Historical Sciences Studies

Abstract Toponymy, as a key branch of historical geography, plays a significant role in analyzing spatial and cultural transformations in human societies. Place names serve as essential tools for gaining deeper insights into the complex relationship between humans and their environment throughout history, reflecting cultural changes, population movements, and socio-political transformations over the centuries. Focusing on the toponyms Suraq, Duraq, Falāḥīyeh, and Shādegān in southern Khuzestan, this study highlights, on the one hand, the capacity of toponymic studies to reconstruct spatio-historical developments and, on the other, their value in revealing the inseparable ties between spatial identity, natural factors, and socio-political processes. The main goal of this research is to reassess part of Khuzestan’s territorial history by tracing the historical background, spatial changes, and semantic connections of these four toponyms, in order to answer whether they refer to distinct locations across different historical periods or to a shared geographical context. The study employs a comparative analysis of Syriac, Greek, and Arabic geographical-historical texts, travel accounts, geographic coordinates, historical maps, and archaeological evidence. The integrated data indicate that these place names have undergone multiple spatial and temporal transformations from antiquity to the present. Based on archaeological, linguistic, historical, and geomorphological evidence, four key locations have been identified: Tel Tendy and Ja Nišīn (as the probable sites of ancient Suraq and Duraq in present-day Rāmshīr County), the village of Madīneh (as Old Duraq in Shādegān County), and Falāḥīyeh (as New Duraq and the original nucleus of modern Shādegān). These areas appear to have shifted gradually from east to west and then southwest along the Jarrāḥī River over time, due to environmental changes—such as the evolution of alluvial fans—and human interventions. While the available data shed partial light on these transformations, the limited extent of previous research and the destruction of many sites in recent decades underline the need for targeted archaeological surveys, satellite imagery analysis, and interdisciplinary approaches to either confirm or revise these hypotheses.

Abstract One of the consequences of the expansion of Iran-Europe relations in the Safavid period was the drawing of maps of Safavid Iran by European cartographers. In the era of European geographical explorations and multilateral relations with Iran, European cartographers, in addition to drawing global, Asian and even regional maps, also drew specific maps of Iran. The drawing of various maps by Europeans of Safavid Iran along with specifying details in the maps shows the location and characteristics of each of the Iranian states in that period. One of the most important states of Iran in the Safavid period was Makran province in southeastern Iran. Makran was important because of its connection with the sea and also as a bridge between Iran and its eastern neighbors, especially India, and was considered by European cartographers. Given that in the historical and geographical sources left from the Safavid period, brief descriptions of Makran remain, and on the other hand, European cartographers drew the map of this state with minor political, natural, human, etc. phenomena, the analysis of Makran historical geography in this The maps are worth discussing. The purpose of this article is to explain the historical geography of Makran in the Safavid period based on historical maps of Europeans from that period, which has been written in a historical way by extracting information from maps and library sources