The Sasanian Empire was one of the most important periods in ancient Iran and one that experienced flourishing of the Zoroastrian religion. As the official religion in the Sasanian to post-Sasanian period, Zoroastrianism can be understood better by studying evidence of the religion’s impact on artifacts such as glassware, coins, silver vessels, pottery, and textiles. This paper shows the importance of “Zoroastrian sacred numbers” on glass fabrication and its impact on a specific type of glassware. Based on his assumption that glassware designs reflect the beliefs of artisans, the author focuses on the number of the facets on the related glassware. To test this hypothesis, the Sasanian glassware is compared to other concomitant objects such as royal necklaces and flower petals used in the Zoroastrian Pahlavi manuscripts. This religion-inspired decorative technique continued into the Early Islamic period, during which Shiism strongly preserved the Zoroastrian legacy in glassware.

The Sasanian Empire is one of the most magnificent dynasties in ancient Iran. Numerous archaeological and artistic works as well as written manuscripts have been remained from the Sasanian period. In the meantime, oral traditions of the period and its inspiration on Islamic era cannot be denied. The Sasanian inscribed bullae are among the most important heritages of this glorious era. This article deals with a technical analysis based on “ electron probe microanalysis” to understand compounding materials of the Sasanian bullae. It also stresses on the mineralogy of the bullae’ s compounds and raise a question if their manipulation follow any standard(s) or not? Evaluating such a hypothesis, the authors have selected small sample pieces of the bullae from three well-known historical sites: Takht-e Soleyman (West Azarbaijan Province), Qasr-e Abu-Nasr (Fars Province) and Teppe Kabudan (Golestan Province). To answer to main question of the paper, EMPA technique has been selected, which is one of the most accurate tests. Initially, fixed compound elements of each bullae were discovered and then an attempt was undergone to evaluate and compare the bullae compounds of the three Sasanian sites.

By rising of the Sassanids, this empire attempted to create gradually a central government dominated by the integrity of religion and government, hence, despite of existence of an emerging religion such as Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism dominated in this government. Considering the attitude towards religious minorities during the Sassanid Empire, although there was some laxity during the reign of emperors such as Shapour the First, oppression and rigor was reported in certain periods of this dynasty which to some extent were provoked by Zoroastrian priests. On the other hand, based on the evidence from written historical references, despite of stressing on Zoroastrianism, the Sassanid emperors had some Jewish and Christian women in their seraglio. In the present study, it was assumed that most of these women were involved in the power. The main question was that who were these non-Zoroastrian women of the Sassanid court and did they play any role in the government’, s policies towards the religious minorities of their age? To do this research, the descriptive-analytical method was used. The findings indicated that the presence of powerful non-Zoroastrian queens or the ones supporting religions other than Zoroastrianism on power top led to the improvement of the religious minorities’,situations in the Sassanid community. It seemed that these queens played an important role in improvement of the situation of their coreligionists or the followers of the religions they supported through imposing on emperors and dignitaries of the state.

Middle Persian Private Inscriptions in the Sasanian and Post-Sasanian Period: Funerary and Memorial Inscriptions, Cyrus Nasrollahzadeh, Tehran, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2019, 2 vol. (vol. 1: Text. vol. 2: Picture), 340 + 272 pp, ISBN: 978-964-426-998-1; Vol 1: 978-964-426-996-7; Vol 2: 978-964-426-997-4.

Most part of subjects concerned with Sasanian history in hooks of history and literature of Iranians, have unreal and legendary aspect. Iranian sources containing Sasanian history pertain to two periods; before Islam and after Islam. Sources of before Islam about Sasanian history are very few and perhaps its cause is existence of tradition q{ knowing the subjects by heart gender by gender at those ages. Almost all of historic data about Sasanians in Iranian sources pertain to the sources of after Islam. But Iranian historians of after Islam, along with recording the historic events, also included legendary and unlogical and supernatural subjects between historic subjects, because of effect of narrative writing of Sasanian age. In books of history and literature, historic legendaries about fourteen Sasanian kings have been quoted.

The history of Zoroastrianism is not rich in terms of visual documentation and one of the reasons declared is their opposition to the iconolatry. In their view, making image is considered to be a disregard toward religious affairs, as well as an attempt to a bad creation; the result of image making would be to provide the evil forces a place to enter, hence it is considered a sin. On the one hand, Sasanian who were biased Zoroastrians have depicted the images of their sacred gods on the rock reliefs though they were stubborn opponents to standing images and sculptures. That’ s why some scholars regard them as iconoclast and believe that iconoclasm movements in Christianity and Islam are inspired by them. On the other hand, some have said that Sasanian follow aniconism movement in the creation of their god images. But according to pictorial and literary works of this era it seems that they had no imagination in imaging their gods.

Sasanian Empire in the early 7th century AD, due to long years of wars with Byzantine Empire (603-626 AD) and its later defeat, lost its military and defensive strength, and went through a political crisis. Before this time, based on numismatic studies, it was revealed that following this defeat, only some provinces of the empire minted coins in the name of the Sasanian emperors, and it shows that other provinces were out of Sasanian’s control. Furthermore, literary sources have illustrated that Arab regions of the Sasanian Empire, after Sasanian’s defeat from Byzantine were out of Sasanian’s rule. The author, in this article has showed that according to archeological and numismatic evidence, Azerbaijan province which was the scene of Sasanian-Byzantine battlefield, received the most damages, and since about 623 AD was out of Sasanian’s control. The fall of the Sasanian hegemony in the provinces, was undoubtedly an important factor in weakening of Sasanian military and financial power and consequently contributed considerably to its defeat by Arab Muslims. This factor had also a significant role in Arabs’ penetration in the provinces which were out of Sasanian rule