The present volume contains a selection of the scholarly work of one of Europe’s most prominent representatives of modern, transdisciplinary Oriental studies: Bert Georg Fragner. His amazing work in the fields of Iranian, Central Asian and Islamic Studies, as well as Social and Cultural Anthropology, is well known far beyond the specific circles of academia. His achievements in these disciplines have led him to reach institutional functions: Professor at the Universities of Berlin and Bamberg, Germany, President of the Societas Iranologica Europaea, First President of the German Oriental Society, Full Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and, in recent years, founder and Director of the Institute of Iranian Studies.
Antonio C. D. Panaino is Professor of Iranian Studies at the “Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna” and he is presently Dean of the “Faculty for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage” in Ravenna where he also promoted the institution of the “Gershevitch Library”.
Velizar Sadovski, born in 1972, has been working at the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1997 and at the Institute of Iranian Studies since its foundation in 2003. His main fields of research are Old Iranian Philology, Indo-Iranian Linguistics and Indo-European Studies. He has been Visiting Professor of Iranian Philology in many Italian universities since 2005. He has given lectures on Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Athens, Berlin, Bonn, Copenhagen, Krakow, Delhi, Dushanbe, Erlangen/ Nuremberg, Freiburg, Graz, Halle, Jena, Kyoto, Leiden, London, Milan, Munich, Naples, Paris, Rome, San Marino, Salzburg, Sofia, Vienna and many other international universities.