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120-567: The exact time of the structure's construction is not known with certainty. Some historians believe it was constructed under Shapur I who ruled Sassanian Persia from 242 to 272 AD and some other believe that construction possibly began during the reign of Anushiruwan the Just (Khosrow I) after a campaign against the Byzantines in 540 AD. The arched iwan hall, open on the facade side, was about 37 meters high, 26 meters across and 50 meters long,

240-644: A Zeiss camera of the Arch of Ctesiphon in Iraq which was subsequently auctioned by the Dahl family to raise funds for the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre . The photo made £6,000. In his autobiography Boy he writes: The monument was in the process of being rebuilt by Saddam Hussein 's government in the course of the 1980s, when the fallen northern wing was partially rebuilt. All works, however, stopped after

360-473: A dyke near Shushtar , called "Caesar's dyke". The victory over Valerian is presented in a mural at Naqsh-e Rustam , where Shapur is represented on horseback wearing royal armour and a crown. Before him kneels a man in Roman dress, asking for grace. The same scene is repeated in other rock-face inscriptions. Christian tradition has Shapur I humiliating Valerian, infamous for his persecution of Christians , by

480-492: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of

600-665: A city that was, for nine centuries—from the 2nd century BC to the 7th century AD — the main capital of the successor dynasties of the Persian empire: Parthians and Sassanids . The structure left today was the main portico of the audience hall of the Sassanids who maintained the same site chosen by the Parthians and for the same reason, namely proximity to the Roman Empire , whose expansionist aims could be better contained at

720-573: A council amongst the magnates. The Eastern provinces of the fledgling Sasanian Empire bordered on the land of the Kushans and the land of the Sakas (roughly today's Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan). The military operations of Shapur's father Ardashir I had led to the local Kushan and Saka kings offering tribute, and satisfied by this show of submission, Ardashir seems to have refrained from occupying their territories. Al-Tabari alleges he rebuilt

840-547: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use

960-474: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include

1080-942: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with

1200-569: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress

1320-591: A marriage between Ardashir and an Arsacid princess or perhaps merely a noble lady connected with the Parthian aristocracy." On his inscriptions, Shapur identifies his mother as a certain Murrod . Shapur I was a son of Ardashir I and his wife Murrod or Denag . The background of the family is obscure; although based in Pars (also known as Persis ), they were not native to the area, and were seemingly originally from

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1440-501: A remote place, Bishapur in Khuzistan , where they were settled as a garrison and built a weir with bridge for Shapur. However, the Persian forces were later defeated by the Roman officer Balista and the lord of Palmyra Septimius Odaenathus , who captured the royal harem. Shapur plundered the eastern borders of Syria and returned to Ctesiphon, probably in late 260. In 264 Septimius Odaenathus reached Ctesiphon, but failed to take

1560-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with

1680-458: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing

1800-472: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on

1920-467: A third-century Roman army. Middle Persian language Middle Persian , also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script : 𐭯𐭠𐭫𐭮𐭩𐭪 , Manichaean script : 𐫛𐫀𐫡𐫘𐫏𐫐 ‎ , Avestan script : 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬯𐬍𐬐 ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire . For some time after

2040-553: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in

2160-730: A town named Pushang in Khorasan . In all records Shapur calls himself mzdysn ("Mazda-worshipping"). His inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht recounts his wars and religious establishments to the same extent. He believed that he had a responsibility; "For the reason, therefore, that the gods have so made us their instrument (dstkrt), and that by the help of the gods we have sought out for ourselves, and hold, all these nations (štry) for that reason we have also founded, province by province, many Varahrān fires (ʾtwry wlhlʾn), and we have dealt piously with many Magi (mowmard), and we have made great worship of

2280-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in

2400-513: Is also attested under Shapur, who made use of them to demolish the city of Hatra . He may also have used them against Valerian, as attested in the Shahnameh ( The Book of Kings ). Shapur I left other reliefs and rock inscriptions. A relief at Naqsh-e Rajab near Estakhr is accompanied by a Greek translation. Here Shapur I calls himself "the Mazdayasnan (worshipper of Ahuramazda ),

2520-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in

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2640-580: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from

2760-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process

2880-468: Is repeated in Iranian historiography. According to 5th-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus , the Median king Astyages wanted to have his grandson Cyrus killed because he believed that he would one day overthrow him. A similar narrative is also found in the story of the mythological Iranian king Kay Khosrow . According to the modern historian Bonner, the story of Shapur's birth and uprising "may conceal

3000-725: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas

3120-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/

3240-749: The Babylonian Amoraim , the Talmudic sages from among the important Jewish communities of Mesopotamia . Shapur's campaigns deprived the Roman Empire of resources while restoring and substantially enriching his own treasury, by deporting many Romans from conquered cities to Sasanian provinces like Khuzestan , Asuristan , and Pars . This influx of deported artisans and skilled workers revitalised Iran's domestic commerce. In Bishapur , Shapur died of an illness. His death came in May 270 and he

3360-559: The Bazrangid ruler of Persis, Gochihr , taking Istakhr for himself. Around 208 Vologases VI succeeded his father Vologases V as king of the Arsacid Empire. He ruled as the uncontested king from 208 to 213, but afterwards fell into a dynastic struggle with his brother Artabanus IV , who by 216 was in control of most of the empire, even being acknowledged as the supreme ruler by the Roman Empire. Artabanus IV soon clashed with

3480-556: The King of Kings using the Emperor as a footstool to mount his horse, and they claim he later died a miserable death in captivity at the hands of the enemy. However, just as with the above-mentioned Gilaks deported to the East by Shapur, the Persian treatment of prisoners of war was unpleasant but honourable, drafting the captured Romans and their Emperor into their army and deporting them to

3600-672: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were

3720-653: The fratarakas , the Kings of Persis used the title of shah ("king"), and laid foundations to a new dynasty, which may be labelled the Darayanids. Under Vologases V ( r.  191–208 ), the Parthian Empire was in decline, due to wars with the Romans , civil wars and regional revolts. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus ( r.  193–211 ) had invaded the Parthian domains in 196, and two years later did

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3840-658: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about

3960-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in

4080-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature

4200-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after

4320-574: The 1991 Persian Gulf War . From 2004 to 2008 the Iraqi government cooperated with the University of Chicago 's Diyala Project to restore the site at a cost of $ 100,000. The Ministry of Culture also invited a Czech company, Avers, to restore the site. This restoration was completed in 2017. On March 7, 2019, a partial collapse further damaged the Taq Kasra, just two years after its latest restoration

4440-735: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use

4560-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,

4680-488: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to

4800-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation

4920-498: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of

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5040-572: The East and annexed most of the land of the Kushans, and appointing his son Narseh as Sakanshah—king of the Sakas—in Sistan . In 242 CE, Shapur conquered khwarezm . Shapur could now proudly proclaim that his empire stretched all the way to Peshawar, and his relief in Rag-i-Bibi in present-day Afghanistan confirms this claim. Shapur I claims in his Naqsh-e Rostam inscription possession of

5160-844: The Eastern territories with POW's from his previous campaign against the Medes of the Mountains. Agathias claims Bahram II (274–293 CE) later campaigned in the land of the Sakas and appointed his brother Hormizd as its king. When Hormizd revolted, the Panegyrici Latini list his forces as the Sacci (Sakas), the Rufii (Cusii/Kushans) and the Geli (Gelans / Gilaks , the inhabitants of Gilan ). Since

5280-572: The Gilaks are obviously out of place among these easterners, and as we know that Shapur I had to fight the Medes of the Mountains first before marching to the land of the Kushans, it is conceivable those Gilaks were the descendants of warriors captured during Shapur I's North-western campaign, forcibly drafted into the Sasanian army, and settled as a hereditary garrison in Merv , Nishapur , or Zrang after

5400-466: The Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language was Parthian , i.e.

5520-483: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and

5640-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between

5760-529: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation

5880-456: The Persians of 500,000 gold denarii. Philip immediately issued coins proclaiming that he had made peace with the Persians ( pax fundata cum Persis ). However, Philip later broke the treaty and seized lost territory. Shapur I commemorated this victory on several rock reliefs in Pars . Shapur I invaded Mesopotamia in 250 but again, serious trouble arose in Khorasan and Shapur I had to march over there and settle its affair. Having settled

6000-539: The Roman emperor Caracalla , whose forces he managed to contain at Nisibis in 217. Peace was made between the two empires the following year, with the Arsacids keeping most of Mesopotamia . However, Artabanus IV still had to deal with his brother Vologases VI, who continued to mint coins and challenge him. The Sasanian family had meanwhile quickly risen to prominence in Pars, and had now under Ardashir begun to conquer

6120-462: The Sasanian collapse, Middle Persian continued to function as a prestige language . It descended from Old Persian , the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian , the official language of Iran (also known as Persia) , Afghanistan ( Dari ) and Tajikistan ( Tajik ). "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of

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6240-483: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which

6360-643: The Sasanians with "a huge army and great quantity of gold," (according to a Sasanian rock relief) and wintered in Antioch , while Shapur was occupied with subduing Gilan , Khorasan , and Sistan . There the Roman general Timesitheus fought against the Sasanians and won repeated battles, and recaptured Carrhae and Nisibis, and at last routed a Sasanian army at Resaena, forcing the Persians to restore all occupied cities unharmed to their citizens. "We have penetrated as far as Nisibis, and shall even get to Ctesiphon ,"

6480-529: The affair in Khorasan he resumed the invasion of Roman territories, and later annihilated a Roman force of 60,000 at the Battle of Barbalissos . He then burned and ravaged the Roman province of Syria and all its dependencies. Shapur I then reconquered Armenia , and incited Anak the Parthian to murder the king of Armenia, Khosrov II . Anak did as Shapur asked, and had Khosrov murdered in 258; yet Anak himself

6600-608: The ancient Persian title of frataraka ("leader, governor, forerunner"), which is also attested in the Achaemenid-era. Later under the frataraka Wadfradad II (fl. 138 BCE) was made a vassal of the Iranian Parthian (Arsacid) Empire . The frataraka were shortly afterwards replaced by the Kings of Persis , most likely at the accession of the Arsacid monarch Phraates II ( r.  132–127 BCE ). Unlike

6720-584: The ancient city of Zrang in Sakastan (the land of the Sakas , Sistan ), but the only early Sasanian period founding of a new settlement in the East which is certain is the building by Shapur I of Nishapur —"Beautiful (city built) by Shapur"—in Dihistan (former Parthia , apparently lost by the Parthians to the Kushans ). Soon after the death of his father in 241 CE, Shapur felt the need to cut short

6840-626: The battle or murdered by the Romans after the defeat. The Romans then chose Philip the Arab as Emperor. Philip was not willing to repeat the mistakes of previous claimants, and was aware that he had to return to Rome to secure his position with the Senate. Philip concluded a peace with Shapur I in 244; he had agreed that Armenia lay within Persia's sphere of influence. He also had to pay an enormous indemnity to

6960-598: The campaign they had started in Roman Syria, and reassert Sasanian authority in the East, perhaps because the Kushan and Saka kings were lax in abiding to their tributary status. However, he first had to fight "The Medes of the Mountains"—as we will see possibly in the mountain range of Gilan on the Caspian coast—and after subjugating them, he appointed his son Bahram (the later Bahram I ) as their king. He then marched to

7080-403: The city. The Colossal Statue of Shapur I , which stands in the Shapur Cave, is one of the most impressive sculptures of the Sasanian Empire . Shapur is mentioned many times in the Talmud , in which he is referred to in Jewish Aramaic as Shabur Malka (שבור מלכא), meaning "King Shapur". He had good relations with the Jewish community and was a friend of Shmuel , one of the most famous of

7200-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/

7320-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that

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7440-402: The conclusion of Shapur's north-eastern campaign, the usual Sasanian practise with prisoners of war. Ardashir I had, towards the end of his reign, renewed the war against the Roman Empire , and Shapur I had conquered the Mesopotamian fortresses Nisibis and Carrhae and had advanced into Syria . In 242, the Romans under the father-in-law of their child-emperor Gordian III set out against

7560-491: The daughter of the Parthian king Artabanus IV , Zijanak, attempted to poison her husband Ardashir. Discovering her intentions, Ardashir ordered her to be executed. Finding out about her pregnancy, the mobads (priests) were against it. Nevertheless, Ardashir still demanded her execution, which led the mobads to conceal her and her son Shapur for seven years, until the latter was identified by Ardashir, who chooses to adopt him based on his virtuous traits. This type of narrative

7680-401: The death of the latter in 242. During his co-regency, he helped his father with the conquest and destruction of the city of Hatra , whose fall was facilitated, according to Islamic tradition, by the actions of his future wife al-Nadirah . Shapur also consolidated and expanded the empire of Ardashir I, waged war against the Roman Empire , and seized its cities of Nisibis and Carrhae while he

7800-487: The divine Shapur, King of Kings of the Iranians , and non-Iranians, of divine descent, son of the Mazdayasnan, the divine Ardashir , King of Kings of the Aryans, grandson of the divine king Papak ". Another long inscription at Estakhr mentions the King's exploits in archery in the presence of his nobles. From his titles we learn that Shapur I claimed sovereignty over the whole earth, although in reality his domain extended little farther than that of Ardashir I. Shapur I built

7920-422: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it

8040-404: The east. The historian Marek Jan Olbrycht has suggested that the family was descended from the Indo-Parthians of Sakastan . Iranologist Khodadad Rezakhani also noted similarities between the early Sasanians and the Indo-Parthians, such as their coinage. Yet, he stated that "evidence might still be too inconclusive." Pars, a region in the southwestern Iranian plateau , was the homeland of

8160-408: The end of the Arsacid era and the start of 427 years of Sasanian rule. The chief secretary of the deceased Arsacid king, Dad-windad , was afterwards executed by Ardashir I. Ardashir celebrated his victory by having two rock reliefs sculptured at the Sasanian royal city of Ardashir-Khwarrah (present-day Firuzabad ) in Pars . The first relief portrays three scenes of personal fighting; starting from

8280-406: The end of the Parthian Empire. Yet, the military was essentially the same as that of the Parthians; the same Parthians nobles who served the Arsacid royal family, now served the Sasanians, forming the majority of the Sasanian army. However, the Sasanians seem to have employed more cataphracts who were equipped with lighter chain-mail armour resembling that of the Romans. Although Iranian society

8400-448: The faith from Greek and Indian sources, and conducted an extensive program of rebuilding and refounding of cities. "Shapur" was a popular name in Sasanian Iran , being used by three Sasanian monarchs and other notables of the Sasanian era and its later periods. Derived from Old Iranian *xšayaθiya.puθra ("son of a king"), it must initially have been a title, which became—at least in the late 2nd century CE—a personal name. It appears in

8520-499: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in

8640-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,

8760-558: The gods." According to the Zoroastrian priest Kartir , Shapur treated the Zoroastrians generously, and permitted members of their clergy to follow him on his expeditions against the Romans. According to the historian Prods Oktor Skjærvø , Shapur was a "lukewarm Zoroastrian". During the reign of Shapur, Manichaeism , a new religion founded by the Iranian prophet Mani , flourished. Mani was treated well by Shapur, and in 242,

8880-557: The great town Gundishapur near the old Achaemenid capital Susa , and increased the fertility of the district with a dam and irrigation system—built by Roman prisoners—that redirected part of the Karun River . The barrier is still called Band-e Kaisar , "the mole of the Caesar". He is also responsible for building the city of Bishapur , with the labours of Roman soldiers captured after the defeat of Valerian in 260. Shapur also built

9000-436: The history and architecture of Taq Kasra with many scholars and archaeologists in various countries. Shapur I Shapur I (also spelled Shabuhr I ; Middle Persian : 𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩 , romanized:  Šābuhr ) was the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran . The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent until

9120-513: The incorporation of new territory into the empire, however what was precisely seen as "non-Iran(ian)" ( aneran ) is not certain. Although this new title was used on his inscriptions, it was almost never used on his coinage . The title first became regularised under Hormizd I. Shapur appears in Harry Sidebottom 's historical fiction novel series as one of the enemies of the series protagonist Marcus Clodius Ballista, career soldier in

9240-488: The language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of the Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig

9360-419: The largest man-made, free standing vault constructed until modern times. The arch was part of the imperial palace complex. The throne room —presumably under or behind the arch—was more than 30 m (110 ft) high and covered an area 24 m (80 ft) wide by 48 m (160 ft) long. The top of the arch is about 1 meter thick while the walls at the base are up to 7 meters thick. The catenary arch

9480-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from

9600-631: The left, a Persian aristocrat seizing a Parthian soldier; Shapur impaling the Parthian minister Dad-windad with his lance; and Ardashir I ousting Artabanus IV. The second relief, conceivably intended to portray the aftermath of the battle, displays the triumphant Ardashir I being given the badge of kingship over a fire shrine from the Zoroastrian supreme god Ahura Mazda , while Shapur and two other princes are watching from behind. Ardashir considered Shapur "the gentlest, wisest, bravest and ablest of all his children", and nominated him as his successor in

9720-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;

9840-457: The list of Arsacid kings in some Arabic-Persian sources; however, this is anachronistic . Shapur is transliterated in other languages as; Greek Sapur , Sabour and Sapuris ; Latin Sapores and Sapor ; Arabic Sābur and Šābur ; New Persian Šāpur , Šāhpur , Šahfur . According to the semi-legendary Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , a Middle Persian biography of Ardashir I ,

9960-434: The neighbouring regions and more far territories, such as Kirman . At first, Ardashir I's activities did not alarm Artabanus IV, until later, when the Arsacid king finally chose to confront him. Shapur, as portrayed in the Sasanian rock reliefs , took part in his father's war with the Arsacids, including the Battle of Hormozdgan . The battle was fought on 28 April 224, with Artabanus IV being defeated and killed, marking

10080-479: The newly reconstructed city of Gundeshapur , later famous as a center of scholarship. In the 260s, subordinates of Shapur suffered setbacks against Odaenathus , the king of Palmyra . According to Shapur's inscription at Hajiabad, he still remained active at the court in his later years, participating in archery . He died of illness in Bishapur , most likely in May 270. Shapur was the first Iranian monarch to use

10200-498: The nobility included the powerful Parthian noble families (known as the wuzurgan ) that were centred on the Iranian plateau . They served as the backbone of the Sasanian feudal army and were largely autonomous. The Parthian nobility worked for the Sasanian shah for personal benefit, personal oath, and, conceivably, a common awareness of the "Aryan" (Iranian) kinship they shared with their Persian overlords. Use of war elephants

10320-496: The offspring of the officials who served Shapur's father. During the reign of Shapur, a certain Papak served as the commander of the royal guard ( hazarbed ), while Peroz served as the chief of the cavalry ( aspbed ); Vahunam and Shapur served as the director of the clergy; Kirdisro served as viceroy of the empire ( bidaxsh ); Vardbad served as the "chief of services"; Hormizd served as the chief scribe; Naduk served as "the chief of

10440-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even

10560-536: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that

10680-588: The point of contact. The structure was captured by the Arabs during the conquest of Persia in 637. They then used it as a mosque for a while until the area was gradually abandoned. In the early 10th century, the Abbasid caliph al-Muktafi dug up the ruins of the palace to reuse its bricks in the construction of the Taj Palace in Baghdad . The monument is also the subject of a poem by Khaqani , who visited

10800-465: The political turmoil within the Roman Empire by undertaking a second expedition against it in 252/3–256, sacking the cities of Antioch and Dura-Europos . In 260, during his third campaign, he defeated and captured the Roman emperor, Valerian . He did not seem interested in permanently occupying the Roman provinces, choosing instead to resort to plundering and pillaging, gaining vast amounts of riches. The captives of Antioch, for example, were allocated to

10920-479: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of

11040-492: The prison"; Papak served as the "gate keeper"; Mihrkhwast served as the treasurer; Shapur served as the commander of the army; Arshtat Mihran served as the secretary; Zik served as the "master of ceremonies". Under Shapur, the Iranian military experienced a resurgence after a rather long decline in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which gave the Romans the opportunity to undertake expeditions into the Near East and Mesopotamia during

11160-525: The prophet joined the Sasanian court, where he tried to convert Shapur by dedicating his only work written in Middle Persian , known as the Shabuhragan . Shapur, however, did not convert to Manichaeism and remained a Zoroastrian. While the titulage of Ardashir was "King of Kings of Iran(ians)", Shapur slightly changed it, adding the phrase "and non-Iran(ians)". The extended title demonstrates

11280-431: The province of Syria to Roman control. The speedy retreat of Shapur's troops caused Valerian to pursue the Persians to Edessa , but they were defeated , and Valerian, along with the Roman army that was left, was captured by Shapur Shapur then advanced into Asia Minor and managed to capture Caesarea , deporting hundred upon thousands of Roman citizens to the Sasanian empire. He used these captive Roman citizens to build

11400-462: The ruins in the 12th century. In 1851, French artist Eugène Flandin visited and studied the structure with Pascal Coste who remarked "the Romans had nothing similar or of the type." In 1888, a serious flood demolished the greater part of the edifice. In 1940, the British writer Roald Dahl , then undergoing pilot training at RAF Habbaniya near Baghdad took an award-winning photograph using

11520-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect

11640-466: The same, this time sacking the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon. At the same time, revolts occurred in Media and Persis. The Iranologist Touraj Daryaee argues that the reign of Vologases V was "the turning point in Parthian history, in that the dynasty lost much of its prestige." The kings of Persis were now unable to depend on their weakened Parthian overlords. Indeed, in 205/6, Pabag rebelled and overthrew

11760-702: The southwestern branch of the Iranian peoples , the Persians. It was also the birthplace of the first Iranian Empire, the Achaemenids . The region served as the centre of the empire until its conquest by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great ( r.  336–323 BCE ). Since the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, Pars was ruled by local dynasts subject to the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire . These dynasts held

11880-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,

12000-471: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in

12120-714: The territory of the Kushans (Kūšān šahr) as far as "Purushapura" ( Peshawar ), suggesting he controlled Bactria and areas as far as the Hindu-Kush or even south of it: I, the Mazda-worshipping lord, Shapur, king of kings of Iran and An-Iran… (I) am the Master of the Domain of Iran (Ērānšahr) and possess the territory of Persis, Parthian… Hindestan, the Domain of the Kushan up to the limits of Paškabur and up to Kash, Sughd, and Chachestan. He seems to have garrisoned

12240-416: The title of "King of Kings of Iranians and non-Iranians"; beforehand the royal titulary had been "King of Kings of Iranians". He had adopted the title due to the influx of Roman citizens whom he had deported during his campaigns. However, it was first under his son and successor Hormizd I , that the title became regularised. Shapur had new Zoroastrian fire temples constructed, incorporated new elements into

12360-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'

12480-635: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy

12600-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it

12720-402: The young emperor Gordian III , who had joined his father-in-law Timesitheus, exultantly wrote to the Senate. The Romans later invaded eastern Mesopotamia but faced tough resistance from Shapur I who returned from the East. Timesitheus died under uncertain circumstances and was succeeded by Philip the Arab . The young emperor Gordian III went to the Battle of Misiche and was either killed in

12840-697: Was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in

12960-529: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In

13080-417: Was advancing as far as Roman Syria . Although he was defeated at the Battle of Resaena in 243 by Roman emperor Gordian III ( r.  238–244 ), he was the following year able to win the Battle of Misiche and force the new Roman emperor Philip the Arab ( r.  244–249 ) to sign a favorable peace treaty that was regarded by the Romans as "a most shameful treaty". Shapur later took advantage of

13200-413: Was built without centring . In order to make this possible a number of techniques were used. The bricks were laid about 18 degrees from the vertical which allowed them to be partially supported by the rear wall during construction. The quick drying cement used as mortar allowed the fresh bricks to be quickly supported by those that were previously laid. The Taq Kasra is now all that remains above ground of

13320-590: Was completed. In January 2021, Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage Ali Asghar Mounesan mentioned that a credit of about $ 600,000 would be required for the restoration of Taq Kasra. In 2017, Pejman Akbarzadeh , based in the Netherlands, made the first full-length documentary film about Taq Kasra: Taq Kasra: Wonder of Architecture . The monument had been in danger of ISIS attacks in 2015–2016; Akbarzadeh feared that it might be destroyed soon, and therefore felt urgency to film his documentary. The film explores

13440-489: Was greatly militarised and its elite designated themselves as a "warrior nobility" ( arteshtaran ), it still had a significantly smaller population, was more impoverished, and was a less centralised state compared to the Roman Empire. As a result, the Sasanian shahs had access to fewer full-time fighters, and depended on recruits from the nobility instead. Some exceptions were the royal cavalry bodyguard, garrison soldiers, and units recruited from places outside Iran. The bulk of

13560-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:

13680-457: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of

13800-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as

13920-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for

14040-607: Was shortly thereafter murdered by Armenian nobles. Shapur then appointed his son Hormizd I as the "Great King of Armenia". With Armenia subjugated, Georgia submitted to the Sasanian Empire and fell under the supervision of a Sasanian official. With Georgia and Armenia under control, the Sasanians' borders on the north were thus secured. During Shapur's invasion of Syria he captured important Roman cities like Antioch . The Emperor Valerian (253–260) marched against him and by 257 Valerian had recovered Antioch and returned

14160-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;

14280-1127: Was succeeded by his son, Hormizd I . Two of his other sons, Bahram I and Narseh , would also become kings of the Sasanian Empire, while another son, Shapur Meshanshah , who died before Shapur, sired children who would hold exalted positions within the empire. Under Shapur, the Sasanian court, including its territories, were much larger than that of his father. Several governors and vassal-kings are mentioned in his inscriptions; Ardashir, governor of Qom ; Varzin, governor of Spahan ; Tiyanik, governor of Hamadan ; Ardashir, governor of Neriz; Narseh, governor of Rind; Friyek, governor of Gundishapur ; Rastak, governor of Veh-Ardashir ; Amazasp III , king of Iberia . Under Shapur several of his relatives and sons served as governor of Sasanian provinces; Bahram , governor of Gilan ; Narseh , governor of Sindh , Sakastan and Turan ; Ardashir, governor of Kirman ; Hormizd-Ardashir , governor of Armenia ; Shapur Meshanshah , governor of Meshan ; Ardashir, governor of Adiabene . Several names of Shapur's officials are carved on his inscription at Naqsh-e Rustam . Many of these were

14400-502: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect

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