¹ Vallat, F., “Darius, l'héritier légitime, et les premiers achéménides,” in Elam and Persia, ed. Alvarez-Mons, J. and Garrison, M. B. (Winona Lake, 2010).Google Scholar

² Skjaervo, P. O., “Paleography,” in Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidorum 1 (Ardashir I, Shapur I), ed. Alram, M. and Gyselen, R. (Vienna, 2002), 46–69.Google Scholar

³ Panaino, A., “Astral Characters of Kingship in the Sasanian and the Byzantine Worlds,” in La Persia e Bisanzio, Atti dei Convegni Lincei 2001 (Roma, 2004), 555–85.Google Scholar

⁴ X. Tremblay, “Iranian Historical Linguistics in the Twentieth Century” [Part 2], Friends and Alumni of Indo-European Studies Bulletin, University of California at Los Angeles, XIII, no. 1 (Fall 2008): 36.

⁵ Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, The Rise and Fall of an Empire (London, 2009), 4–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ Soudavar, A., “The Vocabulary and Syntax of Iconography in Sasanian Iran,” Iranica Antiqua, 44 (2009): 442–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Soudavar, A., The Aura of Kings, Legitimacy and Divine Sanction in Iranian Kingship (Costa Mesa, 2003), 41–47;Google Scholar Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 449–50.

⁸ Yāqut al-Hamawi, Mo`jam-ol-Boldān (Beirut 1995, 2nd print), 146; اردشیر خوره، هو اسم مركب معناه بهاء أردشير

⁹ A. Soudavar, “The Significance of Av. čithra, OPers. čiça, MPers čihr, and NPers. čehr, for the Iranian Cosmogony of Light,” Iranica Antiqua, 41 (2006): 175.

¹⁰ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 426–27.

¹¹ Soudavar, “The Significance of Av. čithra,” 174.

¹² See, for instance, Splendeur des sassanides (Brussels, 1993), 81.

¹³ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 427; A. Soudavar, “Farr(ah)/xvar?nah, Iconography of,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (online edition, 2010).

¹⁴ Overlaet, B., “A Roman Emperor at Bishapur and Darabgird, Uranius Antoninus and the Black Stone of Emesa,” Iranica Antiqua, 44 (2009): 463–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ Overlaet, “A Roman Emperor.” Overlaet, however, prefers to see a narrative sequence in which besides the dead emperor under Shāpur's horse—identified as Gordianus—the other two are representations of the same person, namely Uranius Antoninus. I believe that this proposition can be countered with a number of arguments: 1. a close look at the Roman emperors—in Bishāpur II for instance—shows that the one standing is short and corpulent with a round face and a pronounced moustache (perhaps over a beard), while the knelling one is tall and has an elongated face with a full beard; 2. in order to construe the scene as essentially related to the Emesa episode, he justifies the appearance of an Asian elephant as due to the artist using set animal prototypes (p. 489). However, as we shall see further below, the Sasanian artists made use of precise animals and fauna to refer to geographical entities; 3. Since Overlaet avows not to understand the role of the “putto” in the composition (p. 487), he cannot have a full understanding of the concepts involved, especially in terms of victory over the an-Erān; the less than complete surrender of Uranius Antoninius cannot be put in the same scale as the victory over Gordianus, because of the difference in the farr that each generates; 4. Finally, in pursuit of maximizing the projection of the king's glory, multiplicity was an important element and it made sense to cumulate vanquished emperors and trophies into one composition rather than depict in detail an episode of minor importance. If the Emesa stone was to be considered as a major symbol of Roman cults, it would have taken center stage and not relegated to the sidelines.

¹⁶ Weber, U., “Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” Res Orientales, XIX (2009): 312–16.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Weber, “Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” 310; Kaim, B., “Investiture or Mithra, Towards a New Interpretation of So Called Investiture Scenes in Parthian and Sasanian Art,” Iranica Antiqua, 44 (2009): 407.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For a complete discussion on this painting see Soudavar, A., Art of the Persian Courts (New York, 1992), 98–100.Google Scholar For a similar scene depicting the Alexander in a 1494 Herat with setting, see for instance, Stchoukine, I., Les peintures des manuscrits timourides (Paris, 1954), pl. LXXXV.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Soudavar, Aura, 74. Precisely because there are a number of Shāpurdokhtags mentioned in SKZ, one can clearly envisage a later daughter of Shāphur I, who became very influential in his later years, as in the case of Pari Khān Khānum, daughter of the Safavid Shāh Tahmāsb (r. 1514–76).

²⁰ Soudavar, Aura, 68–71; Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 419–21. The latest identification of the bust comes again from Ursula Weber, where deities on Bahrām II's relief are also identified as princes; Weber, U., “Wahrām III, König der Könige von Ērān und Anērān,” Iranica Antiqua, 45 (2010): 382–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ Humbach, H. and Skjaervo, P. O., The Sasanian Inscription of Paikuli, III (Wiesbaden, 1983), 35, 53.Google Scholar

²² Soudavar, Aura, 73–77.

²³ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 427.

²⁴ Soudavar, Aura, 74.

²⁵ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 428.

²⁶ Soudavar, Aura, 73–73.

²⁷ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 423–24).

²⁸ See also her effigy on Bahrām II's bowl in Teflis (Soudavar, Aura, 74–75), which unfortunately has been once again labeled as the queen; Weber, “Wahrām III,” 386.

²⁹ Following Alram, Weber correctly argues that while the coinage of Narseh is devoid of dates, the type that had a crown with a fluted contour continued to be struck under Narseh's successor and was therefore the later type; Weber, “Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” 308.

³⁰ Vanden Berghe's remark reads as follows: “Nous avons, en plus, voulu mettre l'accent sur le fait que ces scènes dites d'investiture, n'illustrent ni le couronnement, ni l'intronisation du roi, mais bien plus la transmission du ‘Khvarnah’ c'est-à-dire l'octroi au roi déjà couronné, de la gloire divine, du pouvoir suprême et de la postérité tout au cours de son règne,” as quoted in Weber, “ Zu den felsbildnissen des königs Narseh,” 308.

³¹ Kaim, B., “Investiture or Mithra, Towards a New Interpretation of So Called Investiture Scenes in Parthian and Sasanian Art,” Iranica Antiqua, 44 (2009): 403–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² See for instance “Sarpol-i Zohāb,” Iranische Denkmäler, 7/II (Berlin 1976), pl. 5.Google Scholar

³³ Overlaet, “Roman,” 493.

³⁴ See Persian translation of my Aura of the Kings (Soudavar, A., Farreh-ye izadi dar āyin pādshāhi-ye Iran-e bāstan, (Houston, 2005), 4;Google Scholar see also Dehkhodā dictionary: http://www.loghatnaameh.com.

³⁵ Soudavar, “The Formation of Achaemenid Imperial Ideology and its Impact on the Avesta,” in The World of Achaemenid Persia—History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, ed. Curtis, J. and St Simpson, J. (London, 2010), 126.Google Scholar

³⁶ Soudavar, Aura, 49–52; Soudavar, “Farr(ah)/x^varənah.”

³⁷ Hollard, D., “Julien et Mithrā sur le relief de Tāq-e Bostān,” Res Orientales XIX (2010): 147–63.Google Scholar

³⁸ Hollard, “Julien.”

³⁹ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 418–19.

⁴⁰ K. Tanabe, “The Identification of the King of kings in the Upper Register of the Larger Grotto, Taq-i Bustan—Ardashir III Restated,” in Ērān ud Anērān, ed. Compareti, Raffetta, Scarcia, Webfestschrift Marshak, 2003, Trasoxiana Web Series.

⁴¹ See for instance Gyselen, R., “Note sur les ‘anneaux à trois pendentifs’ dans la glyptique sassanide,” Studia Iranica, 19, no. 2 (1990): 205–08.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴² Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 428–31; Soudavar, “Farr(ah)/xvar?nah.”

⁴³ A similar mistake was made by the late Prof. Oleg Grabbar when he attributed the making of the magnificent Il-Khānid Shāhnāmeh (nicknamed Abu-Sàidnāmeh) to the less than six-month reign of Arpā Kaon (1335–36), whose rule was contested from the start, and who spent the first half of his reign fending off the attacks of his cousins of the Golden Horde, and the second fighting his rivals. Such a project needed years for completion; Soudavar, A., “The Saga of Abu-Sàid Bahādor Khān, The Abu-sa'idnāmeh,” in At the Court of the Il-Khāns, 1290–1340, ed. Raby, J. and Fitzherbert, T. (Oxford 1996), 171.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Information provided by R. Gyselen who has a photo of the undamaged part of the statue underneath the horse's belly.

⁴⁵ Grenet, F., “Découverte d'un relief sassanide dans le nord de l'Afghanistan,” in Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres (Comptes Rendus, 2005), 129–31.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Bard, K., ed., Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (London, 1999), 918.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ J. Howard-Johnston, “Kosrow II,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (Online version, 2010).

⁴⁸ http://rbedrosian.com/seb8.htm.

⁴⁹ Abol-Hasan, Mas`udi Hosayn-e, `Ali b., Les prairies d'or, trans. Pellat, C. (Paris, 1962), I: 24,Google Scholar corrected in Soudavar, “The Significance of Av. čithra,” 174.

⁵⁰ Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” 437–40. As their legends used a hybrid syntax mixing image and text, the plain reading of only the written words by Gyselen had produced an incongruent text.

⁵¹ Daryaee, T., ed., Shahrestānihā i Erānshahr; A Middle Persian Text on Late Antique Geography, Epic and History (Costa Meza, 2002), 5;Google Scholar “ایرانشهر از رود آمویست تا دریای مصر”

⁵² Soudavar, Aura, 82–84.

⁵³ Facella, M., “Darius and the Achaemenids in Commagene,” Organization des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l'empire achéménide, ed. Briant, P. and Chauveau, M. (Paris, 2009), 384.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ The Fārsnameh, for instance, defines the Persian lands: “from the Oxus until the waters of the Euphrates”; Ebn-e Balkhi, The Fārsnāma of Ibnu'l Balkhi, ed. G. Le Strange and R. A. Nicholson (London, 1968), 120.

⁵⁵ See Soudavar, “The Vocabulary,” figs. 16, 17. I am indebted to D. Huff for pointing out Darius' crenellated crown to me.

⁵⁶ Félix, M., Le livre des Rois Mages (Paris, 2000), 15, 25.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Boyce, M., “Apam-Napāt,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (1987) II: 149–50.Google Scholar A different translation used by Alain Williams for the same passage of the Bondahesh gives an erroneous image of the deities involved (A. Williams, “Čamruš,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (Online edition, 1990)).