Siraf
Siraf, a legendary ancient port, was located on the north shore of what is now the Iranian coast on the Persian Gulf. Its ruins are approximately 220 km from Bushire and 380 km west of Bandar Abbas. The Persian Gulf was used as a boat route between the Arabian Peninsula and India. Small boats could make the long journey by staying close to the coast keeping land in sight.
Hejira, Baghdad was the capital of the Arab world world in 145 AD, and IslamicFar East lands began to flourish at this port because of the vast expansion of trade. The first contact between Siraf and China occurred in 185 AD and by the 4th century it was a busy port. However, over time trade routes shifted to the Red Sea and Siraf was forgotten. Cities were the main consumers of traded goods. According to David Whitehouse, one of the first archeologists to study the ancient ruins of Serif, marine trade between the Persian Gulf and
The historical importance of Siraf to ancient trade is only now being realised. Discovered there in past archaeological excavations are ivory objects from east Africa, pieces of stone from India, and lapis from Afghanistan. Sirif dates back to the Parthian era.
Siraf has not been yet registered on the list of national heritage sites of Iran. This is needed so that it will be preserved and maintained.
Funding from the Institute
BIPS welcomes applications to fund research programme to assist scholars at postgraduate and postdoctoral level wishing to pursue research in all fields of Persian Studies. Applicants should contact the Secretary or fill in the forms provided online, and return them to the BIPS before 15 May 2006.
Grants are awarded once a year in the early summer.
BIPS also awards travel grants. Applicants should submit a brief A4-sized typed proposal outlining:
- the project they have in mind
- the time scale
- itinerary
- and breakdown of expenses.
This should be accompanied by a reference in a sealed envelope from an academic who knows the student's work.Students should not expect a bursary to cover all the costs of a journey to Iran; they should be prepared to supplement it from other sources.
Grants will be paid after the students have obtained a visa.
Applications should be sent to:
The Secretary
BIPS
The British Academy
10 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AH
Socio-economic transformations in the Tehran Plain
The project aims to pilot the collection of data regarding the frequency, distribution, density and condition of sites from the terminal Palaeolithic (c. 8000 BCE) to the Late Chalcolithic (c. 3000 BCE) in the Tehran Plain. Selected sites will be chosen for detailed survey and test excavations in order to enhance the absolute chronology of the Tehran Plain, as well as characterise site function with regards to site craft standardisation and specialisation. Geoarchaeological analysis will investigate changes to the archaeological landscape. So far, staff and students from the Universities of Durham, Bradford, Leicester and Tehran held their third season of survey and excavations directed by Prof Robin Coningham of Durham University and Dr Hassan Fazeli Nashli of the University of Tehran.
In order to study settlement distribution and function, we have conducted transect surveys in an area to the southeast of Varamin, on the Tehran Plain. Three seasons of survey have been completed to date covering areas of mountan, plain and desert. Over 90% of the sites that have been recorded have been damaged through farming and illegal excavations, prompting heritage management issues. Selected sites have been excavated in order to develop the chronology and understanding of sites. One such site, Tepe Pardis was chosen for excavation as it was threatened by an expanding clay quarry.
Excavations at Tepe Pardis in 2004 revealed six pottery kilns and a slow wheel dating to the Transitional Chalcolithic (c.5300-4300 BCE). This concentration of kilns, adjacent to a large natural deposit of clay and combined with the general lack of domestic occupation and waste at the site, suggests that Tepe Pardis represents one of the earliest specialised settlements in the Central Plateau.
The Shahnama Project
This project aims to stimulate research into the role of Firasui's epic in Persian history and culture (c. 1010 CE), by investigating the relationship between the text of the poem and the many minature paintings that have been created to illustrate it. A facet of this research will be to create an electronic corpus of the paintings in Shahnama manuscripts over 600 years.
Bakhtiari Cemeteries
This research project, which is a pilot study of cemeteries and funeral culture among the nomadic Bakhtiyari in northern Khuzestan, continued throughout 2005/6. The main emphasis is based on research about Lion tombstones, a field which until now has remained relatively unknown. This project has enabled a classification and analysis of this particular type of tombstones to be made. The Iranian collaborator, Pedram Khosronejad, is in the process of finishing his study of the origin and structure of these tombstones and will submit it as a PhD thesis to Sorbonne University, Paris, at the end of the year.
It is the first time that research of this type has been undertaken among a nomadic tribal group, which is a distinctive social formation of the past but is now under threat by the rapid urbanisation within Iran. The third and last phase of this field research will collect information from tribal groups living in the vicinity, who have preserved this tradition through oral history. It is planned to visit the area in April 2007. The result will be a comprehensive study about funeral culture in a nomadic tribal setting. A bilingual publication will be prepared in 2007 following the completion of this research project. The Institute for Nomadism in Iran has already proposed considering a follow-up study for another major tribal group, the Qashqa’is of southern Fars in southern Iran.
Zurkhaneh: between tradition and change
This project aims to research the history of wrestling in Iran, the contemporary role of Zurkhaneh wrestling in Iran, and the contemporary ritual and religious role of Zurkhaneh wrestling in Iran. This sporting institution, which is specific to the Persian-speaking world, is vastly expanding within and outside Iran. The Persian term javanmardi, often translated into English as “chivalry”, has a history that stretches back at least to the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century.
It is interesting to note how the term developed from one that included attributes of courage, bravery and generosity, into a more Sufi-inspired term, so that by the 11th century treatises were written by Sufis on javanmardi alone. Of interest too is how the concept was appropriated by the Caliphs in Baghdad for political purposes, as an attempt to impose their order over the fragmenting empire. Subsequent research will investigate the nature of javanmardi that appeared in the Safavid period in the 16-18 centuries. These tend to be associated with the trade guilds, and as such they inform us of the nature of Sufism during this period, since the texts were loaded with references to Sufi terms and concepts. As such they are particularly interesting, especially in light of the common belief that, in the later Safavid period at least, the ruling authorities frowned upon the Sufi tradition. This is an ongoing project that investigates a range of topics including identity formation, myth, nationalism, Sufism and social history.
Socio-economic developments in south-west Iran during the fourth millenium BCE
In south and north Mesopotamia and western Iran, the late 4th millennium BC was the culmination of a protracted period of profound social and economic change. Although there has been extensive discussion of the processes of socio-economic development in Mesopotamia and lowland Susiana during the 4th millennium BC in recent years, there has been limited consideration of evidence pertaining to highland Iran – particularly the southwest region of Fars. Research is currently being carried out at the site of Tol-e Spid in the Mamasani region of Fars, specifically focusing on the transformations that took place during the 4th millennium BC.
The changes that take place in the 4th millennium BC are very much a part of a sequence of long term socio-economic developments. For example, the ceramic assemblages used in Fars from the 6th to the 4th millennium BC display distinctive morphological and technological changes over time. In order to characterise these developments, a pilot programme of mineralogical (thin-section petrographic) and compositional (ICP-AES) analysis has been undertaken, using samples from mound sites in the Mamasani region of Fars, including Tol-e Spid and Tol-e Nurabad.
The results suggest that there were a number of marked changes in the technological choices made during the process of ceramic production from the early 4th millennium BC onwards.These have implications for our understanding of the nature of socio-economic development in highland Fars during the entire millennium.
An imperial frontier and its landscape: the Gorgan and Tammisha Walls in northeast Iran
Dr Eberhard Sauer of the University of Edinburgh and Prof. Tony Wilkinson of Durham University, together with Mr Hammid Omrani and his team from the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation and Tehran University, led a successful second season of this project in August-September. Funded by BIPS for its first year as a pilot study, additional support has now been obtained from the AHRC. The season concentrated on a geophysical survey of historic settlements along the walls and the team utilised the Institute’s magnetometer, resistence meter and total station.
Additional geo-archaeological work was conducted in the vicinity of the wall, which is located on the southeast shore of the Caspian Sea. Artefactual evidence and chronometric dating has offered greater resolution for the dating of the wall and the project directors suggest that it was built between the fifth and sixth centuries AD.
Again, this collaborative project has the support of the ICHTO, which provided a vehicle for the season. The success of this collaborative venture has attracted much attention in the Iranian media and websites. As in the case of the Tehran Plain survey project, a substantial preliminary report on fieldwork has been submitted for publication in the Institute’s journal, Iran.
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.
History, myth and literature in modern Iran
The first grants for the modern history programme were awarded by the Research Committee in June 2006. A range of projects were provided with sponsorship including research on the development of museums, the historical imagination under Reza Shah and the development of the late Pahlavi Foreign Ministry world view. All successful candidates were instructed to maintain regular contact with the project manager, Dr Ali Ansari at the University of St Andrews, and a workshop to review programme has been scheduled in St Andrews for late spring. All grant holders will be expected to attend and report on their work at the workshop.
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.
Current research
Research Aims
The British Institute of Persian Studies exists primarily to promote Iranian studies in the United Kingdom. In this endeavour it places great emphasis on offering young researchers direct experience of Iran, and it seeks to build confidence in the long-term potential for research in Iran through the use of its purpose-built Institute and its diverse facilities, in Tehran. It works primarily within the boundaries of modern Iran but also in neighbouring countries with Persian cultural traditions, whether they are bound linguistically to Iran or whether they border the Caspian Sea or the Persian Gulf. All fields of research within the humanities, social and natural sciences are considered for publication in the BIPS journal Iran.
Supported Programmes of Research:
- The History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran
- The Political Culture of Kingship in the Persianate World
- Modern Iran, The Idea of Chivalry (Javānmardi)