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University of California Press

The Iranian Expanse

Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE

by Matthew P. Canepa (Author)
Price: $95.00 / £80.00
Publication Date: Jun 2018
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 512
ISBN: 9780520964365
Trim Size: 8.5 x 11
Illustrations: 170 b/w images, 5 b/w maps
Endowments:

About the Book

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.

About the Author

Matthew P. Canepa holds the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at the University of California, Irvine. Author of the award winning book, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran, he is an Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
 

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE

1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Iran and Building Iranian Empires

PART ONE Ordering the Earth
2 Building the First Persian Empire
3 The Destruction of Achaemenid Persia and the Creation of Seleucid Iran
4 The Rise of the Arsacids and a New Iranian Topography of Power
5 Rival Visions and New Royal Identities in Post-Achaemenid Anatolia and the Caucasus
6 Sasanian Rupture and Renovation

PART TWO Sacred Spaces
7 Persian Religion and Achaemenid Sacred Spaces
8 The Seleucid Transformation of Iranian Sacred Spaces
9 Ancient Sacred Landscapes and Memories of Persian Religion in Anatolia and the Caucasus

PART THREE Landscapes of Time and Memory
10 Iranian Funerary Landscapes
11 Dynastic Sanctuaries
12 Sasanian Memory and the Persian Monumental and Ritual Legacy
13 Reshaping Iran’s Past and Building Its Future

PART FOUR Palace and Paradise
14 Persian Palatial Cosmologies
15 The Seleucid and Arsacid Transformations of Iranian Palatial Architecture
16 The Palace of the Lord of the Sevenfold World
17 Earthly Paradises
Epilogue

NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Reviews

"A highly original study of the manner in which the succession of rulers of Iran, from the time of the Archaemenids (50-330 BCE) to that of the Sasanians (224-651 CE), manipulated collective memory through the creation of stunning monuments at important locations of their empires. . . .Canepa enables us to see the world not with Roman eyes (as is usually the case) but with Persian eyes, looking out over the Middle East from the immense plateau of Iran."
New York Review of Books
"...a highly original study of the manner in which the succession of rulers of Iran, from the time of the Archaemenids (50-330 BCE) to that of the Sasanians (224-651 CE), manipulated collective memory through the creation of stunning monuments at important locations of their empires. . . .Canepa enables us to see the world not with Roman eyes (as is usually the case) but with Persian eyes, looking out over the Middle East from the immense plateau of Iran."
New York Review of Books
"[Canepa's book] continues the investigations of recent years on the construction of identity and history, as well as on the culture of remembrance, with particular emphasis on the forms of expression in architecture and building policy."
Plekos
"A thoroughly comprehensive analysis of the long-term, crucial developments characterizing the self-representation of kingship and power ideology in pre-Islamic Iran and neighboring areas."
Iranian Studies

"In this innovative study, Matthew Canepa shows how local dynasties of the pre-Islamic Middle East articulated their claims to legitimacy through creative engagement with the material remains and ideological legacies of earlier empires. With characteristic clarity and insight, Canepa reveals how elites in Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, and the Caucasus all tapped into the visual and narrative traditions of ancient Iran to forge their own technologies of power."—Joel Walker, Lawrence J. Roseman Endowed Associate Professor of History, University of Washington, Seattle

"This book is as expansive in scope as the phenomenon it explores. Never before have landscapes of power in Persia and the wider Iranian world received such exhaustive treatment. Canepa's ambitious work will take its rightful place as a definitive text in the art, archaeology, and history of ancient Iran."—Lori Khatchadourian, author of Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires

Awards

  • James R. Wiseman Book Award 2020 2019, Archaeological Institute of America