ASPIRANTUM’s 2026 Persian Language Summer School offers 6–10 weeks (120–200 hours) of intensive Modern Persian instruction in Yerevan, beginning on June 21, June 28, or July 5, 2026. Classes at beginner, elementary, and intermediate levels focus on all key skills - reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, and vocabulary - with small groups ensuring meaningful progress. Participants also take part in 

We have been following the news of the protests in Iran with growing concern and deep distress. We acknowledge the profound suffering unfolding across the country and recognise the courage of our sisters and brothers who are fighting for their freedom. Like so many Iranians living outside Iran, we fear for our loved ones and for all those exposed to violence and brutality. We wish everyone strength, courage, and hope in this struggle, and we stand in solidarity with our people. پیروزی از آن شماست.

Kaczanowicz, Marta. 2025. Invisible figures: Achaemenid royal women in Egypt. Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia. Brill 5(2). 1–19. This contribution aims to reexamine the frequently stated assertion that Achaemenid royal women were not involved in Egypt and its affairs during the periods of Persian rule on the Nile. The evidence is considered against the Persian concept of queenship rather than focusing solely on the Egyptian perspective on the role of royal women within the ideology of power.

Baca-Winters, Keenan. 2025. A most vicious game: Memory, politics, and religion in the reign of Xusrō II. Hunara: Journal of Ancient Iranian Arts and History 3(2). 25–53. This paper examines the complex relationship between Xusrō II and the Christians of Ērānšahr (the Sāsānian Kingdom). By the time he assumed power, Ērānšahr had a significant population of Christians who belonged to distinct churches.

Soudavar Farmanfarmaian, Fatema. 2025. Scent, colour and glitter in the ancient world: A comparative history of aromatics, cosmetics and adornment, from the Mediterranean to the China Seas. London: I.B. Tauris. Aromatics, cosmetics and personal adornment have had a major role in the evolution of human society, particularly in the cradles of civilization between the Nile and the Indus. Far from being concerned with the frivolities of vain pursuits, their study touches on religion, cosmology, rituals and magic, life and the afterlife, sexuality and procreation, artistic expression, technology, craftsmanship, aesthetics, administrative structures, long­-distance trade and cross-cultural exchanges – in sum, all the essentials that underpin human civilization.

Pirart, Éric. 2025. Le livre de Yōišta Friiāna. Introduction, édition, traduction et commentaire (Publications d’Études Indo-Iraniennes 5). Strasbourg: Université de Strasbourg. Yōišta Friiāna est un héros mythologique présent dans toutes les strates de la littérature zoroastrienne ancienne et médiévale, l'archaïque Uštauuaitī Gāθā, deux Yašt de l'Avesta récent, le Dēnkard et d'autres livres pehlevis. Sa confrontation avec un démon, contée dans le petit livre pehlevi qui porte son nom, rappelle fortement le mythe grec d'Œdipe et de la Sphinx. Résumé

Baca-Winters, Keenan. 2025. To walk in royal ways: The lives and legacies of Bōrān and Āzarmīgduxt. Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia. Brill 5(2). 1–33. Amid the political turmoil and external threats that marked the final years of Ērānšahr, also known as the Sāsānian Empire, two sisters, Bōrān and Āzarmīgduxt, ascended the throne. While previous scholars have briefly touched upon these women, this paper examines the entire zeitgeist of their reigns, shedding light on their personalities, decisions, and the challenges they faced in a politically crumbling empire.

Zarghamee, Reza. 2025. A contribution to the discourse regarding a Teispid-Achaemenid dynastic divide. The Ancient History Bulletin 39(3/4). 86–124. Editorial remark: Unfortunately, we are unable link to the individual articles, published by the bulletin. which seems to be due to the green open access policy the journal follows. This paper evaluates the recent scholarly trend of characterizing Cyrus II and Darius I as belonging to two distinct dynasties: the former being a Teispid and the latter an Achaemenid.

Volume 12 of Dabir (2025) is now available both online and in print, featuring two issues: Salman Aliyari Babolghani: The Imperfect with the t-Type Prefix in New Iranian and Its Connection to the Old Iranian Augmented Imperfect Optative Majid Daneshgar: Reading Ismāʿīlī Islam in Aceh: Shāh Shams Sabziwārī’s Poems Copied in the 15th-Century Indonesia Meysam Mohammadi: Middle Persian, Early New Persian and Fahlawī Quotations in Tārīx-e Qom…

Volumes 14-15 (2023-2024) of Anabasis. Studia Classica et Orientalia, edited by Marek Jan Olbrycht, is out now. Several papers and reviews of the issue relate to ancient Iran: Michał Podrazik: Cyrus the Younger in Syria and Mesopotamia, Abrokomas, and the Great King’s Defensive Strategy (401 BC) Heckel: Alexander and the Amazon Queen Harry Falk: Zariaspa and the “Kunduz” Hoards…

Garrison, Mark B. 2025. The Late Babylonian worship scene at Persepolis. In: Benjamin Sass & Laura Battini (eds.), Mortals, Deities and Divine Symbols: Rethinking Ancient Images from the Levant to Mesopotamia. Studies Offered to Tallay Ornan (Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 12), 477-536. Bicester: Archaeopress. This analysis concerns several types of worship scenes found in the glyptic imagery preserved as impressions on clay administrative tablets from Persepolis.

Matin, Emad. 2025. Reaching the Persian Gulf from the Kur River Basin: Patterns of an Intermittent Connectivity. East and West 65 (1). The paper at hand explores the connectivity between Central Fars and the Persian Gulf over a long period of time from protohistory to the Early Islamic era. In doing so, it focuses on the three areas of the Kur River Basin, Dashtestan and the Bushehr Peninsula and reviews the rise and fall of settlements in these areas—within the limits of the existing bibliography.

Nikkhah Bahrami, Gita. 2025. Untersuchungen zu mittelbabylonischen Texten aus Haft-Tappe (dubsar 27). Münster: Zaphon. G. Nikkhah Bahrami’s study offers a comprehensive edition and cultural-historical and economic-historical investigation of the texts in Middle-Babylonian Akkadian found at Haft-Tappe in the province Khuzestan in southwestern Iran. Following a brief introduction (I.), paleography, syllabary, orthography, and other philological questions concerning the texts are discussed (II.).

Hyland, John O. 2025. Persia’s Greek Campaigns: Kingship, War, and Spectacle on the Achaemenid Frontier. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Persia’s Greek Campaigns offers a bold reassessment of the wars between the Achaemenid Persian kings and the Greek city-states (c. 499–449 bce). These conflicts, and especially Xerxes’s invasion of Greece (480–479 bce), are remembered as foundational events in Greek history, but the “Persian version” remains neglected.

Raja, Rubina & Eivind Heldaas Seland. eds. 2025. Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis: Zooming in and Scaling up from the Evidence. Stuttgart: Steiner. The third century is often seen as a period of crisis in the Roman world, marked by political upheaval, violence, war, religious strife, hyperinflation, climatic instability, pandemics, and border incursions. These troubled times, however, coincided with the peak of Palmyra's prosperity.

Macuch, Maria. 2025. Sasanian law in its social context (Iranica 34). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Sasanian law has remained largely an unknown entity outside the specific field of Iranian Studies due to the immense difficulties involved in understanding the relevant legal sources. Sasanian Law in its Social Context by Maria Macuch is the first attempt to reconstruct the legal system of Sasanian Iran (224–651 CE), systematically and in detail, covering all areas of law as far as they can be reconstructed on the basis of the available material.

Barena, Gad. 2025. ʾAhyh ʾAšr ʾAhyh: The Achaemenid-Zoroastrian Background of the Burning Bush Pericope. Revista Pistis & Praxis 17(3), 384–402. Various types of impact, assimilation, and engagement of certain redactional layers of the Hebrew Bible with Achaemenid-era Zoroastrianism have long been noted by biblical scholars and by researchers of ancient Iranian cultic practices. Both disciplines, however, are facing similar challenges regarding the problem of the transmission history of their sacred texts, which is complex, perplexing, and vigorously debated.

As scholars studying Zoroastrianism, we must ask this question more often: What is the subject of our academic gaze, and whose is the subject of our study? We must ask, not to confront, but to chal…

Paganism might be the perfect religion for post-Covid Britain, where not only places of worship but also in-person voluntary groups of all kinds are suffering from a crisis of commitment and participa...

The Greek and Macedonian Antigonid Kingdom, one of the Diadochi after the death of Alexander the Great. Part of the Ancient History, Medieval History, Ancient Civilizations, History Gifts, History Teacher, Archaeology Gifts and Historian Collection

An incisive exploration of Nietzsche as a bold, visionary poet-philosopher.   Today, Nietzsche is justly celebrated for his rich, philosophical naturalism, but Keith Ansell-Pearson warns that we must ...

In the various issues of volume 88 of Near Eastern Archaeology, several articles address topics in Iranian archaeology. The following list compiles all Iran-related contributions: Morteza Khanipour and Masashi Abe: From Seasonal Hunting Base to Permanent Settlement. Insights from the High-altitude Hormangan Site Reza Naseri and Morteza Khanipour: Burial Practices of the Bronze Age. An Archaeological Study of the Deh Dumen Cemetery in Southern Zagros, Iran…

Indo-Iranian Journal volume 68, issue 3 (November 2025) has been published (as always h/t @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social‬). Sims-Williams has an open access article on Bactrian: Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2025. Bactrian in two scripts: Greek and Kushan. Indo-Iranian Journal. Brill 68(3). 185–214.