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Canepa-The Iranian Expanse.Indd CHAPTER ONE Introduction I, Ahura Mazda, fi rst fashioned forth the Aryan Expanse (airiianəm vae¯jo¯) by the Good Lawful River, to be the best of places and settlements. But then the Evil Spirit, full of death, hacked out its adversarial counterfeit (paitiia¯r me ): a dragon, the red, and the winter, fabricated by the Demons.1 The Iranian Expanse is a study of the natural and built it focuses on the ancient evidence and does not contain environments of power in Persia and the ancient Ira- extended discussions of theoretical literature, this book nian world from the consolidation of the Achaemenid often engages debates in the humanities and in the Empire in the sixth century BCE to the fall of the Sasa- social and behavioral sciences. I approach these issues nian Empire in the seventh century CE. Its chapters not simply as theoretical problems, but as important analyze the formation and development of some of the methodological tools that have the potential to shed most enduring expressions of power in Iranian royal light on historical processes. This book’s arguments culture: palaces, paradise gardens and hunting enclo- grow from the conviction that both personal cognition sures, royal cities, sanctuaries and landscapes marked and collective cultural identities are highly implicated with a rich history of rock art and ritual activity. It in the natural and built environments. Moreover, the explores how these structures, landscapes, and urban personal and collective memories that constitute those spaces constructed and transformed Iranian imperial identities often crystallize at specifi c sites, natural or cosmologies, royal identities, and understandings of the man-made: they shape and were shaped by the built past. Implicit in this book’s arguments is the under- and natural environments.2 It should not be surprising standing that royal engagement with natural, urban, that a change in one could be understood to yield a and architectonic space was not merely an ornament or change in the others. A wide variety of external a natural outgrowth of Iranian kingship, but a funda- resources can “scaffold,” that is, support and shape, mental tool by which kings in Iran established their human cognition and offer affordances for meaningful dominance, manipulated cultural memory, and appro- perceptions and actions, including those relating to per- priated, subsumed, or destroyed the traditions of their sonal or collective memories.3 Within theories of an competitors. Understanding the continuum between extended mind, “when parts of the environment are the conceptual, spatial, material, and practical bases of coupled with the brain in the right way they become Iranian kingship and their role in forming, supporting, parts of the mind,” though the inverse of this statement and changing Iranian royal identity lies at the book’s is equally true: when parts of our mind, relating to both methodological core. cognitive and somatic processes, are coupled with the Setting as its goal a sustained analysis of the role of environment in the right way they become part of the the natural and built environments in the construction environment.4 and transformation of Iranian royal identities, this book This is a problem that occupies not only contempo- opens an analytical space that can encompass multiple rary theoretical approaches but was deeply implicated competing understandings and expressions of Iranian in ancient Iranian understandings of existence. Accord- kingship and their competitive or appropriative rela- ing to Iranian religious theorizing, everything in the tionship with sites, traditions, and images of pre- living, material world (Av. gaeˉiθiia-, Mid. Pers. geˉtı¯g) also Achaemenid or non-Iranian royal traditions. Although participates in a world “of thought” (Old Av. manahiia-, 1 CCanepa-Theanepa-The IranianIranian Expanse.inddExpanse.indd 1 225/04/185/04/18 33:35:35 PPMM Young Av. mainiiauua-, Mid. Pers. meˉnoˉg), that is, the though their main mode of royal expression was Greek conceptual, spiritual dimension of existence.5 While I and the majority of the peoples they ruled were not Ira- am not arguing that contemporary theoretical nian. This certainly includes the postsatrapal dynasties approaches map onto ancient Iranian concepts, the of Anatolia and the Caucasus, but this characterization importance of the relationship between the conceptual could equally apply to the early Seleucid dynasty. world and the living, material world in a number of Ira- Despite clear differences and temporal distance, the nian religions challenges us to take such “hylonoetic” dynasties under study shared one or more common reli- continua between place, space, and human minds and gious and cultural practices. Not all dynasties partici- bodies seriously when approaching the relationship pated in all traditions, and even those that did fostered between Iranian royal identities and the art and archae- a variety of different, often confl icting and competing ological evidence. This was at the forefront of the minds formulations of Iranian royal and religious identities. of the patrons and designers of the great Iranian pal- But the styles of kingship and court cultures they fos- aces, sacred spaces, and landscapes and gardens, from tered, including specifi c modes of feasting, hunting, Achaemenid Pasargadae to Sasanian Ayvan-e Kisra: Ira- and worshipping, and the palaces, paradises, cities, and nian sovereigns knew that meaningful places and pow- sanctuaries built for these purposes, contributed to and erful natural and architectonic spaces not only shaped laid claim to the developing aristocratic common cul- human subjectivities and behavior day to day, but had tures associated with Iranian kingship that fl ourished the potential to bring into alignment and restore to pri- during their lifetimes. Some dynasties engaged and mordial perfection the deeper realities of both the liv- adapted eastern Iranian religious, ritual, or mythical ing and the spiritual worlds.6 traditions drawn from or related to those contained in the Avesta, a compilation of the earliest Iranian reli- gious texts that served as the “holy book” of later Zoro- Conceptualizing Iran and Building astrianism, but whose texts descended from an Iranian Empires centuries-long process of oral composition and trans- As a work of cultural and religious history as much as mission. These traditions included Iranian eschatologi- art, architecture, and archaeology, this book deliber- cal or cosmological frameworks, cultic protocols and ately defi nes “Iranian” and “Iranian kingship” broadly. purity conventions, epic stories of a long line of Iranian Certain philological points of view might attend solely kings and heroes fi ghting the forces of evil, concepts of to texts produced in an Iranian language, such as Royal Fortune (e.g., Av. xᵛarǝnah-; Mid. Pers., Parth. far- Avestan, Persian, or Parthian, while conversely, fi eld rah or xwarrah; Arm. p‘ar˙k‘), and legendary sites or lands, archaeology often uses “Iran” or “Iranian” as merely including the “Iranian Expanse” (Av. Airiiana-Vaeˉjah-, geographical designators referring to sites within the Mid. Pers. Eˉra¯nweˉz).8 Other dynasties, especially in Ana- Islamic Republic of Iran or the Iranian plateau. Instead, tolia, foregrounded vaguer memories of “the lore of the in this book “Iranian” refers to a range of overlapping Persians” or Persian cultic traditions descendant from linguistic and cultural spheres that extended well Achaemenid rather than eastern Iranian traditions. All beyond the borders of the modern nation-state or geo- traced their family roots to a venerable line of Iranian graphical region. This encompasses peoples or ruling ancestors, be they scions of a historical dynasty like the aristocracies that produced religious or offi cial texts in Achaemenids or of a mythical line like the Kayanids. All an Iranian language and whose kings proudly pro- worshipped one or more Iranian gods like Ahura Mazda, claimed they were Iranian (Av. airiia-, Old Pers. ariya-, Anahita, Mithra, or Verethragna, though the deities Mid. Pers. eˉr, Bactrian ariao).7 But it also includes many might also bear the names or cultic attributes of other that did not, yet were ruled by kings who nevertheless non-Iranian deities. In certain cases, the king or exter- showcased cultic practices drawn from Iranian religious nal observers even deemed such divinities to be “gods of traditions or courtly practices intended to engage or the Iranians” or understood their worship to be specifi - appropriate ancient Persian royal traditions or compet- cally implicated in the god’s or king’s Iranian identity. ing contemporary Iranian cultures of kingship. After For example, the Elamite version of Darius I’s Bisotun Alexander, large parts of the former Achaemenid Empire inscription designates the great god Ahura Mazda as were ruled by dynasties that celebrated their Iranian “the God of the Iranians”; he is called “the Iranian Ara- family roots and connection to the Persian royal legacy, mazd” when a late antique Armenian text recounts his and cultivated certain Iranian religious practices, worship by Armenian kings; and Sasanian royal 2 CHAPTER ONE CCanepa-Theanepa-The IranianIranian Expanse.inddExpanse.indd 2 225/04/185/04/18 33:35:35 PPMM titulature incorporates “Mazda-worshipping” or even Pamirs, and the Hindu Kush, corresponding roughly to “the Mazda-worshiping Iranian” as an expected title of present-day Afghanistan and Tajikistan, southern the ruler of the “Empire of the Iranians” or his princes.9 Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and northern Pakistan Perso-Macedonian kings like Mithradates VI of Pontus with a small, but important, sliver of eastern Iran or Antiochus I of Commagene venerated gods such as centering on the Helmand River.18 The Avestan list Zeus Stratius or Zeus-Oromasdes with ritual protocols extends from this core into Western, Central, and South involving fi re cults, massive sacrifi ces, or specifi c ritual Asia, often following river valleys. With the Vaŋhuu¯ı implements, such as sacred twigs drawn into a wand (cf. Da¯itiia¯, the “Good Lawful River,” at its headwaters, the Av.
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