1.
Taq Bostan
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This example of Sassanid art is located 5 km from the city center of Kermanshah. It is located in the heart of the Zagros mountains, where it has endured almost 1,700 years of wind, originally, several sources were visible next to and below the reliefs and arches, some of which are now covered. Sources next to the reliefs still feed a large basin in front of the rock, the site has been turned into an archaeological park and a series of late Sasanian and Islamic column capitals have been brought together. The carvings, some of the finest and best-preserved examples of Persian sculpture under the Sassanids, include representations of the investitures of Ardashir II, Sassanid kings chose a beautiful setting for their rock reliefs along an historic Silk Road caravan route waypoint and campground. The reliefs are adjacent a sacred springs that empty into a reflecting pool at the base of a mountain cliff. Taq owsa and its rock relief are one of the 30 surviving Sassanid relics of the Zagros mountains. According to Arthur Pope, the founder of Iranian art and archeology Institute in the USA, art was characteristic of the Iranian people, the Taq-e Bostan complex comprise a rock relief standing on its own and several more reliefs associated with two rock cut arches. They illustrate the investiture ceremonies of Ardashir II, Shapur II, Shapur III and they also depict the hunting scenes of Khosrau II. The first Taq owsa or Taq bostan relief, and apparently the oldest, is a relief of the crowning ceremony of Ardashir II by his predecessor Shapur II or Ahura Mazda. There may be a mixture of the iconography of both identities. The two main figures are standing on the fallen Roman emperor Julianus Apostata, Ardashir played an important role in his defeat during the reign of Shapur II. Exceptional within Sasanian art is the fact that this is a portrait, Ardashir II was installed as interim ruler, awaiting the coming of age of the royal heir Shapur III. The fourth figure is the god Mithra who holds a barsum in his hands and stands on a lotus flower and he is the protector of oaths and is witness to this pact. Local beliefs and Persian folk tale interpreted the scene as the victory of the first Sasanian kings on Artabanus IV, the Mithra figure became the visual inspiration for representations of the prophet Zoroaster. Relief panel measured on 15.08.07 is approx, the smaller arch or iwan has on the upper part of the back wall two Pahlavi inscriptions identifying two royal figures as Shapur II and his son Shapur III. They are shown facing each other, the archs vestibule measures 6 x 5 x 3.6 meters. It has been suggested as having been built during the reign of Shapur III, however, the royal crown of Shapur III does not agree with those on his coins and is closer to that of his predecessor Ardashir II. It has been argued that the texts represent an usurpation of Ardashirs relief by Shapur III
2.
Khosrow II
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Khosrow II, entitled Aparvēz, also Khusraw Parvēz, was the last great king of the Sasanian Empire, reigning from 590 to 628. He was the son of Hormizd IV and the grandson of Khosrow I and he was the last king of Persia to have a lengthy reign before the Muslim conquest of Iran, which began five years after his death by execution. The Byzantines also regained the True Cross, which Khosrow had captured following his conquest of the Levant during the same 602–628 war. Khosrow and Shirin tells the story of his love for the Aramean or Roman princess Shirin, Khosrow is first mentioned in the 580s, when was at Partaw, the capital of Caucasian Albania. During his stay there, he served as the governor of the kingdom, furthermore, Khosrow II also served as the governor of Arbela around this period. According to a legend, Khosrow had a shabestan in which over 3,000 concubines resided, Khosrow was raised to the throne by his two uncles Vistahm and Vinduyih, who were the leaders of a palace coup that deposed, blinded and killed Hormizd IV. Furthermore, Persia was required to cease intervening in the affairs of Iberia and Armenia, after some time, Khosrow along with the Byzantine commander of the south, Comentiolus, invaded Mesopotamia. During this invasion, Nisibis and Martyropolis quickly defected to them, during the same period, Khosrow, feeling disrespected by Comentiolus, convinced Maurice to replace the latter with Narses as the commander of the south. Khosrow and Narses then penetrated deeper into Bahrams territory, seizing Dara and then Mardin on February, shortly after this, Khosrow sent one of his Iranian supporters, Mahbodh, to capture Ctesiphon, which he managed to accomplish. Meanwhile, Khosrows two uncles and John Mystacon, conquered northern Adurbadagan, and went further south in the region, where they defeated Bahram at Blarathon, however, Khosrow managed to deal with him by either having him assassinated or convince the Turks to execute him. Peace with the Byzantines was then officially concluded, for his aid, Maurice received much of Persian Armenia and western Georgia, and received the abolition of the subsidies which had formerly been paid to the Sasanians. Soon, however, Khosrow changed his intentions, trying to disassociate himself from his fathers murder, the Sasanian monarchs traditional mistrust of over-powerful magnates and Khosrows personal resentment of Vinduyihs patronising manner certainly contributed to this decision. Vinduyih was soon put to death, according to a Syriac source captured while trying to flee to his brother in the East, at the news of his brothers murder, Vistahm rose in open revolt. According to Dinawari, Vistahm sent a letter to Khosrow announcing his claim to the throne through his Parthian heritage, indeed, I am more deserving on account of my descent from Darius, son of Darius, who fought Alexander. You Sasanians deceitfully gained superiority over us and usurped our right and your ancestor Sasan was no more than a shepherd. Vistahms revolt, like Bahramss shortly before, found support and spread quickly, local magnates as well as the remnants of Bahram Chobins armies flocked to him, especially after he married Bahrams sister Gordiya. He even campaigned in the east, where he subdued two Hephthalite princes of Transoxiana, Shaug and Pariowk, the date of Vistahms uprising is uncertain. From his coinage, it is known that his rebellion lasted for seven years, the commonly accepted dates are ca
3.
Anahita
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Aredvi Sura Anahita is Ardwisur Anahid or Nahid in Middle- and Modern Persian, Anahit or Anaheed in Armenian. The Greek and Roman historians of classical antiquity refer to her either as Anaïtis or identified her with one of the divinities from their own pantheons,270 Anahita, a silicaceous S-type asteroid is named after her. Only Arədevī is specific to the divinity and it might have been derived from Arya devi The words sūra and anāhīta are generic Avestan language adjectives, and respectively mean mighty and pure. Both adjectives also appear as epithets of other divinities or divine concepts such as Haoma, both adjectives are also attested in Vedic Sanskrit. In its old Iranian form *Harahvatī, her name was given to the region, rich in rivers and it might have been derived from the Goddess Sarasvati. In the Persian texts of the Sassanid and later eras, Arədvī Sūra Anāhīta appears as Ardwisur Anāhīd, the evidence suggest a western Iranian origin of Anāhīta. She shares characteristics with Mat Zemlya in Slavic mythology and it was moreover the association with the planet Venus, it seems, which led Herodotus to record that the learnt to sacrifice to the heavenly goddess from the Assyrians and Arabians. Ishtar also apparently gave Aredvi Sura Anahita the epithet Banu, the Lady and it is completely unknown in the texts of the Avesta, but evident in Sassanid-era middle Persian inscriptions and in a middle Persian Zend translation of Yasna 68.13. Also in Zoroastrian texts from the post-conquest epoch, the divinity is referred to as Anahid the Lady, Ardwisur the Lady, according to Boyce, it is probable that there was once a Perso–Elamite divinity by the name of *Anahiti. It is then likely that it was this divinity that was an analogue of Ishtar, and that it is this divinity with which Aredvi Sura Anahita was conflated. The cosmological qualities of the river are alluded to in Yasht 5, but properly developed only in the Bundahishn. In both texts, Aredvi Sura Anahita is not only a divinity, but also the source of the world river and the world river itself. This source is at the top of the world mountain Hara Berezaiti, High Hara, around which the sky revolves and that is at the center of Airyanem Vaejah, the first of the lands created by Mazda. The water, warm and clear, flows through a hundred thousand golden channels towards Mount Hugar, on the summit of that mountain is Lake Urvis, the Turmoil, into which the waters flow, becoming quite purified and exiting through another golden channel. Another portion runs down to Vourukasha, the sea upon which the earth rests. In yet other chapters, the text equates the two, as in Ardwisur who is Anahid, the father and mother of the Waters and this legend of the river that descends from Mount Hara appears to have remained a part of living observance for many generations. A Greek inscription from Roman times found in Asia Minor reads the great goddess Anaïtis of high Hara, on Greek coins of the imperial epoch, she is spoken of as Anaïtis of the sacred water. Aredvi Sura Anahita is principally addressed in Yasht 5, also known as the Aban Yasht, Yasna 65 is the third of the hymns recited at the Ab-Zohr, the offering to the waters that accompanies the culminating rites of the Yasna service
4.
Ahura Mazda
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Ahura Mazda is the Avestan name for the creator and sole God of Zoroastrianism, the old Iranian religion which spread across Asia predating Christianity. Ahura Mazda is described as the highest spirit of worship in Zoroastrianism, the literal meaning of the word Ahura is mighty or lord and Mazda is wisdom. Ahura Mazda first appeared in the Achaemenid period under Darius Is Behistun Inscription, until Artaxerxes II, Ahura Mazda was worshipped and invoked alone. With Artaxerxes II, Ahura Mazda was invoked in a triad, with Mithra, images of Ahura Mazda began in the Parthian period, but were stopped and replaced with stone carved figures in the Sassanid period. Mazda, or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå and it is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhās, means intelligence or wisdom. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European *mn̩sdʰeh₁, literally meaning placing ones mind, the name was rendered as Ahuramazda during the Achaemenid era, Hormazd during the Parthian era, and Ohrmazd was used during the Sassanian era. The name may be attested on cuneiform tablets of Assyrian Assurbanipal, in the form Assara Mazaš, even though Ahura Mazda was a spirit in the Old Iranian religion, he had not yet been given the title of uncreated spirit. This title was given by Zoroaster, who proclaimed Ahura Mazda as the spirit, wholly wise, benevolent and good, as well as the creator. As Ahura Mazda is described as the creator and upholder of Asha, he is a supporter and guardian of justice, as a result of this vision, Zoroaster felt that he was chosen to spread and preach the religion. He stated that source of all goodness was the only Ahura worthy of the highest worship. He further stated that Ahura Mazda created spirits known as yazatas to aid him, Zoroaster proclaimed that all of the Iranian daevas were bad spirits and deserved no worship. These bad spirits were created by Angra Mainyu, the hostile, the existence of Angra Mainyu was the source of all sin and misery in the universe. Zoroaster claimed that Ahura Mazda was not an omnipotent God, nonetheless, Ahura Mazda is Angra Mainyus superior, not his equal. Angra Mainyu and his daevas which attempt to attract humans away from the path of righteousness would eventually be destroyed, whether the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians is a matter of much debate. However, it is known that the Achaemenids were worshipers of Ahura Mazda, the representation and invocation of Ahura Mazda can be seen on royal inscriptions written by Achaemenid kings. The most notable of all the inscriptions is the Behistun Inscription written by Darius I which contains references to Ahura Mazda. An inscription written in Greek was found in a late Achaemenid temple at Persepolis which invoked Ahura Mazda, on the Elamite Persepolis Fortification Tablet 377, Ahura Mazda is invoked along with Mithra and Voruna. Artaxerxes III makes this invocation to the three again in his reign
5.
Crescent
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A crescent shape is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter, or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. It is used as the symbol for the Moon. It was also the emblem of Diana-Artemis, and hence represented virginity, in Roman Catholic Marian veneration, it is associated with the Virgin Mary. From its use as roof finial in Ottoman era mosques, it has become associated with Islam. The crescent symbol is used to represent the Moon, not necessarily in a particular lunar phase. When used to represent a waxing or waning lunar phase, crescent or increscent refers to the waxing first quarter, the crescent symbol was long used as a symbol of the Moon in astrology, and by extension of Silver in alchemy. The astrological use of the symbol is attested in early Greek papyri containing horoscopes, in the 2nd-century Bianchinis planisphere, the personification of the Moon is shown with a crescent attached to her headdress. Its ancient association with Ishtar/Astarte and Diana is preserved in the Moon representing the female principle, as such, it belongs to the class of figures known as lune in planar geometry. The tapering towards the points of intersection of the two arcs are known as the horns of the crescent, the word crescent is derived etymologically from the present participle of the Latin verb crescere to grow, technically denoting the waxing moon. Unicode encodes a crescent at U+263D and a decrescent at U+263E, the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block provides variants with faces, FIRST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE at U+1F31B and LAST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE at U+1F31C. The crescent shape is used to represent the Moon, and the Moon deity Nanna/Sin from an early time, visible in Akkadian cylinder seals as early as 2300 BC. The crescent was used in the iconography of the Ancient Near East and was used transplanted by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC as far as Carthage in modern Tunisia. The crescent and star also appears on coins of South Arabia. The combination of star and crescent also arises in the Ancient Near East, representing the Moon and Ishtar and it was inherited both in Sassanian and Hellenistic iconography. In the iconography of the Hellenistic period, the crescent became the symbol of Artemis-Diana, numerous depictions show Artemis-Diana wearing the crescent Moon as part of her headdress. The related symbol of the star and crescent was the emblem of the Mithradates dynasty in the Kingdom of Pontus and was used as the emblem of Byzantium. The crescent remained in use as an emblem in Sassanid Persia, in the Crusades it came to be associated with the Orient and was widely used in Crusader seals and coins. It was used as a charge by the later 13th century
6.
Avestan
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The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta. Avestans status as a language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language, Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian. The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group, Iranian languages are traditionally classified as eastern or western, and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and also in some extent close in nature to Vedic Sanskrit. It is believed that it might be close to a dialect of Pashto as well. The Avestan language is attested in two forms, known as Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan, the two not only in time, but are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order, The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for centuries. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood, the script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh religion writing. It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left and these symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, a few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language, Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was considered necessary for the prayers to be effective, the Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in Gujarati script, some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraϑuštra is written with j with a dot below
7.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
8.
Month
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A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which is approximately as long as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon, month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of phases, such months are synodic months. From excavated tally sticks, researchers have deduced that people counted days in relation to the Moons phases as early as the Paleolithic age. Synodic months, based on the Moons orbital period with respect to the Earth-Sun line, are still the basis of many calendars today, the following types of months are mainly of significance in astronomy, most of them first recognized in Babylonian lunar astronomy. The sidereal month is defined as the Moons orbital period in a frame of reference. The exact duration of the period cannot be easily determined. However, it is equal to the time it takes the Moon to pass twice a fixed star. A synodic month is the most familiar lunar cycle, defined as the interval between two consecutive occurrences of a particular phase as seen by an observer on Earth. The mean length of the month is 29.53059 days. Due to the eccentricity of the orbit around Earth, the length of a synodic month can vary by up to seven hours. The tropical month is the time for the Moon to pass twice through the same equinox point of the sky. It is 27.32158 days, very slightly shorter than the sidereal month days, unlike the sidereal month, it can be measured precisely. An anomalistic month is the time the Moon takes to go from perigee to perigee - the point in the Moons orbit when it is closest to Earth. An anomalistic month is about 27.55455 days on average and its duration is about 27.21222 days on average. A synodic month is longer than a month because the Earth-Moon system is orbiting the Sun in the same direction as the Moon is orbiting the Earth. The Sun moves eastward with respect to the stars and it takes about 2.2 days longer for the Moon to return to the apparent position with respect to the Sun. An anomalistic month is longer than a month because the perigee moves in the same direction as the Moon is orbiting the Earth. Therefore, the Moon takes a longer to return to perigee than to return to the same star
9.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
