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The Bones of Khosrow: The Sacred Topography of Ctesiphon

Publication date: 21.10.2022

ELECTRUM, 2022, Volume 29, pp. 267 - 284

https://doi.org/10.4467/20800909EL.22.018.15788

Authors

Touraj Daryaee
University of California, Irvine
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Titles

The Bones of Khosrow: The Sacred Topography of Ctesiphon

Abstract

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.

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Information

Information: ELECTRUM, 2022, Volume 29, pp. 267 - 284

Article type: Original article

Authors

University of California, Irvine

Published at: 21.10.2022

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Touraj Daryaee (Author) - 100%

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<p>The Bones of Khosrow: The Sacred Topography of Ctesiphon</p>