Touraj Daryaee

This paper discusses the idea of Armenian and Iranian identity in 3rd century CE. It is proposed that the bordering region of the Armeno-Iranian world, such as that of the Siwnik‘ and its house saw matters very differently from that of the Armenian kingdom. The Sasanians in return had a vastly different view of Armenia and Georgia as political entities, and used their differences to the benefit of their empire.

This paper discusses bees as noxious creatures in the Zoroastrian animal classification system and the problem of honey for consumption in the Iranian world. The mention of honey as the production of evil being not only appears in Zoroastrian literature, but also in early Persian histories where primordial king Tahmures is hand this beneficial product for use. The name of the demons in this Persian text associated with honey suggests a long tradition of association of honey with the daivas or fallen gods of the ancient Iranian world. Eventually, in the early Islamic period honey was allowed for use, but with certain restrictions.

This essay discuses the significance of the unique gold coin of the Kushan king, Huviška. The legend on the coin reads Imšao which recalls the ancient Indo-Iranian mythic figure, Yima/Yama. It is contended that the reason for which Yima/Yama is portrayed on the coin with a bird on his hand is not the idea of Glory and his reign, but rather the paradaisical state according to the Wīdēwdād, where Yima/Yama ruled over the world. It is contended that Huviška aimed at presenting himself in this manner to his subjects who were familiar with the Avestan and mythic Indo-Iranian lore.
 

This essay discusses the importance of Ctesiphon in the historical and literary tradition of Sasanian and Post-Sasanian Iran. It is proposed that there was a significant buildup of the Ctesiphon’s defenses in the third century that it made its conquest by the Roman Empire impossible and its gave it an aura of impregnability. By the last Sasanian period the city was not only inhabited by Iranian speaking people and a capital, but it also became part of Iranian lore and tradition, tied to mythical Iranian culture-heroes and kings. Even with the fall of the Sasanian Empire, in Arabic and Persian poetry the grandeur and memory of Ctesiphon was preserved as part of memory of the great empires of the past.

The city of Dura-Europos in modern day Syria provides a microcosm of multi-ethnic and multi-religious life in the late ancient Near East. Although there are debates as to the exact date of the conquest of the city, the year 256 CE appears to be the most plausible date in which the King of Kings, Šāpur I took Dura. In the third century, the city was abandoned and so the life of Dura came to an end after more than half a millennium of existence. Its apparent sudden abandonment has made it a wonderful archaeological playground for studying life in the third century CE on the border of the Irano-Hellenic world of antiquity. The city had changed hands several times since its creation in the fourth century BCE by the Seleucids to when Mithradates II (113 BCE) conquered it and brought it into the Arsacid imperial orbit, where it remained for three centuries. The Arsacid control of a trading town or as it was once called a caravan town, works well with the story that Mithradates II, several years before the takeover of Dura-Europos, had concluded an agreement with the Chinese Emperor Wudi for trade cooperation. In the larger scheme of things, these activities, no matter how accurate the dating is, suggest the idea that the Arsacids may have been thinking of the creation of a large trade network as part of what modern historians have called the “Silk Road.” Dura was subsequently conquered in the second century CE by Emperor Trajan (115–117 CE) and later, in 165 CE, by Avidius Cassius, after which it stayed in Roman hands for almost a century. The Sasanians in turn conquered the city in 256 CE.