Table of Contents

  • COAL

    Willem M. Floor

    Ordinary Per­sians claimed that, as they could not burn coal in their water pipes, they had no need of it. Only Europeans living in Tehran and Tabrīz used coal for heating; they collected it from the surface in bas­kets.

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  • COASTAL REGION

    Cross-Reference

    See BALUCHISTAN, FĀRS.

  • COBALT

    Elisabeth West FitzHugh and Willem M. Floor

    a chemical element that imparts a blue color to glass and glazes and to certain pigments.

  • ČOBĀN

    Charles Melville

    eponymous founder of the Chobanid dynasty and the leading Mongol amir of the late Il-khanid period.

  • ČŌBĪN, BAHRĀM

    Cross-reference

    See BAHRĀM ČŌBĪN.

  • COCK

    James R. Russell, Mahmoud Omidsalar

    the male of the subfamily Phasianinae (pheasants), usually having a long, often tectiform tail with fourteen to thirty-two feathers.

  • COCKSCOMB

    Cross-Reference

    See BOSTĀNAFRŪZ.

  • COCONUT

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera L., which grows in the East Indies, as well as in most other humid tropical regions.

  • CODES

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    It is likely that substitution ciphers were used by early Persian states, for nearly identical versions were still in use in Qajar Persia. During the reigns of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah and Moḥammad Shah (1834-48) the minister Abu’l-Qāsem Qāʾemmaqām devised a number of letter-substitution codes for communicating with different princes and viziers.

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  • CODEX CUMANICUS

    D. N. MacKenzie

    a manuscript of eighty-two paper leaves, measuring approximately 20 x 14 cm, preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale of the cathe­dral of San Marco in Venice and comprising princi­pally vocabularies and texts of the Northwest Middle Turkic language of the Cumans, or Komans, recorded in Latin script.

  • CODICES HAFNIENSES

    Jes P. Asmussen

    forty-three Avestan and Pahlavi codices acquired by Rasmus Kristian Rask (1787-1832) in Bombay, India, and Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815-1878) in Persia, all originally de­posited in the library of the University of Copenhagen but later transferred to the Royal Library.

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  • CODOMANNUS

    Cross-Reference

    See DARIUS III.

  • COFFEE

    ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd

    a drink made by steeping in boiling water the dried, roasted, and ground berries of the coffee tree (Coffea arabica).

  • COFFEEHOUSE

    ʿAlī Āl-e Dawūd

    a shop and meeting place where coffee is prepared and served.

  • COFFEEHOUSE PAINTING

    Cross-Reference

    See PAINTING.

  • ČOḠĀ BONUT

    Abbas Alizadeh

    Čoḡā Bonut is important because it has provided evidence of the earliest stages of settled agricultural life in Ḵuzestān. It is a small mound; in its truncated and artificially rounded state it has a diameter of about 50 m and rises just over 5 m above the surrounding plain.

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  • ČOḠĀ MĪŠ

    Helene J. Kantor

    Čoḡā Mīš was occupied continuously, except for one or two presumably short breaks, from approximately the late 6th millennium to the late 4th millennium b.c.e. and must have played a key role in the cultural and social development of the region.

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  • ČOḠĀ SAFĪD

    Frank Hole

    prehistoric site on the Dehlorān (Deh Luran) plain, dating back to the 8th millennium BCE. Excavation of a step trench in 1969 uncovered six archeological phases representing some 1,500 years of occupation, but there remain older deposits as yet unexcavated.

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  • ČOḠĀ ZANBĪL

    Elizabeth Carter

    or Chogha Zanbil, a city founded by the Elamite king Untaš Napiriša (ca. 1275-40 B.C.E.) about 40 km southeast of Susa at a strategic point on a main road leading to the highlands. After his death it remained a place of religious pilgrimage and a burial ground until about 1000 B.C.E.

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  • ČOḠONDAR

    Cross-Reference

    See BEET.