Workshop on Avestan Script

Iranian Academy of Arts, affiliated to the presidential office, will conduct a training workshop on Avestan script.

The workshop on April 26 will teach the principles in the writing and calligraphy of Avestan script, a writing system developed during the Sassanid era (226-651) to render the Avestan language, according to the website of the academy honar.ac.ir.

Iranian researcher, paleographer and codicologist Bahram Boroumand will conduct the workshop. He is known as the first scholar who has systematized the calligraphy principles of Avestan script used in writing Zoroastrian scriptures such as Avesta, a primary collection of religious texts. The Avestan alphabet is referred to as ‘din dabireh’ or ‘din dabiri’, and was also used in writing Middle Persian language for the religious script.  

The academy’s Research Department is organizing the workshop for the first time at its premises located at No. 1552, 6th floor, intersection of Valiasr Ave. and Taleqani Street.

 Sessions will also be held on the following Wednesdays from 4-6 pm for some weeks.

Avestan is one of the eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-European language family. The development of the Avestan alphabet was initiated due to the need to represent recited Avestan language texts correctly.

The various text collections that today constitute the canon of Zoroastrian scripture are the result of a collation that occurred in the 4th century, probably during the reign of Sassanid king Shapur II (309–379).