Article contents
Seleukid Sacred Architecture, Royal Cult and the Transformation of Iranian Culture in the Middle Iranian Period
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
This article proposes a new approach to three of the most persistent problems in the study of Iranian art and religion from the coming of Alexander to the fall of the Sasanians: the development of Iranian sacred architecture, the legacy of the Achaemenids, and the development of the art and ritual of Iranian kingship after Alexander. Canepa explores the ways in which the Seleukids contributed basic and enduring elements of Iranian religious and royal culture that lasted throughout late antiquity. Beyond stressing simple continuities or breaks with the Babylonian, Achaemenid or Macedonian traditions, this article argues that the Seleukids selectively integrated a variety of cultural, architectural and religious traditions to forge what became the architectural vocabularies and religious expressions of the Middle Iranian era.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Iranian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Religious Trends in Late Ancient and Early Islamic Iran , January 2015 , pp. 71 - 97
- Copyright
- Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2014
References
1 The Achaemenid History colloquia and volumes directed by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg in the last quarter of the last century and later colloquia organized by Pierre Briant and published in the series Persika have provided scholarship with a solid step forward in understanding Achaemenid history based on the critical study of primary Achaemenid sources. The study of the texts and seals of the Persepolis Fortification Archive have opened up a great deal of new primary source material. Briant, P Henkelman, W. and Stolper, M.W., eds., L'Archive des Fortifications de Persépolis: état des questions et perspectives de recherches (Paris, 2008)Google Scholar; Garrison, Mark B. and Root, Margaret Cool, Persepolis Seal Studies, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1998)Google Scholar; Garrison, Mark B. and Root, Margaret Cool, Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (Chicago, IL, 2001–)Google Scholar.
2 Walbank, F.W., The Hellenistic World, 2nd impr. (London, 1986)Google Scholar. Walbank's thesis critiqued in: Wiesehöfer, Josef, “Discordia et Defectio-Dynamis kai Pithanourgia. Die frühen Sleukiden und Iran,” in Hellenismus: Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politischer Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters, ed. Bernd Funck (Tübingen, 1997), 29–56Google Scholar.
3 Sherwin-White, Susan and Kurht, Amélie, From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (Berkeley, CA, 1993)Google Scholar. For an overview, see the introduction to the papers organized around assessing this seminal work in the journal Topoi 4 (1994). Briant's recent critiques of Rostovtzeff for downplaying the changes and ruptures between the Achaemenid and Hellenistic empires parallel many of these critiques of Sherwin-White and Kuhrt: Briant, Pierre “Michael Rostovtzeff et le passage du monde Achéménide au monde hellénistique,” in Studi Hellenistici XX, ed. B. Virgilio (Pisa, 2008), 137–54Google Scholar. Reflecting this new orientation in scholarship: Capdetrey, Laurent Le pouvoir séleucide: territoire, administration, finances d'un royaume hellénistique (312-129 avant J.-C.) (Rennes, 2007), 11–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 112–15; Federicomaria Muccioli, “Review of Laurent Capdetrey, Le pouvior séleucide,” Bryn Mawr Classical Review, June 22, 2008.
4 On the problem of sources: Briant, Pierre “The Seleucid Kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire and the History of the Near East in the First Millenium BC,” in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom (Aarhus, 1996), 40–65;Google Scholar Wiesehöfer, “Discordia et Defectio,” 29–56.
5 A view shared in antiquity: Arr. Anab. 7.22.5.
6 McEwan, Gilbert “Babylonia in the Hellenistic Period,” Klio 70, no. 2 (1988): 412–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Briant, Pierre “De Samarkande à Sardes et de Suse au pays des Hanéens,” Topoi 4 (1994): 455–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boucharlat, Rémy, “Les destin des résidences et sites perses d'Iran dans la seconde moitie du IVe siecle avant J.-C.,” in La transition entre l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques, ed. Pierre Briant and Francis Joannès (Paris, 2006), 443–70Google Scholar; Venco, Roberta R., “Le antiche città mesopotamiche in periodo ellenistico e partico,” in Sulla via di Alessandro: da Seleucia al Gandhara, ed. V. Messina (Milan, 2007), 93–9Google Scholar.
7 Kuhrt, Amélie, “The Seleucid Kings and Babylonia,” in Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship (Aarhus, 1996), 41–54Google Scholar.
8 Sites: Spek, R.J. van der, “The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples under the Successors,” in La Transition entre l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques (vers 350-300 av. J.-C.), ed. P. Briant and F. Joannès (Paris, 2006), 261–307Google Scholar; Rites: Linssen, Marc J.H., The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult practice (Leiden, 2004), 124–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sherwin-White, Susan, “Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon?,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983): 156–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Kuhrt, Amélie, “Usurpation, Conquest, and Ceremonial: from Babylonia to Persia,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine and S. Price (Cambridge, 1992), 48–52Google Scholar.
10 Van der Spek, “The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples,” 269–75; Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 124–8; Pirngruber, Reinhard “Seleukidischer Herrscherkult in Babylon?,” in Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts, ed. R. Rollinger et al. (Wiesbaden, 2010), 533–49Google Scholar.
11 Movement of Macedonians: “Chronicle concerning Antiochus, the Crown Prince and the Temples of Sin,” ABC 11 = BCHP rev. 5.6–11. Temples of Sin at Egišnugal and Enitenna: ABC 11 = BCHP obv. 5.8–12; van der Spek, “The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples,” 272–5 and 290–94.
12 Restoration of Esagila and Ezida: The Borsippa cylinder (BM 36277); van der Spek, “The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples,” 271–2; Sherwin-White, Susan and Kuhrt, Amélie, “Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology: The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 111 (1991): 71–86Google Scholar.
13 Kuhrt, “Seleucid Kings and Babylonia,” 46–51
14 Kuhrt, “Seleucid Kings and Babylonia,” 48.
15 “[T]o the Bab[ylonians] (of) [the assembly of Esa]gila he (Antiochos I) [gave] an offering on the ruin of /Esagila\ they?! Arranged. Upon the ruin of Esagila he fell. Oxen[and] an offering in the Greek7 fashion he made. The son of the king, his [troop]s, his wagons (and) elephants removed the debris of Esagila.” “Chronicle Concerning the Crown Prince and the ‘Ruin of Esagila.” = BCHP 6. 4–9, trans. Robertus J. van der Spek, “The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples,” 295. Robertus J. van der Spek, “The Babylonian Temple during the Macedonian and Parthian Domination. Review of G.J.P. McWean, Priest and Temple in Hellenistic Babylonia, 1981,” Biblioteca Orientalis 42 (1985): 542–60.
16 Linssen, Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 42–3, 126–7; Nicholas Wright, “Religion in Seleukid Syria: Gods at the Crossroads (301-64)” (PhD diss., Macquarie University, 2010), 102–3, 109.
17 Sachs-Hunger, A.J., Astronomical Diaries and Related texts from Babylonia (Vienna, 1988–[2006]), no. 168, A, obv. 14–15Google Scholar; Linssen, Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 119–20.
18 Polyb. 3.25. Diod. 31.16.1; Geller, M.L., “New Information on Antiochus IV from Babylonian Astronomical Diaries,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 54, no. 1 (1991): 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gera, Dov and Horowitz, Wayne, “Antiochus IV in Life and Death: Evidence from the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries,” JAOS 117, no. 2 (1997): 240–52Google Scholar.
19 Canepa, Matthew P., “Technologies of Memory in Early Sasanian Iran: Achaemenid Sites and Sasanian Memory,” American Journal of Archaeology 114, no. 4 (2010): 563–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 565–8.
20 Antonio Invernizzi, “Seleucia on the Tigris: Centre and periphery in Seleucid Asia.” In Centre and periphery in the Hellenistic world, edited by P. Bilde, 230–50. Aarhus: University of Aarhus Press, 1993; Boucharlat, “Les destin des résidences et sites perses,” 451–62.
21 Callieri, Pierfrancesco L'archéologie du Fars à l'époque hellénistique: Quatre leçons au Collège de France, 8, 15, 22 et 29 mars 2007 (Paris: De Boccard, 2007), 38–39Google Scholar; Boucharlat, “Le destin des résidences et sites perses,” 451–62; Canepa, “Technologies of Memory,” 570–72, 574–84.
22 Xen. Cyr. 8.3.12; Curt. 3.3.9–11.
23 Henkelmann, W.F.M., The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts (Leiden, 2008)Google Scholar; Razmjou, Shahrokh “The Lan Ceremony and other Ritual Ceremonies in the Achaemenid Period: The Persepolis Fortification Tablets,” Iran 42 (2004): 103–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Cohen, Getzel M., The Seleucid Colonies: Studies in Founding, Administration and Organization (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1978)Google Scholar; Held, Winifried “Die Residenzstädte der Seleukiden: Babylon, Seleukeia am Tigris, Seleukei in Pieria, Antiocheia am Orontes,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 117 (2002): 217–49Google Scholar.
25 It is important to underscore that Macedonian settlement did not mean the establishment of new cities per se, but more often fortresses (phrouria) at strategic points and to a lesser extent settlements on or near preexisting ones. Pierre Briant, “Colonisation hellénistique et populations indigènes. La phase d'installation,” Klio 60, no. 1 (1978): 57–92; Pierre Briant, “Colonisation hellénistique et populations indigènes II. Renforts grecs dans les cités hellénistiques d'Orient,” Klio 62, no. 1 (1982): 83–98; Leriche, Pierre “Bactria, Land of a Thousand Cities,” in After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam, ed. G. Herrmann and J. Cribb (Oxford, 2007), 121–53Google Scholar.
26 Held, “Die Residenzstädte der Seleukiden.”
27 Mairs, Rachel “Ethnicity and Funerary Practice in Hellenistic Bactria,” in Crossing Frontiers: The Opportunities and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Archaeology, ed. P. Bray et al. (Oxford, 2007), 111–24Google Scholar; Mairs, Rachel “Greek Identity and the Settler Community in Hellenistic Bactria and Arachosia,” Migrations and Identities 1 (2008): 19–43Google Scholar; Traina, Giusto “Notes on Hellenism in the Iranian East (Classico-Oriental Notes, 6–8),” Iran and the Caucasus 9, no. 1 (2005): 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Bernard, Paul “Les traditions orientales dans l'architecture gréco-bactrienne,” Journal Asiatique 264 (1976): 245–75Google Scholar, esp. 266–74; Bernard, Paul “Problèmes d'histoire coloniale grecque à travers l'urbanisme d'une cité hellénistique d'Asie centrale,” in 150 Jahre Deutsches Archaologisches Institut 1829–1979, Festveranstaltungen und Internationales Kolloquium 17–22 April 1979 in Berlin (Mainz, 1981), 108–20Google Scholar; Downey, Susan B., Mesopotamian Religious Architecture (Princeton, NJ, 1988), 76Google Scholar; Hannestad, Lise and Potts, Daniel, “Temple Architecture in the Seleucid Kingdom,” in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom (Aarhus, 1990), 91–123Google Scholar; Rapin, Claude “Les Sanctuaires de l'Asie Centrale à l’époque hellénistique. Etat de la question,” Etudes de Lettres 4 (1992): 101–24Google Scholar; Lindström, Gunvor, “Heiligtümer und Kulte im hellenistischen Baktrien und Babylonien- ein Vergleich,” in Alexander der Grosse und die Öffnung der Welt. Aisens Kulturen im Wandel, ed. Svend Hansen, Alfried Wieczorek and Michael Tellenbach (Mannheim, 2009), 127–34Google Scholar; Mairs, Rachel “The ‘Temple with Indented Niches’ at Ai Khanoum: Ethnic and Civic Identity in Hellenistic Bactria,” in Cults, Creeds and Identities in the Greek City after the Classical Age, eds. R. Alston, O. M. van Nijf and C. G. Williamson, 85–111 (Leuven, 2013)Google Scholar; Shenkar, Michael “Temple Architecture in the Iranian World in the Hellenistic Period,” in From Pella to Gandhara: Hybridisation and Identity in the Art and Architecture of the Hellenistic East, ed. A. Kouremenos, S. Chandrasekaran and R. Rossi (Oxford, 2011), 117–39Google Scholar.
29 Bernard, “Les traditions orientales”; Bernard, “Problèmes d'histoire coloniale grecque”; Bernard, Paul “L'architecture religieuse de l'Asie centrale a l'epoque hellenistique,” in Akten des XIII. Internationalen Kongresses für Klassiche Archäologie, Berlin 1988 (Berlin, 1991), 51–9Google Scholar; Stronach, David “On the Evolution of the Early Iranian Fire Temple,” in Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, Acta Iranica 25 (Leiden, 1984), 605–27Google Scholar; Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 76; Hannestad and Potts, “Temple Architecture in the Seleucid Kingdom”; Rapin, “Les Sanctuaires de l'Asie Centrale”; Lindström, “Heiligtümer und Kulte”; Shenkar, “Temple Architecture in the Iranian World”; Mairs, “The ‘Temple with Indented Niches.’”
30 Boyce, Mary “On the Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95, no. 3 (1975): 454–65;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Boyce, Mary A History of Zoroastrianism, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1975–91), 2: 216–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Briant, Pierre From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, trans. Peter T. Daniels (Winona Lake, IN, 2002), 675–80Google Scholar, 915, 998–9; Stronach, “On the Evolution of the Early Iranian Fire Temple”; Schippmann, Klaus Die iranischen Feuerheiligtümer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. Boyce, “On the Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire”; Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, 2: 216–31; Shenkar, Michael “Temple Architecture in the Iranian World before the Macedonian Conquest,” Iran and the Caucasus 11 (2007): 169–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Canepa, Matthew P., “The Transformation of Sacred Space, Topography, and Royal Ritual in Persia and the Ancient Iranian World,” in Heaven on Earth: Temples, Ritual, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World Oriental Institute Seminars 9, ed. D. Ragavan, 319–72 (Chicago, IL, 2013)Google Scholar. Gherardo Gnoli, “Dahan-e Gōlāmān,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1993, http://www.iranica.com. The ongoing, unpublished French re-exacavation of Sangyr-tepe has brought attention to a rectangular space, which may or may not have been enclosed, that appears to have have hosted some sort of cult activity. Its construction techniques reflect local rather than Achaemenid techniques and traditions. Archéologies d'Orient et d'Occident et textes anciens (AOROC), “Sangyr-tepe (Kashka-darya),” http://www.archeo.ens.fr/spip.php?article505 (accessed Sept. 10, 2011).
33 Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 7–50. The temple of Apollo at Didyma presents an important example where the dynasty rebuilt the temple using cutting-edge Hellenistic architecture, tying this cult of their divine progenitor to the dynasty. H.W. Parke, “The Temple of Apollo at Didyma: The Building and its Function,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1986: 121–31. On the oracle: Graf, Fritz Apollo (New York, 2009), 60–61Google Scholar.
34 Jeppsen, Kristian The Hellenistic Settlements, vol. 3, The Sacred Enclosure in the Early Hellenistic Period (Copenhagen, 1989)Google Scholar. On the mausoleums, see Canepa, Matthew “Achaemenid and Seleucid Royal Funerary Practices and Middle Iranian Kingship,” in Commutatio Et Contentio: Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East, ed. H. Börm and J. Wiesehöfer (Düsseldorf, 2010), 1–21Google Scholar.
35 Lindström, “Heiligtümer und Kulte,” 129–31; Rapin, “Les Sanctuaires de l'Asie Centrale,” 118.
36 Leriche, Pierre and MacKenzie, D.N., “Dura Europos,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1996Google Scholar, http://www.iranica.com.
37 Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 78–9.
38 Ibid., 89.
39 Stronach, “On the Evolution of the Early Iranian Fire Temple,” 619–22; Rapin, “Les Sanctuaires de l'Asie Centrale.”
40 Strabo 11.13.5; Seleukos I: Pliny Natural History 6.17; Brown, Stuart C., “Ecbatana,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1998Google Scholar, http://www.iranica.com.
41 The remains at the site of Kangavar, once thought to be those of the Seleukid temple, have been securely dated to the Sasanian era. Azarnoush, Massoud “New Evidence on the Chronology of the ‘Anahita Temple,’” Iranica Antiqua 44 (2009): 393–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Bernard, Paul “The Greek Colony at Ai Khanoum and Hellenism in Central Asia,” in Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from National Museum, Kabul, ed. F. Hiebert and P. Cambon (Washington, DC, 2008), 81–106Google Scholar; Coloru, Omar Da Alessandro a Menandro: il Regno greco di Battriana (Pisa, 2009), 149Google Scholar.
43 Held, “Die Residenzstädte der Seleukiden”; Vito Messina, “Seleucia al Tigri,” in Sulla via di Alessandro (see note 6), 107–15; Leriche, Pierre “Le città dell'oriente ellenistico,” in Sulla via di Alesandro (see note 6), 83–91Google Scholar.
44 Mairs, “The ‘Temple with Indented Niches.’”
45 Gardin, J.-C. in Bernard, Paul, “Campagne de fouilles 1974 à Aï Khanoum (Afghanistan),” Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 119, no. 2 (1975): 193–5Google Scholar.
46 Bernard, Paul “Campagne de fouilles 1969 à Aï Khanoum en Afghanistan,” Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 114, no. 2 (1970): 333Google Scholar, figs. 24, 25, 26 and 28.
47 Bernard, Paul “La campagne de fouilles de 1970 à Aï Khanoum (Afghanistan),” Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 115.2 (1971): 385–453Google Scholar, esp. 426; Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 69.
48 Only fragments of the cult statue survive, including a left foot measuring 0.27 meters long, indicating the statue was seated. The sandal on the foot carries a thunderbolt. Bernard, Paul “Quatrième campagne de fouilles à Aï Khanoum (Bactriane),” Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 113, no. 3 (1969): 313–55Google Scholar, esp. 338–41, figs. 15 and 16.
49 Grenet, Frantz “Mithra au temple principal d'Aï Khanoum?,” in Histoire et cultes de l'Asie centrale préislamique (Paris, 1991), 147–51Google Scholar.
50 Bernard, Paul “Fouilles de Aï-Khanoum (Afghanistan), campagnes de 1972 et 1973,” CRAI 118, no. 2 (1974): 280–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 294–98. As far as the preliminary results of Sangyr-Tepe's excavations can reveal, the burials of the remains of sacrificial offerings at the edge of the foundations of the temple might be a related precursor of this cultic activity in the region. Archéologies d'Orient et d'Occident et textes anciens (AOROC), “Sangyr-tepe (Kashka-darya),” http://www.archeo.ens.fr/spip.php?article505 (accessed Sept. 10, 2011).
51 Bernard, “Campagne de fouilles 1969 à Aï Khanoum en Afghanistan,” esp. 227–39; Francfort, H.-P. et al., Fouilles de Aï Khanoum III (Paris, 1984), 81–84Google Scholar.
52 Bernard, “Fouilles de Aï-Khanoum (Afghanistan), campagnes de 1972 et 1973,” 287–89; Bernard, Paul “Campagne de fouilles 1975 à Aï Khanoum (Afghanistan),” CRAI 120, no. 2 (1976): 303–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 73–5.
53 Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 85.
54 Bernard, “Campagne de fouilles 1975,” 307; Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 75.
55 Bernard, Paul Fouilles d'Aï Khanoum I (Paris, 1973), 85–102Google Scholar and 115; see the chronological chart on 104; Francfort, H.-P. et al., “Fouilles d'Ai Khanoum (Afghanistan): Campagne de 1974,” Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise de l'Extreme Orient 63 (1976): 25–39Google Scholar.
56 Litvinskii, B.A. and Pichikyan, I.R., Эллинистический Храм Окса в Бактрии, 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000–)Google Scholar; Litvinskii, B.A. and Pichikyan, I.R., Taxt-i Sangin, der Oxus-Tempel: Grabungsbefund, Statigraphie und Architektur (Mainz, 2002)Google Scholar; Lindström, “Heiligtümer und Kulte.”
57 Leriche, “Bactria, Land of a Thousand Cities,” 128.
58 Anjelina Drujinina, “Wohnen im hellenistischen Baktrien- Wohnhäuser in der Stadt Oxeiane (Tachti Sangin),” in Alexander der Grosse (see note 28), 177–81.
59 A fortification wall surrounded the temple in a later building phase opening with a gate opening to the east. In this phase this open space became an interior court. Gunvor Lindström, “Der Oxos-Tempel in Tachti Sangin,” in Alexander der Grosse (see note 28), 350.
60 Lindström, “Der Oxos-Tempel in Tachti Sangin.”
61 Dushanbe National Museum, inv. M 7257 and TS 4002/1091; Gunvor Lindström, “Kat. Nr. 232,” “Kat. Nr. 233,” in Alexander der Grosse (see note 28), 351.
62 Admirably dealt with by Mairs, “The ‘Temple with Indented Niches.’”
63 Mairs, “Greek Identity and the Settler Community”; Mairs, “The ‘Temple with Indented Niches’”; Lindström, “Heiligtümer und Kulte.”
64 On its development see Stewart, Andrew Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley, CA, 1993)Google Scholar.
65 Seleukos I briefly continued Alexander's minting of Darics which might have presented an opportunity for a Seleukid representing himself as an Achaemenid king; however, the fact that even under Alexander the coins lost their Achaemenid iconography suggests that monetary policy rather than ruler representation motivated this continuity. Malcolm Colledge, “Greek and Non-Greek Interaction,” in Hellenism in the East, ed. A. Kuhrt and S. Sherwin-White (Berkeley, CA, 1987), 140–43.
66 Canepa, “Technologies of Memory,” 563–96.
67 Kuhrt, “The Seleucid Kings and Babylonia,” 41–54.
68 Smith, R.R.R., Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford, 1988), 57–8Google Scholar, 81–2; Fleischer, Robert Studien zur seleukidischen Kunst I. Herrscherbildnisse (Mainz, 1991)Google Scholar; Fleischer, Robert “Physiognomie, Ideologie, Dynastische Politik: Porträts seleukidischer Könige,” in Akten, XIII. internationalen Kongresses für klassische Archäologie, Berlin, 1988 (Mainz, 1990), 33–6Google Scholar. On Seleukid seals: Gross, Robert “Hellenistic Royal Iconography in Glyptics” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2009), 35–53Google Scholar; Invernizzi, Antonio Seleucia al Tigri: Le impronte di sigillo dagli Archivi, 3 vols. (Alessandria, 2004)Google Scholar, 1: tab. 15–18.
69 Virgilio, Biagio Lancia, diadema e porpora: Il re e la regalità ellenistica, 2nd edition, Studi ellenistici 11 (Pisa, 2003), 87–130Google Scholar; Debord, Pierre “Le culte royal chez les Séleucides,” in L'Orient méditerranéen de la mort d'Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée. Pallas (Toulouse, 2003), 281–308Google Scholar; Nuffelen, Peter van, “Le culte royale de l'empire des séleucides: une réinterprétation,” Historia 53, no. 3 (2004): 278–301Google Scholar.
70 This exclusively Greek view of Achaemenid court culture captured in Ritter, Hans-Werner, Diadem und Königherrschaft (Munich, 1965)Google Scholar.
71 Henkelman, Wouter “An Elamite Memorial: the šumar of Cambyses and Hystaspes,” in A Persian Perspective: Essays in Memory of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, ed. Wouter Henkelman and Amélie Kuhrt (Leiden, 2003), 101–72Google Scholar; Henkelman, Wouter The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts (Leiden, 2008), 287–91Google Scholar, 429–32, 546. On the impact of Persian and Seleukid funerary traditions see Canepa, “Achaemenid and Seleucid Royal Funerary Practices.”
72 Boyce, Mary and Grenet, Frantz, A History of Zorastrianism, Volume 3: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule (Leiden, 1991), 12–17Google Scholar.
73 Debord, “Le culte royal chez les Séleucides”; van Nuffelen, “Le culte royale de l'empire des séleucides.”
74 Virgilio, Diadema, Lancia, Porpora, 118–27; Debord, “Le culte royal chez les Séleucides,” 291–300; van Nuffelen, “Le culte royale de l'empire des séleucides,” 278–85. The Nikatoreion of Seleukeia-Pieria, that is, the temenos in which Antiochos I buried Seleukos I, was a mausoleum and was not the genesis or center of an empire-wide cult like the Sēma of Alexandria. Appian Syr. 63; Canepa, “Achaemenid and Seleukid Royal Funerary Practices,” 7.
75 Among the most important testimonies are the copies of the edict (prostagma) of 193 promulgated by Antiochos III. Three copies of this edict were discovered at sites across the empire: Eriza/Dodurga in Phrygia (1884), Laodikeia-Media Nehāvand in Iran (1947) and a fortress (phylakē) in the region of Kermānšāh, Iran (1967). Van Nuffelen, “Le culte royale de l'empire des séleucides,” 278–85.
76 Mehdi Rahbar and Sajjad Alibaigi, “The Hunt for Laodicea: A Greek Temple in Nahavand, Iran,” Antiquity 83, no. 322 (December 2009): http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/alibaigi322/.
77 See the collections of documents in Virgilio, Diadema, Lancia, Porpora, 206–310; and Ma, John Antiochos III and the Cities of Asia Minor (Oxford, 1999), 284–372Google Scholar.
78 Van Nuffelen, “Le culte royal de l'empire des Séleucides,” 298.
79 Despite earlier reluctance to acknowledge the influence of the Seleukid ruler cult on Babylon, this phrase and practice is clearly an innovation and only attested from the reign of Antiochos III. See Linssen's critique of Sherwin-White, “Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon?,” Linssen, Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 125–8.
80 Houghton, Arthur and Larber, C., Seleucid Coins (Lancaster, 2002–8), 1.1: 115Google Scholar.
81 Ibid., 1.1: 232.
82 Downey, Glanville A History of Antioch in Syria (Princeton, NJ, 1961), 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 75–6.
83 Possibility that this type was taken from Antigonos: Houghton and Larber, Seleucid Coins, 1.1:8.
84 Ibid., 1.2: 127; 332, 333, 334. In some cases, rival factions of the Seleukid dynasty would foreground Apollo or Zeus types as symbol of their claims. Ibid., 1.2: 348. The appearance of the caps of the Dioskouri with the anchor has been interpreted as propaganda on the part of Berenike symbolizing the union of Seleukids and Ptolemids. 1.1: 226.
85 P. Bernard, “Delbarjīn,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1994, http://www.iranica.com.
86 Houghton and Larber, Seleucid Coins, 1.1: 116.
87 Such as Alexander Balas (150–145 BCE): ibid., type: 1805.
88 Ibid, type 497, 500.1, 501, 503–12.1.
89 Heinz Luschey, “Bīsotūn ii. archaeology,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1989, http://www.iranica.com.
90 Bernard, Paul “Heracles, Les Grottes de Karafto et let sactuaire du Mont Sambulos en Iran,” Studia Iranica 9 (1980): 301–24Google Scholar; Tubach, J “Herakles vom Berge Sanbulos,” Ancient Society 26 (1995): 241–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Von Gall argues the vast complex is a sanctuary: H. von Gall, “Karafto Caves,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 2010, http://www.iranica.com.
91 Michels, Christoph “Zum ‘Philhellenismus’ der Könige con Bithynien, Pontos und Kappadokien,” in Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts, ed. R. Rollinger et al. (Weisbaden, 2010), 561–82Google Scholar; Edward Dąbrowa, “The Parthians and the Seleucid Legacy,” in Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt, 583–90.
92 Invernizzi, Antonio “Die hellenistischen Grundlagen der frühparthischen Kunst,” AMIran 27 (1994 [1996]): 191–203;Google Scholar Invernizzi, Antonio “Arsacid Dynastic Art,” Parthica 3 (2001): 133–57Google Scholar; Invernizzi, Antonio “Representations of Gods in Parthian Nisa,” Parthica 7 (2005): 71–9Google Scholar.
93 Final publication: Invernizzi, Antonio Nisa Partica: Le sculture ellenistiche (Florence, 2009)Google Scholar. Invernizzi, Antonio and Lippolis, Carlo, Nisa Partica: Ricerche nel complesso monumentale arsacide 1990–2006 (Florence, 2008)Google Scholar.
94 Invernizzi, “Arsacid Dynastic Art,” 134; Lippolis, Carlo “Notes on the Iranian Traditions in the Architecture of Parthian Nisa,” in Orbis Parthicus: Studies in Memory of Professor Józef Wolski, ed. Edward Dąbrowa (Cracow, 2009), 53–66Google Scholar.
95 Invernizzi, Ricerche nel complesso monumentale, 83–166, 265–82, 374–5 (though with caution with reference to the temple at Kuh-e Khwaja, whose date is still problematic). Reflecting Parthian innovations, a 17-meter diameter mud brick structure, “The Round Hall,” belonged to a later phase linked to the Red Building by corridors and three passages. Invernizzi, Ricerche nel complesso monumentale, 7–81.
96 Shenkar, “Temple Architecture,” 132; Rapin, “Les Sanctuaires de l'Asie Centrale,” 122–3.
97 Invernizzi, Antonio “Nisa: An Arsacid City and Ceremonial Center in Parthia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 2010Google Scholar, http://www.iranica.com.
98 Ibid.
99 Dąbrowa, Edward, “ΑΡΣΑΚΕΣ ΘΕΟΣ. Observations on the Nature of the Parthian Ruler-cult,” in Un impaziente desiderio di scorrere il mondo: Studi in onore di Antonio Invernizzi per il suo settantesimo compleanno, ed. C. Lippolis and S. de Martino (Florence, 2011), 247–54Google Scholar.
100 Canepa, Matthew P., “Dynastic Sanctuaries and Iranian Kingship between Alexander and Islam,” in Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavis, ed. S. Babaie and T. Grigor (London, 2014)Google Scholar; Canepa, “Achaemenid and Seleucid Royal Funerary Practices”; Canepa, “Technologies of Memory.”
101 Rapin, Claude “Indo-Greeks and Vishnuism: on an Indian Object from the Sanctuary of the Oxus and Two Temples in Taxila,” in In the Land of the Gryphons, ed. A. Invernizzi (Florence, 1995), 275-291Google Scholar.
102 Delberjin's ceramics and the iconography of the Dioskouri painting associated with its earliest layer cohere better with a Greco-Bactrian vs. Kushan date. See Shenkar, “Temple Architecture,” 120 and 124–5. Bernard, “Delbarjīn”; Bernard, “L'architecture religieuse de l'Asie Centrale à l’époque hellénistique,” 51-59.
103 Canepa, “Dynastic Sanctuaries.”
104 SK 4; Schlumberger, Daniel et al., Surkh Kotal en Bactriane, 2 vols. (Paris, 1983–90), 1: 11–20Google Scholar, 49–62.
105 Schlumberger et al., Surkh Kotal en Bactriane, 1: 31–48.
106 Ibid., 1: 63–5, 107–32.
107 Fussman, Gérard, “The Māṭ devakula: a New Approach to its Understanding,” in Mathurā: The Cultural Heritage New Delhi, ed. Doris Meth Srinivasan (New Delhi, 1989), 197–8.Google Scholar The later temples housed fire cults, but were built in the ruins of the sanctuary after its original cult had ceased to function. Schlumberger et al., Surkh Kotal en Bactriane, 1: 28–9.
108 C14 dating has proven that the complex at Kuh-e Khwaja dates to the late Parthian or early Sasanian period. The architectural and sculptural features more strongly cohere with Sasanian art. Ghanimati, Soroor “New Perspectives on the Chronological and Functional Horizons of Kuh-e Khwaja in Sistan,” Iran 38 (2000): 137–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
109 At this point, the earliest known Zoroastrian fire temples dated with C14 come from Tash-k'irman Tepe, Chorasmia and Mele Hairam in Turmenistan. Tash-k'irman Tepe is dated to the fourth century BCE by C14 and Mele Hairam to the second century CE. Although they have been compared to the Seleukid temples, as their cultic space is divided into two rooms, their ground plans do not match the symmetrical design of Seleukid, or Seleukid-influenced temples. A.V.G Betts and V.N. Yagodin, “The Fire Temple at Tash-k'irman Tepe, Chorasmia,” in After Alexander (see note 25), 435–53; Kaim, Barbara “Ancient Fire Temples in Light of the Discovery at Mele Hairam,” IranAnt 39 (2004): 323–37Google Scholar.
110 Like Surkh Kotal, Takht-e Sangin received a fire cult in a later phase; though in this case the temple plan itself was reused. Litvinsky, B.A. and Pichikian, I.R., “The Hellenistic Architecture and Art of the Temple of the Oxus,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8 (1994): 47–66Google Scholar.
111 Joe Cribb, “Money as a Marker of Cultural Continuity and Change in Central Asia,” in After Alexander (see note 25), 333–75.
112 Canepa, Matthew P., Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley, CA, 2009), 196–7Google Scholar and 326–7.
113 Ibid.
114 Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, “Religious Iconography on Ancient Iranian Coins,” in After Alexander (see note 25), 413–34; Dąbrowa “Parthians and the Seleucid Legacy,” 586.
115 Curtis, “Religious Iconography”; Curtis, V.S., “The Iranian Revival in the Parthian Period,” in The Age of the Parthians, ed. V.S. Curtis and S. Stewart (London, 2007), 7–25Google Scholar.
116 Calmeyer, Peter “Fortuna-Tyche-Khvarnah,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 44 (1979): 347–65Google Scholar; Sinisi, F “Tyche in Parthia: The Image of the Goddess on Arsacid Tetradachms,” Numismatische Zeitschrift 116/117 (2008): 231–48Google Scholar.
117 On the dynamics behind these processes see Canepa, Matthew P., “Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction Among Ancient and Early Medieval Visual Cultures,” in Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction among the Late Antique and Early Medieval Mediterranean, Near East and Asia, ed. Matthew P. Canepa (Washington, DC, 2010), 7–29Google Scholar.
118 Invernizzi, Ricerche nel complesso monumentale, 226–33.
119 Carter, M “Coins and Kingship: Kanishka and the Kushana Dynasty,” in A Treasury of Indian Coins (Bombay, 1994), 29–38Google Scholar.
120 Haider, Peter W., “Tradition and Change at Assur, Nineveh and Nisibis between 300 BC and AD 300,” in The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Boston, MA, 2008), 194–207Google Scholar; Ted Kaizer, “The Heracles Figure at Hatra and Palmyra: Problems of Interpretation,” Iraq 62 (200): 219–32.
121 The fratarakid rulers of Persia and the early Sasanians, however, engaged with Achaemenid traditions in a more direct manner, though they were peripherally affected by the practices of the Arsakids. Canepa “Technologies of Memory,” 567–70
- 2
- Cited by