The lovely bones. Conceptions and contention on portentous human remains in the context of Late-Antique Iran

The paper aims to analyse some late antique accounts indicating attitudes and actions of the Iranians toward bones of individuals credited to be endowed with a supernatural power. The study thus reconstructs an Iranian perspective on practices and beliefs that were widespread throughout Near-Eastern societies during Late Antiquity, becoming shared elements of cross-cultural interaction. Taking into account sources of different origin, the analysis will trace a consistent, though fragmentary, outline of concepts and behaviours which involved religious customs as well as political strategies and royal ideology. In this period dispute over the possession of “holy” bones or their desecration was a recurrent motive, especially in the Christian narrative, which, behind the rhetoric, reveals the participation of Iranians in this context, witnessing the dissemination of related beliefs in the lands of Ērānšahr. In periods of anxiety or tension, in fact, the Iranian rulers adopted measures relevant to this topic as a function of their approach to policy or warfare. On the other hand, the Zoroastrian tradition shows that concepts linked to bones and their essence played a significant role in that doctrinal and cosmological system. In fact, these priestly speculations provide a basis for an understanding of the ways in which actions towards “prodigious” bones were perceived within the framework of Mazdean society.