Biography

Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo is Assistant Professor in Avestan and Pahlavi Languages at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations of the University of Toronto (2017). His main research interests are Old and Middle Iranian languages and literatures, Zoroastrianism, Indo-Iranian and Indo-European Linguistics, and Comparative Mythology.

Project Abstract

The project "Zoroastrian short liturgies in contact: the Xorde Avesta in the ancient secondary transmission" offers a fundamental contribution to the research on the Xorde Avesta or "Small Avesta", the most extensive but least studied corpus of the Zoroastrian literature. The main aim of this project is to contextualize all the attestations in the ancient secondary transmission referring to the Zoroastrian ritual praxis beyond the long liturgies, and to check whether or not they agree with the extant texts and rituals of the Xorde Avesta. The results of this research will help us understand the historical development of these texts and rituals during the last three millennia.

Curriculum vitae

2017 | Assistant Professor in Avestan and Pahlavi Languages, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto

2016 – 2017 | Adjunct Professor in Indo-European Linguistics, Department of Classical Philology and Indo-European, University of Salamanca

2016 | Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2013 – 2015 | Associate Professor & Marie Curie Fellow, The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen

2010 – 2013 | Post-doctoral Research Assistant, Institut für Iranistik, Freie Universität Berlin 

2005 – 2009 | Research Assistant in Indo-European Linguistics, Department of Classical Philology and Indo-European, University of Salamanca

Selected Publications

2017. “Sasanian Exegesis of Avestan Textile Terms.” In Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD, edited by S. Gaspa, M. L. Nosch and C. Michel, 397-403. Lincoln, NE: Zea Books.

2017. “The Description of Anāhitā’s Attire in the Yašt 5.” In Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by C. Brøns and M. L. Nosch, Ancient Textile Series, 179-188. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

2017. “Vedic, Avestan and Greek Sunrise: The Dawn of an Indo-European Formula.” In Usque ad Radices: Indo-European Studies in Honor of Birgit Anette Olsen, edited by B. S. S. Hansen, A. Hyllested, A. R. Jørgensen, G. Kroonen, J. H. Larsson, B. Nielsen Whitehead, T. Olander and T. M. Søborg, Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European, 15-24. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.

2018. “El imperio sasánida.” Historia National Geographic 172: 60-73.

2018. “Food and Clothing: A Mesopotamian and Indo-European Formula.” In Vetus textrinum: Textiles in the Ancient World. Studies in Honour of Carmen Alfaro Giner, edited by M. García Sánchez and M. Gleba, Collecció Instrumenta, 45-53. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona.