Scholars have generally claimed that Alexander the Great’s extraordinary order that his army burn all of its non-essential personal possessions occurred in Hyrcania, on the eve of the Bactrian invasion. The evidence, however, shows that the event more likely happened at Bactra several years later, at the end of the Bactrian campaign.
 

Ai Khanoum is probably the most important and the best-known of the Greek settlements founded in Bactria by the Seleucid kings. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1978, but its chronology remains unclear. The purpose of this article is to give a more accurate view of its history, taking into account the results of recent research. As yet, we are still unable to date with precision the time of its foundation, which was not a single event but a process, going on for several decades between the time Alexander the Great entered eastern Bactria in spring 328 and the time a true city was planned there under Antiochos I. Nevertheless, the development of Ai Khanoum occurred only from the beginning of the second century BC, when the city had become, along with Bactra, the major city of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. Under the Seleucids as well as the Graeco-Bactrian kings, Ai Khanoum was thus a royal city and its history was subordinate to those of the Greek kings.
 

The main aim of the paper is a presentation of results of the Franco-Uzbek Archaeological Expedition in Northern Bactria in ancient Termez and its region. Archeological excavations that have been conducted from 1993 up to the present day shed new light on the past both of the city and the area of the Northern Bactria. Chronologically, discoveries cover periods from Hellenistic to Islamic.
 

This article analyses the historical and linguistic implications that emerge from a very famous passage preserved by Strabo (XV, 2, 8 [C 724]), but probably belonging to Eratosthenes’ Geographika, which states that Persians, Medes, Bactrians and Sogdians would “speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations” (εἰσὶ γάρ πως καὶ ὁμόγλωττοι παρὰ μικρόν). This assumption is untenable, because even before Eratosthenes’ time the Iranian languages were well distinguished. The suggested homoglossia should be explained in political terms, as the result of a practical diffusion of a variety of Old Persian in the army and in the satrapal administration. In the framework of a socio-linguistic and ethno-linguistic analysis of the historical situation attested in the Persian Empire, this study also tackles the problem of the meaning to be attributed to the word arya- in a linguistic context, as that of § 70 of Bisutun inscription. This terminology is discussed not only in connection with the one attested in the recently discovered Rabatak Inscription, but also with the documentation preserved in the Khotanese Book of Zambasta 23, 4–5, and – outside of the strictly Iranian milieu – in the Aitareya Āraṇyaka III, 2, 5.
With regard to the frequently claimed homoglossia, this study concludes that any description of the linguistic semi-unity of the Iranian ethne, or only of the North-Eastern Iranian ones, is a dream, and, as far as we know about the linguistic history of these peoples, not only a conclusion insufficiently grounded, but a highly improbable linguistic mirage. A “permafrosted” Irano-Aryan still spoken by all the Iranians as a sort of “Esperanto” ante litteram has no historical basis, nor does the idea that arya- was the name of a still preserved “common language,” if this expression should be interpreted as a surviving unifying archaic jargon of all the Iranians (and not a practical Western Iranian koiné, imposed by the Old Persian authorities as a comfortable medium). The “Aryan” linguistic identity thus assumed other, fully historical, implications, although it was based on a tradition, partly original and derived by an ancestral cultural heritage, partly invented, especially in its socio-linguistic and sociopolitical implications, as normally happens when power and its legitimacy are strongly involved.

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.
 

The article analyses the body of evidence related to the storage and administration of food in Parthian Nisa, according to the results of the recent excavations of the Italian Archaeological Expedition in Turkmenistan. A new corpus of clay sealings, khums (big jars) and ostraka came to light in the so-called SW Building, which, together with the previously known findings from the other buildings of Nisa, gave way to some speculations about the storage and administration practice within the Arsacid citadel. The spatial distribution of the khums gives information on the function of each building and their single rooms; the texts on the ostraka inform us on the nature and quantities of the food stored in the khums; the various ways the sealings were impressed on clay suggest some ideas on the number and roles of the officers involved in the administration of the storehouses, and perhaps on the nature of the goods stored as well. In general, the findings from the latest excavations provide fundamental information on the economic life of the citadel and of the Parthian society as well. Despite the lack of scholarly debate on such issues as related to the Parthian and Central Asian world, the authors try to interpret the evidence from the Nisa excavations, and give a preliminary reading of the data from the new and old excavations in the Arsacid citadel.
 

Between 2008 and 2010, the Iranian-Italian Joint Expedition in Kūzestān conducted research in the area of the modern city of Īda under the co-direction of the authors of this paper. The aim of the expedition was to acquire new data on the Parthian rock reliefs recognised up to now at Kong-e Azdar, Kong-e Yār ‘Alīvand and Kong-e Kamālvand by applying the most up-to-date technologies, namely the GPS survey and laser scanning. Indeed, despite the several studies conducted on these works, several aspects, such as the chronology of the represented scenes, their evolution and carving techniques, still need to be clarified.
A preliminary elaboration of the data acquired at Kong-e Yār ‘Alīvand allowed us to create a digital 3D model of the sculpted surface consisting of 2,467,745 points. The surface analysis conducted on this digital support revealed traces of an inscription on the upper part of the sculpted scene, which has been deeply eroded and was never reported in previous surveys, and still undetected iconographic details, which shed new light on the sculpted scene, usually interpreted as an investiture.

The silver drachms issued for the two competing Arsacid brothers Vologases VI and Artabanus V may be conveniently divided into two distinct groups. However, the ensuing political instability from the rivalry between the two sons of Vologases V was not without numismatic consequence. It has, in fact, left its marks on some very rare and important outputs from the turbulent period c. AD 208–224 of Parthian history. We have several « mule » or « hybrid » drachms that are struck from different obverse and reverse dies, each belonging to one of the two brother kings. These testify to the political confusion that persisted up until the fall of the Arsacid dynasty.
 

In a key passage of the Syriac Book of the Laws of the Countries, Christians are described as residing among the Medes, Persians, Parthians, and Kushans. This statement has sometimes encouraged scholars to accept that Christianity had penetrated the Iranian plateau and central Asia by the early third century CE. But this testimony does not necessarily reflect the actual state of contemporary Christianity in such regions. Instead, it is based on a text that had been circulating in the eastern Mediterranean and upper Mesopotamia during the late second and early third centuries CE. This text, now lost, had ascribed the evangelization of such regions to the apostle Thomas.

The present paper intends to explore the way in which the new kingdoms born from the dissolution of the Greco-Macedonian powers east of the Tigris employed coinage in order to promote kingship ideology based on kinship and family relationships. At the same time, it will try to show the interplay as well as the differences between Greco-Macedonian and local cultures in using family as a tool of propaganda.
 

This article deals with Kushano-Sasanian coins, aiming to interpret the images of deities used on their reverses. The topic has occasionally been discussed in numismatic studies on the Kushano-Sasanian series, and some images have also been examined in archaeological literature on Central Asia. Yet Kushano-Sasanian religious imagery has never really been the subject of specific treatment. In fact, such series provide extremely interesting evidence of the religious imagery of the Sasanian period, due to the conventions which governed typological selection, since these allowed a more varied iconographic repertoire in comparison with what we can see on the imperial issues. Contrary to previous hypotheses of the phenomenon of syncretism produced by the supposed Bactrian religious specificity, the analysis results in a picture showing a fully Zoroastrian imagery, which absorbed iconographic features of Sasanian and Kushan derivation against the background of the presence of the new Sasanian power.
 

This article discusses the Sasanian coinage from the region of Sakastan during the latter part of the 4th and the 5th century AD. Only through a comprehensive collection of material and a detailed re-evaluation of already examined coins was it possible to reconstruct a continuous series of Sakastan coins stretching from Ardashir II (379–383) to Wahram V (420–438). The implications of this numismatic evidence for our understanding of the history of Sakastan in this period are discussed in some detail, also taking into account further numismatic data from Eastern Iran.