Χοδαδαδίος Ρεζαχανίδης, PhD, KRT, Duc de Téhéran
@sasanianshah
Brown Viking. Historian, late antique Central & W. Asia, Sasanians, Byzantines, Scandinavia, Rus’. BD fan, Globe Trotter, Kensington Communist, flâneur, in love w London, Tehran, Athens, & Vienna. Have laptop, will write.
The US gov’t, taking clues from Loki, is fomenting mischief around the world. Presently, it has prepared a nice headache for Spain’s leftist gov’t to punish it for not toeing the line. This will probably cause the fall of the Spanish gov’t, but the US should also consider Loki’s fate…
Btw, Christian art specialists: which story is this stained window depicting? Is this St. Lambert?
I am seldom been impressed by gothic churches anymore. But the Cathedral of Reims, the coronation place of the kings of France, took my breath away!
I was driving across Champagne today & stopped at a petrol station and saw that they have decorated their carpark area with small vines bearing grapes!
Random passing-by picture: Tour Saint-Jacques, Châtelet, Paris.
When you invade people’s countries and appoint your brother as their king, it might take them a couple of centuries, but they will eventually come to take their revenge. #SpainFrance #Napoleon #Joseph
What on earth is this?! I would just return such a book, or throw it at the author.
Oh. I’m most sad abt the passing of Carlo Ginzburg. I was lucky enough to be at UCLA when he had a half-year appointment there and offered a seminar a year. I learnt a lot from him there (& never could muster up the courage to ask him to sign my copy of the Cheese & the Worms!). RIP Professor.
Went to Vienna Philharmonic’s Sommernachtskonzert at the Schönbrunn palace grounds. Wonderful experience thanks to a friend who got us seats! Great music including a favourite of mine, Maurice Reval’s Daphnis et Chloé set against a great shadow-projected ballet performance.
Israel might be the Holy Land for some people. But the actual Holey Land is Finland. I’ll see myself out 🚶♀️ PS: I’m pretty sure Israel owes its existence first to the UN and then to the tectonic plates….
I just read these words & idk, should I continue reading? “Yet her story has much to commend it to modern attention. It is the story of a woman who rose to supreme power among a people-the Arabs-with whom one would now hardly associate ready opportunities for women to feature in public life.”
Procopius tells us that al-Mundhir III, the king of the Lakhmids, justified his continued attacks against the Ghassanids by saying that since “Arabs were not mentioned in the Eternal Peace of 532” between Sasanian Iran and Rome, he does not see himself obliged to abide by its terms.
RIP the great mediaeval historian, Rosamond McKitterick (1949-2026).
This is a brilliant article by Peter B. Golden. I used to get annoyed by these long footnotes that would run over several pages, sometimes even crowding out the “main” text. But then I’ve come to love them. They are mini-articles within articles. You just have to read the article twice!
This was a particularly cruel & stupid way of framing the death of TWO people.
I am beyond sad about the death of Marjane Satrapi. As a fan of BD, I loved her work. As an Iranian, I loved her ethics and passion. As a person, I looked up to her. She was the same age as my sister and had very similar experiences which made me feel close to her. She will be sorely missed. RIP.
My dad’s MBA from ICMS, a business school in Tehran in the 1970’s that was established through a co-operation with the Harvard Business School & was headed by Prof. Louis “By” Barnes.
Based on specialist assessments, 220 doors, windows, & stained glass windows, 250m2 of tiling, 110m2 of mirror works & stucco, 100m2 of main hall frescoes, 100m2 of ceiling decorations, 30 chandeliers, & 250 m2 of roof tiles were destroyed, smashed, or cracked at #GolestanPalace.
Just watched this magnificent version of Mozart’s die Zauberflöte (the Magic Flute) with really amazing singing and acting, complemented with truly magical animation. A tasteful way of making it more accessible & appealing, while still keeping the work intact. www.laopera.org/performances...
Downtown LA might be the last place in California where humanity continues to exist…
Had someone else posted this exact same tweet, they would have been called antisemitic & an unhinged conspiracy theorist…
Who said Benjamin Franklin invented the lighting rod? “… there is this mount so high that no one can climb it. On top of it they built a high tower, 30 feet high, & on it is a lance, & at the end of the lance hung two large beads, one to deflect lightning & cold, & the other to deflect winds.”!!
The new issue of Le Monde’s Histoire et Civilisation, with a picture of Fathali Shah Qajar, whom we call “Shah Baba”!
This coming Monday, I will be giving a talk on Turks in the Iranian world at the LMU (Ludwigs-Maximilian Universität) in Munich as part of their Turkology & Iranistic colloquium. In person and in zoom. All are welcome.