The Iranian Expanse

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

Matthew P. Canepa

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780520290037
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520964365
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• THE IRANIAN EXPANSE
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• PREFACE
• 1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Iran and Building Iranian Empires
• PART ONE Ordering the Earth
• PART TWO Sacred Spaces
• PART THREE Landscapes of Time and Memory
• PART FOUR Palace and Paradise
• Epilogue
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX