مطالب

The archaeological excavation of ancient Elam has led to the recovery of remnants, showing the rise and fall of a Persian civilization as well as reflecting how music and instruments (musicianship) were popular in those eras. Such archeological findings have mostly been portrayed on rock and pottery. A series of pictograms have depicted musical instruments while the majority of depicted string instruments are harps and tanburs. Wrapped in the Elamite culture, these instruments were passed on to the next civilizations, experiencing transformation over time. This descriptive-analytical research attempts to explore the string instruments in ancient Elam, thereby to review the historical roots of Iranian string instruments. The paper first provides an overview of music in ancient Elam. Then, several pictograms depicting string instruments are examined to determine their diversity and significance. The results indicate that harp and tanbur were the most frequent and diverse string instruments depicted in the paintings of ancient Elam.

Sun deities had sometimes the function of judgment during antiquity. Mesopotamian Šamaš and Urartian Šiwini are of similar examples. Their function as the Judge Deity was more significant than the sun function. Šamaš was the great sun in mythological texts but the judge in royal inscriptions. Šiwini is mentiond in ending and cursing formula of the royal inscriptions to punish the destructor and the enemy. He sometims accompanied two other significant deities in Urartian Pantheon, Ḫaldi and Teišeba. Šiwini had been exhibited and pictured as the winged disc or a horse which are both symbols of Šamaš as well. Accordingly, the similarities between Šamaš and Šiwini are doubtless. Simultaneously, they have differences as the way they are mentiond in inscriptions and Šiwini’s third place in Urartian pantheon. It is the aim of the author to compare these two deities through reviewing the texts they are mentioned in to demonstrate the absolute effect of Šamaš over Šiwini and to refuse the exact imitation of Šiwini from Šamaš.

Defensive fortifications in different regions of Iran have been an effective factor in the survival ‎of residential centers and commercial routes. An investigation on defensive structures will ‎provide useful information on this kind of architecture. The study of remains of castles in the ‎Rey region has provided an important context for archaeological research. In the present ‎study, the Seljuk fortifications (Rashkān fortress, Gabri and Kāsni Castles) are introduced and ‎recognized as inner city castles. It aims at identifying and studying the Seljuk fortifications of ‎Rey, identifying the function of inner city fortifications, and comparing them with other samples ‎in neighboring regions in terms of characteristics. The data were gathered through field and ‎documentary studies while an analytical-historical method was applied in the course of the ‎research. Important questions intended to be addressed were: 1. what has been the role of ‎Seljuk fortifications of Rey in security provision of the region? 2. In which categories can the ‎Seljuk fortifications of Rey be classified in terms of structural characteristics and architectural ‎classification? Among the Seljuk fortifications of Rey, Kohandez (e.g. Rashkān Fortress) had ‎functioned as the political headquarters, and in other inner city castles, larger circular towers ‎have been usually located in four angles and interspersed with subsidiary towers. These types of ‎defensive architecture indicate the progress in the urban construction and security provision. ‎

According to the cognitive theory of metaphor, conceptual metaphors are an integral part ‎of the human mind so that we can see these metaphors in all aspects of human thoughts and ‎actions. A part of these metaphors is shaped based on up/down spatial orientations. Based ‎on these metaphors, spatial orientations play a significant role in human understanding of ‎many abstract concepts. These orientational metaphors are visible in ordinary and natural ‎languages, as well as in specialized and scientific texts. It is shown in this paper that a part ‎of these up-down orientational metaphors have also been used in Mullā Ṣadrā's philosophy: ‎the “Having Control or Force Is Up, Being Subject to Control or Force Is Down” metaphor ‎has been used to understand the causal relationship. The “Good Is Up and Bad Is Down” ‎metaphor makes understandable that the source of good attributes is in transcendent and ‎higher world and the source of bad attributes is in material and lowest world. The “More ‎Perfect Is Up and Less Perfect Is Down” metaphor has been used to understand the ‎gradational hierarchy of the beings.‎