Iranian Studies is an interdisciplinary field which deals with the languages and written sources, the history and society, the mental and material culture of peoples speaking Iranian languages from antiquity to the present time. Iranian Studies, or Iranology, is thus not only a philological-linguistic discipline devoted to the study of more than twenty early, middle and modern Iranian languages but also a historical, social and cultural science which focusses on the history, social structures, religions and literary traditions of the Iranians from the start of written records to our days.