This state destroyed image temples and mandated uniform religious art according to Mary Boyce’s influential “iconoclasm” thesis. A kingmaking priest of this state left an inscription bragging about wiping out religious minorities and executed a painter who evoked Jesus by entering a university city on a donkey. A colossal statue of a ruler of this state carved from a single limestone stalactite is identifiable by its crown and korymbos. The priests Tansar and (*) Kartir consolidated the official religion under this state’s first rulers. In this state, rabbinical scholars at Sura and Pumbedita published the Babylonian Talmud. This state, which crushed a proto-socialist heresy led by Mazdak, backed the Nestorian Church after Chalcedon in cities like Nisibis and Gundeshapur. For 10 points, magi completed the Avesta under Shapur II in what final Zoroastrian empire of Persia? ■END■
ANSWER: Sassanid Empire [or Sasanian Empire or Eranshahr; prompt on the Neo-Persian Empire]
<Henry Atkins, World History>
= Average correct buzz position