Table of Contents

  • CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    the conventional name for a system of writing ultimately derived from the pictographic script developed by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (Uruk) around 3000 B.C.E. Cuneiform was written with a reed stylus, which left wedge-shaped impressions on soft clay tablets.

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  • ČŪPA

    Cross-Reference

    See DANCE.

  • ČŪPĀN

    Jean-Pierre Digard

    or čōbān “shepherd” (Mid. Pers. and NPers. šobān); even today the shepherd remains a central figure, in both the technological life and consequently the symbolic life, of all systems of animal husbandry.

  • ČUPĀNĪĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See CHOBANIDS; ČOBĀN.

  • CUPBEARER

    James R. Russel

    one who fills and distributes cups of wine, as in a royal household.

  • CUPPING

    Cross-Reference

    See BLOODLETTING.

  • CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS

    Philip Huyse

    (probably fl. 1st century CE), author of the only extant Latin mono­graph on Alexander the Great, usually called Historiae Alexandri Magni, in many respects the most complete and liveliest account of Alexander’s exploits in Asia.

  • CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL

    Denis Wright

    (1859-1925), 1st Marquess of Kedleston, British statesman, traveler, and writer.

  • CUSTOMS DUTIES

    Willem Floor

    a tax levied on the movement of trade. A new law ensuring Persian autonomy in establishing tariffs (ḥoqūq-e gomrokī) was enacted on 1 May 1928; it provided for an ad valorem tariff on most goods, with special rates for certain luxuries like gold, silver, and tobacco.

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  • CUT PAPER

    Barbara Schmitz

    (qeṭʿa “decoupage,” also monabbat-kārī “filigree work”), a type of applied ornament documented in Persian manuscripts and sometimes on bookbindings from the approximate period 895-1060/1490-1650.

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  • CYAXARES

    I. M. Diakonoff

    (Gk. Kyaxárēs) king of Media in the 6th century B.C.E.

  • CYLINDER SEALS

    Edith Porada

    CYLINDER SEALS. The seals of ancient Persia correspond in their types and use to those of Mesopotamia, beginning with amuletic pendants, which could also be used as seals, and developing into elaborately engraved seal stones, with a change in the Uruk period from stamp to cylinder seals.

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  • CYPRESS

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    (sarv), Cupressus (Tourn.) L. The genus Cupressus is represented in Persia by one spe­cies (sempervirens L.), with three varieties: the cereiform (cereiformis Rehd.), called sarv-e nāz in Shiraz; the more common pyramidal or fastigiate, variously called sarv-e šīrāzī (Shiraz cypress) and sarv-e kāšī (Kāšān cypress); and the horizontal, known popularly by several names but usually referred to as zarbīn by modern Persian botanists.

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  • CYPRUS

    Michael Weiskopf

    The historical tradition, preserved for the most part by Diodorys Siculus, was much influenced by Isocrates’ erroneous perception of the Achaemenid empire as in a state of decline, seething with discontent and secret disloyalty to the great king.

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  • CYPRUS in the Achaemenid Period

    Antigone Zournatzi

    in the Achaemenid period. The kings of the southeastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus reportedly submitted willingly to Cyrus II and offered military assistance to the Persians in their campaigns against Caria and Babylon (539 BCE).

  • CYRIACUS AND JULITTA, ACTS OF

    Nicholas Sims-Williams

    Chris­tian martyrological text.

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  • CYROPAEDIA

    Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg

    (Gr. Kúrou paideía, The educa­tion of Cyrus), a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great (559-29 b.c.e.), founder of the Achaemenid empire.

  • CYROPOLIS

    Igor V. P’yankov

    (Latin form of Gr. Kuroúpolis), ancient town in Central Asia probably founded by Cyrus the Great (559-30 B.C.E.).

  • CYRTIANS

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    a tribe dwell­ing mainly in the mountains of Atropatenian Media together with the Cadusii, Amardi (or “Mardi”), Tapyri, and others.

  • CYRUS

    Multiple Authors

    a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great.

  • CYRUS i. The Name

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Cyrus is a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great and of the second son of Darius II.

  • CYRUS ii. Cyrus I

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    The evidence on the early Achaemenid king Cyrus I is as follows. Herodotus attested that Cyrus the Great was the son of Cambyses and grandson of Cyrus.

  • CYRUS iii. Cyrus II The Great

    Muhammad A. Dandamayev

    Cyrus II the Great (also known to the Greeks as Cyrus the Elder; b. ca. 600 B.C.E., d. 530 B.C.E.) was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

  • CYRUS iiia. Cyrus II as Portrayed by Xenophon and Herodotus

    Robert Faulkner

    Xenophon, in his work The Education of Cyrus, makes Cyrus’s imperial founding the theme of a biography; for Herodotus, that founding dominates only Book 1 of nine parts apparently devoted to the Persian-Greek wars decades later.

  • CYRUS iv. The Cyrus cylinder

    Muhammad A. Dandamayev

    The Cyrus cylinder is a fragmentary clay cylinder with an Akkadian inscription of thirty-five lines discovered in a foundation deposit by A. H. Rassam during his excavations at the site of the Marduk temple in Babylon in 1879.

  • CYRUS v. The Tomb of Cyrus

    Antigoni Zournatzi

    The tomb of Cyrus is generally identified with a small stone monument approximately 1 km southwest of the palaces of Pasargadae, in the center of the Morḡāb plain. According to Greek sources, the tomb of Cyrus II 559-29 B.C.E.) was located in the royal park at Pasargadae.

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  • CYRUS vi. Cyrus the Younger

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (ca. 423-01 b.c.e.),  the second of the four sons of Darius II (ca. 424-05) and Parysatis and a younger brother of Arsaces/Arsicas, later Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8).

  • CYRUS RIVER (1)

    Cross-reference

    River in Fārs. See KOR.

  • CYRUS RIVER (2)

    Cross-reference

    River in Central Asia. See KURA.

  • Čahār pāra

    music sample

  • Čahārmezrāb-e Homāyun

    music sample

  • Čahāršamba-suri

    music sample

  • Čakāvak

    music sample

  • Chahārgāh

    music sample

  • Čol Iroq

    music sample

  • C~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    Cross-Reference

    list of all the figure and plate images in the letter C entries