Table of Contents

  • CTESIPHON

    Jens Kröger

    (Ṭīsfūn), ancient city on the Tigris adjacent to the Hellenistic city of Seleucia, ca. 35 km south of the later site of Baghdad.

  • ČŪB BĀZĪ

    Robyn C. Friend

    a category of folk dance found all over Persia (Hamada) and distinguished from other types of folk dance by the fact that the dancers carry sticks, which they strike together.

  • ČŪB ḴAṬṬ

    Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yusofi

    a stick 20-30 cm long formerly used by neighborhood shopkeepers, especially butchers and bakers, to keep accounts.

  • Čub-bāzi

    music sample

  • CUCUMBER

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    Cucumis sativus L. (of the family Cucurbitaceae), in Persia generally called ḵīār (with occasional slight variants), a term that is also em­ployed to designate the fruit of certain other plants.

  • CUCURBITAE

    Cross-Reference

    See CUCUMBER.

  • CULTURE

    Cross-Reference

    See FARHANG.

  • 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 CE), 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.

  • CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL

    Denis Wright

    (1859-1925), 1st Marquess of Kedleston, British statesman, traveler, and writer.

  • CUSTOMS DUTIES

    Willem Floor

    a tax levied on the movement of trade. A new law ensuring Persian autonomy in establishing tariffs (ḥoqūq-e gomrokī) was enacted on 1 May 1928; it provided for an ad valorem tariff on most goods, with special rates for certain luxuries like gold, silver, and tobacco.

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  • CUT PAPER

    Barbara Schmitz

    (qeṭʿa “decoupage,” also monabbat-kārī “filigree work”), a type of applied ornament documented in Persian manuscripts and sometimes on bookbindings from the approximate period 895-1060/1490-1650.

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