Table of Contents

  • DE MORGAN, Jacques

    Pierre Amiet

    (1857-1924), French archeologist and prehistorian. He came from an exceptionally gifted family, in which cultivation of humane learning was combined with scientific rigor. It seems clear that he was less interested in Elamite history than in the overall prehistory of the East.

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  • DEAD SEA SCROLLS

    Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

    parchment and papyrus scrolls written in Hebrew, mainly of the 1st centuries B.C.E. and C.E., found in caves around Qomrān on the northwest coast of the Dead Sea and considered to represent a sect of Judaism.

  • DEATH (1)

    Mary Boyce

    AMONG ZOROASTRIANS

  • DEATH (2)

    Cross-Reference

    IN RELIGIONS OTHER THAN ZOROASTRIANISM. See CORPSE and BURIAL.

  • DEBEVOISE, NEILSON CAREL

    M. J. Olbrycht and V. P. Nikonorov

    (1903-1992), American archeologist and scholar of the history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia and Iran.

  • DECCAN

    Carl W. Ernst, Priscilla P. Soucek

    or Dakhan, Pers. Dakan; the south-central plateau of India, bounded on the north by the Narbada river, on the west by the Sea of Oman, on the east by the Bay of Bengal, and on the south by the Tungabhadra river.

  • DECORATION

    Priscilla P. Soucek

    the use of consciously designed patterns to embellish building surfaces and objects for aesthetic effect. Despite progress in identifying or classifying the features of Persian decorative patterns, few scholars have attempted to explain why particular designs were used in specific periods, regions, or circumstances.

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  • DECORATIONS

    Yaḥyā Šahīdī

    In Persia there were no orders in the Western sense, but only decorations and medals. The practice of awarding such honors was initiated by Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, who introduced the Lion and Sun (nešān-e šīr o ḵoršīd) in 1808, apparently inspired by the Red Crescent adopted by the Ottoman sultan Salīm III.

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  • DEDE BEG ḎU’L-QADAR

    Cross-Reference

    See ABDĀL BEG.

  • DEDE ʿOMAR RŪŠANĪ

    Tahsın Yazici

    (b. Güzel Ḥeṣār, Aydın province, in western Anatolia, at an indeterminate date; d. Tabrīz, 1487), Turkish Sufi who wrote poetry in both Persian and Turkish.