In this Book
- The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE
- Book
- 2018
- Published by: University of California Press
summary
The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in Persia and the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment to form and contest Iranian cultural memory, royal identity, and sacred cosmologies. Investigating over a thousand years of history, from the Achaemenid period to the arrival of Islam, The Iranian Expanse argues that Iranian identities were built and shaped not by royal discourse alone, but by strategic changes to Western Asia’s cities, sanctuaries, palaces, and landscapes. The Iranian Expanse critically examines the construction of a new Iranian royal identity and empire, which subsumed and subordinated all previous traditions, including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia. It then delves into the startling innovations that emerged after Alexander under the Seleucids, Arsacids, Kushans, Sasanians, and the Perso-Macedonian dynasties of Anatolia and the Caucasus, a previously understudied and misunderstood period. Matthew P. Canepa elucidates the many ruptures and renovations that produced a new royal culture that deeply influenced not only early Islam, but also the wider Persianate world of the Il-Khans, Safavids, Timurids, Ottomans, and Mughals.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Part One: Ordering the Earth
- pp. 19-22
- 2. Building the First Persian Empire
- pp. 23-41
- 6. Sasanian Rupture and Renovation
- pp. 122-144
- Part Two: Sacred Spaces
- pp. 145-148
- Part Three: Landscapes of Time and Memory
- pp. 205-210
- 10. Iranian Funerary Landscapes
- pp. 211-231
- 11. Dynastic Sanctuaries
- pp. 232-250
- Part Four: Palace and Paradise
- pp. 291-294
- 14. Persian Palatial Cosmologies
- pp. 295-306
- 17. Earthly Paradises
- pp. 345-374
- Bibliography
- pp. 427-476
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520964365
Related ISBN(s)
9780520290037
MARC Record
OCLC
995630478
Pages
512
Launched on MUSE
2018-11-16
Language
English
Open Access
No