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Sasanian Empire, Archaeology of the

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Introduction

The Sasanian Empire was the last polity headed by an Iranian dynasty to rule from the geographic entity known as Iran before the advent of Islam, from 224 CE to 651 CE. At its height under Khosrow II in the early seventh century CE, its territorial extent encompassed much of the area of southwest Asia (including the eastern Mediterranean littoral), Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Over these 400 years, the political, ethnolinguistic, and religious composition of the empire changed continuously, and partly as a consequence of its location, the Sasanian Empire was involved in successive military confrontations with the Roman Empire on its western border, as well as with mobile and semi-sedentary peoples in various locations, including the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Notwithstanding this sporadic but ever-present pattern of conflict, this period also witnessed the acceleration of a trend of interregional economic connectivity, especially between Chinese...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Alan Farahani

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  1. Alan Farahani
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Correspondence to Alan Farahani .

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  1. Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Marta Żuchowska

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Farahani, A. (2020). Sasanian Empire, Archaeology of the. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1119-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1119-2

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