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The Last Sasanians in Chinese Literary Sources: Recently Identified Statue Head of a Sasanian Prince at the Qianling Mausoleum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Hamidreza Pasha Zanous  and
Esmaeil Sangari
Hamidreza Pasha Zanous*
Affiliation:
Nankai University and Ancient History of Iran at the University of Isfahan
Esmaeil Sangari*
Affiliation:
Ancient History of Iran at the University of Isfahan
*
h.pasha@ltr.ui.ac.ir, pasha.hamidreza@gmail.com
e.sangari@ltr.ui.ac.ir
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Abstract

Qianling Mausoleum (乾陵) which is located in the northwest of Xi'an, is the tomb of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty (唐高宗, r. 649–83 AD) and his Empress Wu Zetian (武則天, r. 690–705 AD). In this mausoleum, there are two statues of Pērōz, son of Yazdegird III (632–51 AD), and another Persian nobleman who have been recognized by western scholars. However, scholars’ attention has been limited to a general and mistaken description of the statues. This paper reassesses both statues in order to give some new insight into the head of one of the statues found at the Qianling Mausoleum.

Keywords

SasaniansChinaQianlingPērōzNanmei
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , July 2018 , pp. 499 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2018

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Footnotes

This paper is part of a series of studies on the relations between Hellenistic Civilization and peoples of the Silk Road; supported by the National Foundation for Social Science in China, No. 15ZDB059.

The authors would like to express their gratitude to professors Yang Juping of Nankai University, Zhang Ping of Shaanxi Normal University, Minghui Li of the University of Groningen, and Erfaneh Khosravi and Remy Boucharlat of Université Lumière Lyon 2, for their help and scholarly suggestions; and to anonymous peer review comments for providing helpful and valuable clarifications.

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