Featured Articles
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DERAFŠ
lit. “banner, standard, flag, emblem,” in ancient Iran. In the Avesta Bactria “with tall banners,” a fluttering “bull banner,” and enemy banners are mentioned. In the Achaemenid period each Persian army division had its own standard (Herodotus, 9.59), and “all officers had banners over their tents" (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.13).
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ENAMEL
a heat-fused glass paste colored by metal oxides and used to decorate metal surfaces. Enamel was associated with lapidary, glassworking, and goldmithing crafts and was probably used primarily in place of precious stones before the 17th century.
Encyclopædia Iranica
Published in English, Encyclopædia Iranica is a multi-volume, multi-disciplinary work designed to provide a detailed and accurate picture of an important world civilization over a span of several thousand years. It is the most extensive compendium ever conceived on the past and present culture of the Iranian peoples and their contribution to the broader history of human civilization.
The Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation, Inc. was established in 1990 as an independent not-for-profit 501(c)(3) public foundation registered in New York State. The Foundation’s main purpose is to promote the cause of Encyclopædia Iranica and to ensure its continuation as an independent scholarly databank.
The Foundation has established an endowment fund to support the Encyclopædia Iranica project, and funds the majority of its costs. The Foundation’s charter empowers it to carry out the Encyclopædia Iranica project independently.
Encyclopædia Iranica is a non-partisan, non-political, non-religious, non-ideological, and an entirely independent compilation of objective, documented, and reliable information that has drawn on the expertise of leading scholars world-wide at major universities and academies in North America, Europe and Asia.
Students, scholars, and all those eager to learn more about Iranian peoples and their culture will find the Encyclopædia Iranica an indispensable source of information. Those Iranians brought up abroad, interested in learning about their cultural heritage, will particularly benefit from this objective and unbiased resource.
In Focus
Encyclopædia Iranica
Volume XVI
Edited by Ehsan Yarshater,
Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation:
New York, NY, 2020
This volume is dedicated to Dr. Ehsan Yarshater (1920-2018), an eminent scholar of Iranian Studies, and founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopædia Iranica.
The three fascicles contained in this volume are the last edited under the aegis and guidance of Dr. Yarshater, whose pioneering vision and unwavering commitment over four decades established the Encyclopædia Iranica as an unrivaled compilation of critical research in all facets of Iranian civilization.
Volume XVI of the Encyclopædia Iranica covers topics falling alphabetically between KA and KE, encompassing Kashan, Kerman, Kermanshah, and articles on regional geography, languages and dialects, architecture and historical monuments, mysticism and Persian Sufi poetry, religious communities, life and cultural rituals, and notable personalities.
This authoritative work of reference is testimony to the scholarship of its contributors, who have been ensuring that the Encyclopædia Iranica maintains its undisputed reputation for authoritative and comprehensive research.
