Artistic Efflorescence
Mon, 05/17/2010 - 17:01 — grace.norman@gm...
description:
<p>Some of the world's most famous and beloved stories describe a mighty empire that was the crossroads of the medieval world. Despite fantastical characters, the way the Sasanian Empire brought cultures together was not a work of fiction.</p>
Era:
Age of Empire
Theme:
Traces & Narratives
Year:
350
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
Asset Type:
Trend
Caption:
Sasanians in China
More Information:
<p>Amir85. "ArdashirII." Digital image. Wikipedia. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArdashirII_.jpg. "Belt-Fitting, Late Sasanian." Digital image. The British Museum. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://tinyurl.com/26cy5a2. © The Trustees of the British Museum</p>
<p>"Bishapur (Iran) Sassanid Period." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bishapur_%28Iran%29_Sassanid_Period.JPG.</p>
<p>Classical Numismatic Group. "Coin of Shapur 1, Sasanian King." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shapuri.jpg.</p>
<p>Doré, Gustave. "Sinbad the Sailor (5th Voyage)." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sinbad_the_Sailor_%285th_Voyage%29.jpg.</p>
<p>Dynamosquito. "Graffiti." Digital image. Dynamosquito's Flickr Photostream. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamosquito/2554981839/.<br />
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en</p>
<p>Dynamosquito. "Sasanian Plate." Digital image. Dynamosquito's Flickr Photostream. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamosquito/4496695466/. Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en</p>
<p>"Fitting, Early Sasanian." Digital image. The British Museum. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://tinyurl.com/2bhztoy. © The Trustees of the British Museum</p>
<p>"Fresco from Qizil." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QizilDonors.jpg.</p>
<p>Mahwash. "Gar Konad Saheb-E-Man (If My Eyes Meet The Ones Of The Lord)." In <i>Radio Kaboul</i>. Accords Croisés, 2003, CD.</p>
<p>Murray, John. "The Thousand and One Nights, 1859." Google Books. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://books.google.com/books?id=b6dhAAAAMAAJ&dq=one thousand and one nights&pg=PA1#v=thumbnail&q&f=true.</p>
<p>Parish, Maxfield. "Ali Baba." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ali-Baba.jpg.</p>
<p>Shahbazi, Shapur. "Sassanian Dynasty." In Encyclopedia Iranica, 149-51. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.</p>
<p>"Textile Fragment: Walking Ram with a Neckband and Fluttering Ribbons, Sasanian." Digital image. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Works of Art, Near Eastern Art. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://tinyurl.com/2ek6znj.</p>
<p>"Textile0001." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Textile0001.jpg.</p>
<p>Unknown. "Two Pages from the Galland Manuscript, the Oldest Text of The Thousand and One Nights." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabian_nights_manuscript.jpg.</p>
<p>Walt Disney Pictures. "Aladin." Digital image. 1992. Accessed October 10, 2010.</p>
<p>"Woven Silk, Bukhara, 800-1000 CE." Digital image. Victoria and Albert Museum. Accessed August 21, 2010. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85316/woven-silk/.</p>
<hr />
<p>Producer: Grace Norman</p>
Video Transcript:
<p>Aladdin, Alibaba and the Forty Thiefs, and Sinbad the Sailor were all connected—in literary fiction—to the Sasanian King Shahryār.<br />
There were many versions of this tale, but they all told the story of the King’s great distrust of women.</p>
<p>Every night he took a new wife only to murder her in the morning. Then, he married Šahrzād, a Persian queen. That night, the Queen told the King an intriguing story with a cliffhanger–and refused to say more until the next night. The King, who wanted to know the ending, would spare her life, only to be met with another cliffhanger the next night. This reportedly went on for 1,001 nights.</p>
<p><em>One Thousand and One Nights</em> is a masterpiece collection of stories drawn from throughout Eurasia. Aladdin is Chinese. Ali Baba, Middle Eastern. Sinbad’s adventures led him throughout South Asian and African waters. This series of stories were immortalized centuries later, and retold again and again throughout the world.</p>
<p>The story’s subtext was about a mighty empire that had the wherewithal to connect so many great civilizations of the medieval world. And that was the true story of the Sasanid Empire.</p>
<p>Out of the ashes of the old Achaemenid Dynasty rose a new Persian golden age led by the Sasanians.</p>
<p>How the Sasanians came to power was unclear, but this much was true: when Silk Roads trade was threatened by nomadic invaders, the Sasanians conquered the Hindu Kush region. This act helped stabalize Eurasian trade and helped spread Sasanian influence East and West.</p>
<p>The Sasanians had a strong relationship with China. The empires forged alliances against nomadic invaders.</p>
<p>To the West, relations with the Roman Empire was tumultuous at times, but the Emperors regarded one another as equals. Over the centuries, Sasanian art influenced medieval art traditions in Europe, Asia, and beyond.</p>
<p>The Sasanian period was an era of great artistic efflorescence, great Sasanian craftsmen in Iran and Afghanistan, silversmiths, goldsmiths, potters, the whole range were found in the Sasanian culture and they did have an impact on Afghan cultural and artistic production.</p>
<p>Trade flowed freely, and so, too, was this a period a wellspring of new beliefs in the Hindu Kush region. Mithraism, which was a religion that in many ways resembled Zoroastrianism, came to be.</p>
<p>Zoroastrianism had become polluted and sort of corrupt. Mithraism was a reaction to that. It was part of the Sasanian heritage. To a certain extent, they de-emphasized the Buddhism that had been dominant during the Kushan period. You have a kind of amalgamation during the Sasanian period of those religious traditions.</p>
<p>The artistic and cultural influences left by the Sasanid Empire would last for hundreds of years to come, but the forthcoming Muslim conquests would also have a lasting impact on the Persian world.</p>
