Table of Contents

• CUMIN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an umbelliferous plant of the Old World and its aromatic seeds.

• CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  classical philologist and historian of religions, whose research resulted in a substantial contribution to the understanding of Mithraism and other oriental reli­gions in the Roman empire.

• CUNAXA

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the Greek form of the name of a village located some 50 miles north of Babylon, where a decisive battle was fought on 3 September 401 B.C.E. between Cyrus the Younger and his brother Artaxerxes II.

• 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 c.e.), 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.