Sasanian Coins
Dr Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Mrs Elahe M Askari, The British Museum, National Museum of Iran and The British Institute of Persian Studies
The first part of this project was completed and a CD of Volume I, which consists of early to mid-Sasanian coins of the 3rd to 6th centuries AD in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, was presented to the Iranian authorities in October 2006.
From 25 October to 11 November, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Elizabeth Pendleton and Richard Hodges worked in the National Museum of Iran on the late Sasanian coins, for inclusion in Volume 2, which is due for publication in 2008. During an official visit of Mr Neil Mac Gregor, the Director of the British Museum, to Tehran in September 2006, it was decided to print volumes I and II together and also produce a collaborative catalogue on the British Museum collection of Sasanian coins.
This work took place under the guidance of Mrs Elahe M Askari, the Head of the Department of Coins and Seals of the National Museum of Iran. The sheer number of late Sasanian coins greatly exceeded our expectations but we succeeded in scanning 3,900 late Sasanian coins of the 6th and 7th centuries AD.
Technical data of the late Sasanian coins were also recorded on a spreadsheet so that details such as registration number, weight and die axis could be transferred, along with the scanned images, to a database We are also working closely with the Department of Conservation in Tehran, which over the years has treated a large number of Sasanian coins. 
We are most grateful to Mr Mohammad-Reza Kargar, the Director of the National Museum of Iran, Mrs Elahe M Askari, the Head of the Coin and Seals Department, and her colleagues Ms Zohreh Basseri, Mrs Taghva, Mrs Fereshteh Zokayi and Mrs Naghmeh Ghazvini, as well as Ms Mahnaz Gorji, the Head of the Department of Conservation, Mrs Zahra Jaffar-Mohammadi, the Head of Foreign Exhibitions, and Ms M Motamedi, the PA to the Director, who all made our stay possible and enjoyable.
In addition, some 3,000 Parthian coins of the 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD were scanned during this visit. This initial work on the Parthian coins is part of a large multi-institutional project with Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Tehran and London.
Kingship in Persian cultural history
The notion of kingship and its legitimacy has permeated Iranian history, culture, literature and art for millennia, in both pre-Islamic and Islamic times. It can be traced in numerous media, from architecture and town planning to coins, from rock reliefs to book painting. It is the principal theme of the Persian national epic, the Book of Kings (Shahnama), completed by Firdausi c. A.D.1010, an epic poem of some 60,000 couplets that records the history and pre-history of Iran and its heroes and their exploits. The various manifestations of kingship can be traced in many chronicles, in visual symbols, in official documents and in inscriptions. It generated a popular literary genre, the Mirror for Princes. The deeds of kings dominate many works of Persian literature, such as the Gulistan of Sa‘di and the Khamsa of Nizami.
One important aspect of the centrality of kingship in Persian culture has been the royal patronage of illustrated manuscripts of these and other major works of Persian literature, on the one hand, and the non-literary uses of these texts on the other. This research theme thus invites the investigation of the image of the ruler in Persian literature and political thought, and, conversely, the royal patronage of art and material culture that sustained the projection of this image.