© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18747167-12341324 brill.com/jps Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 113–139 The Coronation of the Early Sasanians, Ctesiphon, and the Great Diadem of Paikuli Michael Shenkar Hebrew University of Jerusalem michael.shenkar@gmail.com Abstract The article discusses the venue and the nature of the coronation ceremony of the Sasanian kings in the third century. It is argued that the coronation of the early Sasanians was a continuation of a Hellenistic ceremony, which was essentially the act of binding a diadem around one’s head. It seems that the common practice was for the king to bind the diadem himself in the presence of a select circle of courtiers or only in the presence of the gods. Furthermore, the article will demonstrate that Ctesiphon was neither the “capital” nor even the most important residence of the early Sasanians and no ceremony of coronation took place there in the third century. Keywords Sasanian – kingship – Ctesiphon – coronation – investiture – Ardashir – Paikuli – Narseh In 224 CE, Ardashir I (r. 224–242), the local dynast of Pārs, defeated the Parthian Ardavān IV (or Artabanus, r. 213–224) in the Battle of Hormozgān.1 Two years later, he “was crowned as King of Kings in 226 at the royal capital, Ctesiphon, in modern day Iraq, and a new phase in Iranian history began.” This is a descrip- tion of the Sasanians’ beginnings found in the recent entry on the Sasanian 1  Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the conference “Iran between the Sasanians and Early Islam,” which took place on 12–14 December 2016 in Jerusalem, and at the eighth biennial convention of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, held on 15–18 March 2018 in Tbilisi. I am grateful to the organizers and to the participants of these confer- ences for their comments.