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The First Parthian Ostracon from Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

A. D. H. Bivar
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Extract

The ostracon from the Qūmis excavation (Pl. I) bears inked characters in the Parthian script, and is palaeographically comparable with the numerous ostraca from the excavations at Nisā in Soviet Turkmenistan. Many of these bear dates reckoned according to the Arsacid Era of 247 b.c., typical figures being a.e. 194 (52 b.c.), a.e. 216 (30 b.c.), and so on. The Qūmis ostracon is thus likely also to belong to the 1st century b.c. The transliteration table for this script has been prepared by Diakonov and Starkova. Entirely diagnostic of Parthian, as against other derivatives of the Aramaic script, is the sloping left and bowed right leg of the letter pē, seen twice in the fourth line of the fragment.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 102 , Issue 1 , January 1970 , pp. 63 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1970

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References

1 Diakonov, I. M. and Livshits, V. A., Dokumenti iz Nisi I v. do n.e., Moscow, 1960Google Scholar, provides the principal collection of texts and reproductions. A further selection will be found in Diakonov, I. M. and Livshits, V. A., “Noviye nakhodki dokumentov v Staroï Nise”, Peredneaziatskiï Sbornik, II, Moscow, 1966, 134–157Google Scholar, and in the same authors' “Parfianskoye tsarskoe khozyaistvo v Nise I veka do n.e.”, Vestnik drevney istorii, 1960 (2), pp. 14–38. Western students will find Sznycer, M., “Nouveaux ostraca de Nisa”, Semitica, XII, 1962, 105–126Google Scholar, the most convenient entry to the subject.

2 Diakonov, I. M. and Starkova, K. B., “Nadpisi Artaksiya (Artaeša I), tsarya Armenii”, Vestnik drevney istorii, LII, 1955, 167.Google Scholar

3 Diakonov and Livshits (1960), p. 103 and Plate.

4 The mechanism of ideographic writing is explained by W. B. Henning, “Mitteliranisch”, Handbuch der Orientalistik, IV Band, Iranistik, Erster Abschnitt, p. 30.

5 op. cit., p. 105.

6 The nominal roll of Iranian names from Nisā is given by Diakonov and Livshits (1960), pp. 23–24.

7 Nyberg, H. S., “The Pahlavi documents from Avroman”, Le monde oriental, XVII, 1923, 192.Google Scholar

8 Diakonov and Livshits (1960), p. 24.

9 Attested on the British Museum Sasanian seal BM 119617; already during the Achaemenid period on a cuneiform tablet noted by Leon Legrain, The culture of the Babylonians (Univ. of Pennsylvania. The University Museum, Pubns. of the Babylonian Section XIV), Philadelphia, 1925, p. 340, no. 887.

10 Lately reported for the 1st century b.c. in the Greek spelling of the genitive MAXHNHC, upon an Indo-Scythian coin, by Rider, G. Le, “Monnaies de Taxila et d'Arachosie”, Revue des Etudes Grecques, LXXX, 1967, 341.Google Scholar

11 cf. the Pahlavī inscription Shāpūr KZ, II. 23 and 25 (Parthian text), 11. 57 and 62 (Greek text). These may be consulted in A. Maricq, “Classica et Orientalia. 5. Res Gestae Divi Saporis”, Syria, XXXV, 1958, 323–4, whose line-numbering is that of the Greek text.

12 Diakonov and Livshits (1960), p. 24.

13 Diakonov and Livshits (I960), p. 23.