Zoroastrian Academic Research, Web Site

Below is a list of some websites that offer information on Zoroastrianism based on solid academic research and work. While some of the websites are a little difficult to work with and the articles are often written in academic prose, I strongly recommend relying on these sites for facts on history and the religion. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and there are many non-academic sites that also offer good information.

Your religion, heritage, culture, and history are extremely interesting — do yourself a favor and learn more about it!

Encyclopedia Iranica
http://www.iranica. com/newsite/
Contains articles on ancient Iran, medieval Iran, Zoroastrianism, other religions in ancient Iran, early Muslim Iran, Iranian Zoroastrians, Parsis, religious texts, and much, much more. Type in keywords to find articles. The articles here are written by some of the world’s top experts, who have offered some new insights and scholarship that can oftentimes challenge with common belief. Take a look at the article on Alexander, for example.

Musee Achemene
http://www.museum- achemenet. college-de- france.fr/
This site, on the Achaemenids, is run by Pierre Briant, who has authored a massive, walloping (and very interesting! ) 1100 page tome on the first Persian Empire.

Persepolis Tablets
http://persepolista blets.blogspot. com/
Extremely, extremely little written material survives from the Achaemenid era. Learn more about the Persepolis tablets, which constitutes the most important trove of written material from that era. The tablets are essentially account ledgers and other “bureaucratic” documents that shed light on Achaemenid administration and — indirectly — religion. University of Chicago currently holds the so-called Fortification Tablets. They are also, at the moment, at the center of a major court battle.

Sasanika
http://www.humaniti es.uci.edu/ sasanika/ index.html
Run by Touraj Daryaee at UC Irvine, who has recently come out with one of the first good academic books on the Sasanids in English published in decades. The site contains information on the Sasanids, their society, and current research. Great images, too!

Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
http://oi.uchicago. edu/museum/ collections/ pa/persepolis/
Hundreds of images of Persepolis and other ancient Iranian sites. The images were taken in the 1930s, which make them all the more interesting!

Videvdad Project
http://www.videvdad .com/
Run by Alberto Cantera, University of Salamanca. Digitized images of Videvdad (Vendidad) texts.

PARZOR
http://www.unescopa rzor.com/ index.php
Website of the UNESCO-sponsored Parsi Zoroastrian Project, run by Shernaz Cama of the University of Delhi — images and information on the Parsi community.

Iranian Studies at Harvard – Oktor Skjaervo
http://www.fas. harvard.edu/ ~iranian/
Professor Skjaervo has put online an extremely large amount of material, including tutorials on ancient Persian languages, his translations of the holy texts, and his writing on Zoroastrianism.

Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, SOAS
http://www.cais- soas.com/
Articles and images, complements of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London).

Dinyar Patel
Ph.D. Candidate, History
Harvard University