Record uptake of modules on Zoroastrianism
The year 2025-26 is seeing a boost in the number of students taking modules on Zoroastrianism. The front runner is Avestan, which is the language of Zoroastrian prayer and ritual. Ten students, including four undergraduates, learn about Avestan prayers in the original language, and how to understand and form sentences in Avestan. Twenty students, of which fourteen are undergraduates, have enrolled in the course on the Zoroastrian World View in Ancient and Modern Times. They learn about the origins of Zoroastrianism in the remote past, the figure of Zarathustra, Zoroastrian concepts of Good and Evil and of cosmology, and Zoroastrian religious practices.
Read More
|
|
| We’re delighted to invite you to a trio of curated tours at the SOAS Gallery. These tours offer a unique opportunity to engage closely with the exhibition Karl Singporewala: Cosmos, Memory, Scale (on until 13 Dec 2025) — guided reflections on Zoroastrian-inspired art, heritage and identity.
The sessions are: 6:00 pm on 20 November, 12:00 pm on 22 November, and 6:00 pm on 4 December) where you’ll hear from the artist about the creative decisions behind the works, the dialogues between ancient symbolism and contemporary form and the ways the exhibition invites us to think about memory, heritage and materiality. Please register and reserve your place via Eventbrite using the button below. |
|
|
| The SSPIZS Annual Report for the academic year 2024-25 is available to view on our website. It covers all of the activities of the Institute, including events, research and teaching. Find out more. |
|
 |
A Qajar dakhma (Tower of Silence) and its adjacent structures, located approximately 5 km from the town of Kerman, Iran.
© Amir Hashamdar Ravari, 2024. |
|
A Cycle of Talks entitled “The Orient’s East. Iran and Eurasia in the First Millennium CE” will be delivered by Dr Khodadad Rezakhani at the University of Lille. This short module is convened in order to discuss the history and historiography of the Eurasian world, particularly in its Central and West Asian space, in the first millennium CE. Read more here.
On Friday, 28 November at 5:30 pm, Arash Zeini of the University of Oxford will present a paper at the Ancient India and Iran Trust on “Navigating Zoroastrian Communal Identity in the Early Islamic Era”. Refreshments are from 5 pm and all are welcome. More information can be found here.
The Editorial Board of Iran and the Caucasus, in collaboration with De Gruyter Brill, is pleased to announce an international conference marking the 30th anniversary of the journal’s founding. The abstract submission deadline for the publication is 31 March 2026. Read more here.
Invisible East are hosting the lecture “Documents from Turbulent Times: Studying Middle Persian Collections from the Late Sassanian and Early Islamic Periods- Opportunities and Challenges”. The lecture will take place on Zoom on 14 January 2026. To register, follow this link.
Pembroke College and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge are organising a conference to mark the centenary of the passing of Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926). The conference is scheduled for 10-12 April 2026 in Cambridge.
The Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews will hold the Fifth Biennial Symposia Iranica Conference. This gathering of Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers working on Iran and the wider Persianate world, from the ancient period to the present, will take place on 10-12 April 2026. Further details can be found here.
A call for papers has been published for the Fifteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, which will be held at Utretch University from 5- 8 August 2026. For further details, head to the AIS website.
|
|
|
Ahreman’s Ascent and the Direction of his Primordial Aggression
by Antonio Panaino
This study analyses the problem of the trajectory taken by Ahreman during his aggression against the Good Creation. The present book discusses this and other uranographic problems in connection with the complex evolution of Zoroastrian cosmology since the Avestan period till the later phases. More here. |
|
|
The Achaemenids, the Black Sea and beyond: New Evidence and Studies
edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, with James Hargrave
The Achaemenids, the Black Sea and Beyond’, a short and well-illustrated volume, presents some of the papers due to have been presented at a small conference in Constanta in 2020 that became victim to Covid. The abstracts of some, but not all, of those who did not submit papers are included as an appendix. Read here. |
|
|
An Empire Far and Wide: The Achaemenid Dynastic Myth and Jewish Scribes in the Late Persian Period
by Mark A. Leuchter
In comparing a few major textual corpora from this period, it becomes clear that myth changed the way Jewish scribes made sense of their own ancestral traditions and developed their own distinct mythology of identity and survival in the twilight years of Achaemenid rule. Read more. |
|
|
If you would like to give a gift to the Institute via the Centres and Institutes – regular gift | SOAS service, we would be grateful for your donation. Patrons can now donate regularly or as a one-off payment. These funds will ensure the continued running of the Institute and an expansion of our activities. We remain incredibly grateful for the support of all our stakeholders, donors and community members.
The SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies was launched in June 2018 thanks to the generous donation from a Parsi benefactor, Mr Shapoor Pallonji Mistry, in the name of his father, Mr Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry.
The Institute’s Annual Report for the academic year 2024-25 is available to view on our website. It covers all of the activities fof the Institute, including events, research and teaching. Find out more.
Visit our website to find out more about the Institute |
|
|
