Project description

This project examines how people used astrology in Iran in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. This was a particularly dynamic period in the regions history, as repeated waves of conquest by nomads from the Inner Asian steppe forced the indigenous society to reconsider the nature of secular power, the relationship between the human and the divine, and the place of Iran on the Earth and of the Earth in the cosmos. Rather than focusing on formal treatises about astrology or the occult sciences, this project is aimed at individual, local, and idiosyncratic engagements with the heavens. I will examine unique manuscripts preserved in collections across Europe and the Middle East to pursue two main areas of research. The first examines tables, poems, and other easy reference tools that helped non-specialists engage with astrology. This included an increased focus on the Moon as the main object of observation and divination. The second research area concerns the application of astrological lore to the self-representation of rulers and other elites. In coinage and in royal titles we see attempts to apply the status of planetsand more notably, of particular arrangements of planetsto individuals, helping to create a form of cosmocratic kingship that is well documented in later periods, but whose origins are poorly understood.