PUBLICITY | Jonathan Downs chief editor Classical Arms and Militaria magazine

September 2007

One of the foremost authorities on Persian and Iranian weapons in the world. Manouchehr Khorasani has compiled what is doubtless the most comprehensive study of Iranian arms and armour in existence.

His book, which encompasses not only the holdings of some 10 different museums but also private collections, is an extremely impressive volume, some three inches thick, fully illustrated throughout. Not only is the book a photographic catalogue of the variety of Iranian arms heritage, it examines the origins and development in a historical context. The scope of the book is in itself colossal and embraces pieces from the 3rd millennnium BC to the end of the Qajar Period in the 20th century.

The table of contents alone spans four full-size pages, with headings such as „The Iranian Culture Influence in the Region and Iranian Search for Independence“. „Median and Achaemenian Daggers and Swords“, „Parthian Swords and Daggers“ and „The Influence and Meaning of Swords in Iran after the Muslim Conquest“. The first 371 pages provide the narrative history of Iranian weapons with copious references to the world’s most respected historical authorities, listed at the back in some 14 pages along with numerous illustrations. The second half of the book, comprising a further 373 pages, is devoted to colour imges of the weapons themselves, daggers, swords, spears, axes, shields, armour and mail, meticulously captioned, annotated and enumerated, all in sumptuous detail on a dark blue background, enhacing the gleaming golden sufaces of many of these extraordinary pieces.

Without question this will remain a reference work for the foreseeable future, an absolute requesitite for any museum or collector of Persion weaponry. That being said, it is also the sort of book that should be on the shelf of any serious military historian, writer or enthusiast of Middle eastern weaponry, and is more than worth the reasonable sum being asked for such exhaustive resaerach.    

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