Table of Contents

• PREHISTORY OF IRAN: ARTIFICIAL CRANIAL MODIFICATIONS

  Aurelie Daems and Karina Croucher

  Cranial modification is caused during infancy through the shaping of a baby’s head whilst it is still malleable. Such shaping can be caused by both intentional and unintentional means.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• PROCOPIUS

  Henning Börm

  of Caesarea, Greek historian (born ca. 500, died ca. 560). His description of Sasanian internal affairs and Persian-Roman relations is in part highly useful and reliable, and he is a primary source for the way the elite of the Later Roman Empire looked on the Persians.

• PROSODY i. MIDDLE PERSIAN

  Gilbert Lazard

  There are remnants left of pre-Islamic poetry within western Middle Iranian languages: fragments of Manichean religious hymns, some poems preserved in the literature of Pahlavi, and poetical pieces in New Persian not following the rules of classical versification.

• PROSODY ii. New Persian

  Cross-Reference

  The study of poetic metre and of the art of versification, including rhyme, stanzaic forms, and the quantity and stress of syllables. See ʿARUŻ. 

  See also BALUCHISTAN iiia. Baluchi Poetry.

• PROTOTHYES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  according to Herodotus 1.103.3 the father of the Scythian king Madýēs, who is said to have gone into battle against the Medes.

• PUNJABI

  Christopher Shackle

  Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab with about 26 million speakers in India and more than 60 million in Pakistan.

• PUR BAHĀʾ JĀMI, TĀJ-AL-DIN

  George Lane

  poet, pun master, satirist, and often scathing social commentator.

• PUYANDA, Moḥammad-Jaʿfar

  Jalil Doostkhah

  (1954-1998), scholar and translator of literary texts and sociological studies. He never joined any political organization or party, but was a diligent defender of democracy and freedom of speech and belief.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.