Table of Contents

• CASARTELLI, LOUIS CHARLES

  Antonio Panaino

  (1852-1925), scholar of ancient Iranian languages and religions and particularly of Pahlavi literature.

• CASES

  Gernot L. Windfuhr

  term "case" used on at least three linguistic levels: 1. semantic role of a noun (phrase), such as agent, patient, experiencer, and possessor; 2. syntactic function, such as subject, direct object, and indirect object; 3. morphological means, such as nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.

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• ČAŠM-PEZEŠKĪ

  Ṣādeq Sajjādī

  ophthalmology.

• ČAŠM-ZAḴM

  Ebrāhīm Šakūrzāda and Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (lit. “a blow by the eye”), the evil eye: the supposed power of an individual to cause harm, even illness or death, to another person (or animals and other possessions) merely by looking at him or complimenting him.

• ČAŠMA

  Eckart Ehlers

  “spring.”  Iran and Afghanistan, as well as wide parts of Central Asia, have a great variety of natural springs. A very general classification divides all springs into (1) those produced by gravity acting on the groundwater, (2) those that have their origins in tectonic volcanic forces within the earth’s crust.

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• ČAŠMA(-YE) ʿALĪ

  Abbas Alizadeh

  lit. “fountain of ʿAlī,” the name for various natural springs in Iran, the two best-known of which are located near Dāmḡān and Ray respectively.

• ČAŠMHĀYAŠ

  Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar

  (1952; tr. by John O’Kane as Her Eyes, 1989), a novel considered by many critics as the most important contribution of the noted Persian novelist Bozorg Alavi.

• ČĀŠNĪGĪR

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  literally “taster” (Pers. čāšnī “taste”), the official who at the court of Turkish dynasties in Iran and elsewhere, from the Saljuq period onwards, had the responsibility of tasting the ruler’s food and drink in order to ensure that it was not poisoned.

• CASPIAN DIALECTS

  cross-reference

  Iranian dialects spoken along the Caspian littoral, including Ṭāleši, Gīlakī, Māzandarāni, and related subdialects, and the extinct dialect of Ṭabarestān. See individual entries.

• CASPIAN GATES

  John H. Hansman

  an ancient toponym identifying a ground-level pass that runs east and west through a southern spur of the Alborz Mountains in north central Iran.

• CASPIAN SEA

  Multiple Authors

  actually a lake, the largest in the world (estimated surface area in 1986: 378,400 km², volume 78,600 km³; approx. between lat 37° and 47° N, long 46° and 54° E); it is bounded on the south by Persia.

• CASPIAN SEA i. GEOGRAPHY

  Xavier de Planhol

  The Caspian “sea” consists of three distinct basins, each characterized by different features. hese differences are reflected in the levels of salinity. 

• CASPIAN SEA ii. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY IN MODERN TIMES

  Guive Mirfendereski

  A new area of sub-systemic studies in international relations, which encompasses the Caspian basin and its immediate surroundings, emerged in the post-Soviet Union era.

• CASPIAN SEAL

  Eskandar Firouz

  (Phoca caspica), the only mammal in the Caspian Sea. It is a relict species, endemic to the Caspian Sea and the deltas of rivers that discharge into it—the region where its ancestors lived when the sea was still connected to the oceans.

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• CASPIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name of an ancient people dwelling along the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, whether north or south of the river Kura is not clear.

• CASSANDANE

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  wife of Cyrus II, an Achaemenian, sister of Otanes and daughter of Pharnaspes.

• CASSIA

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a genus of shrubs and trees of the family Leguminosae (or Caesalpiniaceae in some classifications).

• CASSIODORUS, Magnus Aurelius

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  (b. ca. 485, d. after A.D. 580), Latin author of three historical works containing material on Iran.

• CASTLES

  Wolfram Kleiss

  primarily fortified country manors but also permanently inhabited defensive installations, maintained by the authorities along important land routes, and urban citadels, which functioned as administrative centers and places of refuge for inhabitants under siege, particularly in prehistoric and early historic times.

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• CASTOLUS

  Michael Weiskopf

  a plain east of Sardis, site of the mustering of troops from the satrapy of Sparda (Lydia) during Achaemenid times.