Conférence - Touraj Daryaee : Mapping Men and Empire: The Sacred Topography of Erānšahr

Frantz GrenetHistoire et cultures de l'Asie centrale préislamiqueCollège de FranceAnnée 2025-2026Conférence - Touraj Daryaee : Mapping Men and Empire: The Sacred Topography of ErānšahrTouraj DaryaeeMaseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture, University of California - IrvineRésuméThe Sasanians in late antique began to observe the physical world in several distinct but interrelated ways, largely dependent on their religious and political outlook. These views may have seemed similar, but at other times contradictory Roman and later the Byzantine views of geography. In the post-Sasanians / Islamic period, these two visions come together with geographers of the Abbasid period. The views between the real (political) and the religious (mythological) geography, inspired by the Zoroastrian sacred view of the world, and influenced by the epic, inspired an imperial political reformulation bringing a new vision of the world. The Sasanian had developed a certain geographical outlook which was rooted in the Avestan tradition, but the material had been reworked to fit the imperial ideology of their in late antiquity.