestan amateurs and St. Petersburg scholars, and has been carried on with growing intensity in Soviet times. Important contributions have come from large regional expeditions:…

ARCHEOLOGY viii. REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN Archeological sites of northern Azerbaijan (the modern Republic of Azerbaijan) first came to public attention in the mid-19th century, when European travelers became aware that it abounded in ancient ruins. Fr. Dubois de Montpereux (1839-43) and A. Berger wrote about various site remains visible to…

ARCHITECTURE i. Seleucid Period. ii. Parthian Period. iii. Sasanian Period. iv. Central Asian. v. Islamic, pre-Safavid. vi. Safavid to Qajar Periods; see also Art in Iran x. Qajar Period. vii. Pahlavi, before World War II. viii. Pahlavi, after World War II.   For the Median and Achaemenid periods, see Archeology ii. Median and…

ARCHITECTURE i. Seleucid The Seleucid architecture of Iran encompasses the buildings constructed during the period of Greek power from 330 B.C. through the 2nd century B.C. The terminal date varies from region to region, since the Seleucid Greeks continually lost control of area to the Parthians invading from the northeast…

ARCHITECTURE ii. Parthian To define Parthian architecture is not synonymous with describing the architecture of the Parthians. Firstly, some sites traditionally labeled as Parthian lie outside of an Iran expanded beyond its modern borders. But while other disciplines must also recognize the difference between Iran and non-Iran, there are so…

ARCHITECTURE iii. Sasanian Periods 1. Building materials. Sasanian architecture is characterized by the widespread use of mortar masonry and the associated vaulting techniques. Although mud brick had been developed long before, and mortar constructions were known in Parthian times, both became preeminent in the high-standard architecture of the Sasanians. Mud…

ARCHITECTURE iv. Central Asian Architecture in Central Asia dates back to the late Neolithic period (6th-5th millennia B.C.). In such settlements of Turkmenistan as Pessenǰīk Tepe and Jeytūn, the typical buildings are one-family houses with a hearth and a special place for worship. The walls were made of lumps of…