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Abstract

A long-standing puzzle in our knowledge of the culture surrounding the Shahnama lies in the fact that its illustrations, which became so well known, postdate the appearance of the text by nearly 300 years. There are several ways of explaining this anomaly. All contribute something to our understanding of Iranian culture, but none is entirely satisfactory. This essay suggests that a solution may lie in a better understanding of the social and ideological consequences of Mongol rule and/or in the peculiarities of urban culture at the time.

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Research Article
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Iranian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1: Millennium Of the <span class='italic'>Shahnama Of Firdausi</span> , February 2010 , pp. 91 - 96
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Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2010

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References

1 For the Mongol Shahnama, see Grabar, Oleg and Blair, Sheila, Epic Images and Contemporary History (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar; the many subsequent studies by Abolala Soudavar, Robert Hillenbrand and Sheila Blair, among many others, have been reviewed by Blair, Sheila as “Rewriting the History of the Great Mongol Shahnama,” in Shahnama, the Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings, ed. by Hillenbrand, Robert (Aldershot, 2004), 35–50.Google Scholar For the Shah Tahmasp manuscript, the basic presentation of the images and text by Dickson, Martin and Cary Welch, S., The Houghton Shahnameh, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1981)Google Scholar remains unsurpassed and there is, to my knowledge, no new systematic study of these illustrations. For general introductions to almost any aspect of Shahnama's illustrations, one must look at several other contributions in the volume edited by Hillenbrand, which contains, among other things, a very complete bibliographical and methodological introduction prepared by M. Shreve Simpson, “Shahnama as Text and Shahnama as Image: A Brief Overview of Recent Studies, 1975–2000,” 9–23.

2 Both texts of the epic found on objects and illustrations of epics have led to complex arguments, which have not yet been resolved. See Shukurov, Sharif, “Shah-name” Firdousi i rannyaya illustrativnaya traditsiya (Moscow, 1983).Google Scholar

3 See especially, Soudavar, Abolola, “The Saga of Abu-Sa‘id Bahādor Khān. The Abu-Sa‘idnāmé,” in The Court of the Il-khans, 1290–1340. Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, XII, ed. by Raby, Julian and Fitzherbert, Teresa (Oxford, 1996), 98–215.Google Scholar

4 This is one of the many original points made by Sharif Shukurov in his “Shah-name” Firdousi, for instance pp. 109 and ff.

5 Gorgani, Fakhraddin, Vis and Ramin, trans. by Davis, Dick (Washington, 2007)Google Scholar, a fascinating poem long and unexpectedly unrecognized in writing on Persian art. We may note, however, a modern illustrated Russian translation (Petrozavodsk, 1996) which concentrates on the erotic aspects of the story.

6 The question is also discussed by Gray, Basil, “Shāhnāma Illustration from Firdausī to the Mongol Invasions,” in The Art of the Saljūqs in Iran and Anatolia, ed. by Hillenbrand, Robert (Costa Mesa, 1994), 96–102.Google Scholar

7 Marshak, Boris, Legends, Tales, and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana (New York, 2002)Google Scholar and his chapter in Sims, Eleanor, Peerless Images, Persian Painting and its Sources (London, 2002), 7–19.Google Scholar

8 Gulasci, Zsuzsana, Medieval Manichean Book Art (Leiden, 2005).Google Scholar

9 Rice, D. S., “The Oldest Arabic Manuscript,” Bull. School of Oriental & African Studies, 22 (1959): 207–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grabar, O., “Notes on the Iconography of the ‘Demotte’ Shāh-nāma,” in Paintings from Islamic Lands, ed. by Pinder-Wilson, R. (Oxford, 1969), 32–47Google Scholar, reprinted in Grabar, O., Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, vol. II (Ashgate, 2004).Google Scholar

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12 Simpson, M. S., The Illustration of an Epic: the Earliest Shahnama Manuscripts (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; idem, “A Reconstruction and Preliminary Account of the 1341 Shahnama, with Some Further Thoughts on Early Shahnama Illustration,” in Persian Painting from the Mongols to the Qajars. Studies in Honour of Basil W. Robinson, ed. by Hillenbrand, R. (London, 2000), 217–247.Google Scholar

13 See especially Hillenbrand, R., “The Iskandar Cycle in the Great Mongol Shahnameh,” in The Problematics of Power: Eastern and Western Representations of Alexander the Great, ed. by Bridges, M. and Bürgel, J. C. (Bern, 1996), 203–209.Google Scholar

14 Among others who have pursued this line of argument, see various articles by Melikian-Chirvani, A. S., notably “Conscience du passé et résistence culturelle dans l'Iran Mongol,” in L'Iran face à la domination mongole, ed. by Aigle, Denise (Tehran and Paris, 1997), 135–177Google Scholar; Melville, C., “The Mongols in Iran,” in The Legacy of Genghis Khan. Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353, ed. by Komaroff, Linda and Carboni, Stefano (New York, 2002), 37–61 (esp. 54–55).Google Scholar