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CHARAX, town in the Seleucid and Parthian province of Rhagiana, the area around modern Ray. To judge from its Greek name, which probably means palisade, Charax was a fortified town. It was founded by one of the early Seleucids and, according to Ptolemy (Geography 6.5.4), was situated next to Apameia…

CHARCOAL (ḏoḡāl-e čūb, zoḡāl-e čūb), car­bonized wood and other vegetal material, an important household and industrial fuel in Persia and Afghanistan. Charcoal in Persia. Traditionally it has most often been made in open-pit kilns, each essentially a hole in the ground about 1 m deep. Kindling wood is placed in…

CHARDIN, Sir JOHN (born Paris, 6 Julian = 16 November 1643, died Chiswick, London? 25 December 1712 Julian = 5 January 1713 (the date of his death is uncertain; he was buried on 29 December 1712 Julian = 9 January 1713], an Huguenot jeweler who traveled extensively in Asia and…

CHARES OF MITYLENE (or Mytilene, as in Athenaeus, 7.4; 10.49, and Pliny, Natural History 1.12), Greek historiographer, who participated in Alexander’s expedition and wrote “Stories about Alexander” (Perì Aléxandron historíai) in ten (or perhaps eleven) books of which only nineteen fragments are now extant in citations and excerpts, mainly in…

CHARIOT (Av. raθa, vāša-, Mid. Pers. rah, wardyūn, etc.). Chariots in ancient Iran were light horse-drawn, two-wheeled vehicles designed for speed and maneuverability in battle and races. Originally devel­oped in Mesopotamia in the third millennium, chariots were built and driven with superlative skill by Indo­-Iranian peoples beginning sometime during the…

CHARITABLE FOUNDATIONS (MPers. ruwānagān lit. “relating to the soul”), pious endow­ments to benefit the souls of the dead, as specified by the individual founders. i. In the Sasanian period. ii. Among Zoroastrians in Islamic times. i. In the Sasanian Period One of the most striking features of Zoroastrianism is a…

CHARMS (< Lat. carmen “song, verse, incan­tation”; Pers. afsūn, “incantation,” damdam < Ar. damdama “disturbance”; Pers. and Ar. doʿā “prayer,” taʿwīḏ “charm, amulet,” ḥerz “protection,” verd [a section of the Koran or other spoken charm], ṭelesm < Gk. telesma “talisman”), originally verbal formulas recited to prevent or ward off potential...

CHARON OF LAMPSACUS (Gk. Khárōn ho Lampsakēnós), Greek historiographer, son of Pytho­cles (Suda, s.v.) or Pythes (Pausanias, 10.38.1). There is very little evidence about his life and literary produc­tion. Accounts differ especially over the precise dates at which he lived. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De Thucydide 5) only lists him among…

CHARPENTIER, JARL (Hellen Robert Toussaint; b. 17 December 1884, d. 5 July 1935), Swedish Indologist, Indo-Europeanist, and Iranist, born in Gothenburg as the son of an army officer. Charpentier matriculated at Uppsala University in 1902 and in 1908 earned his doctor’s degree there with the dissertation Studien zur indischen Erzählungsliteratur….

CHASE, thornton (b. Springfield, Mass., 22 February 1847), regarded by Bahais as the first Amer­ican Bahai and the first Bahai of the West. He was educated at Brown University and was a veteran of the American Civil War. After being attached to the Swedenborgian Church for a time, he became…

CHAVANNES, emmanuel-ıdouard (b. Lyons, France, 5 October 1865, d. Fontenay-aux-Roses, 29 January 1918), French sinologist who also contributed to the study of Iranian history and religions. After completing his education at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he became interested in China, Chavannes joined the French delegation to Peking…

CHEESE (Pers. panīr), with milk and other dairy products a significant part of the diet in Persia and Afghanistan (e.g., in the Qom area, where in 1348 Š./1969 they supplied between one-eighth and one-­quarter of average daily calories, depending on season, type of residence, and economic status; Bazin, 1973). Cheese…

CHESS, a board game known in Sanskrit as catur-aṅga- (“having four members,” a common designation for an army of four divisions); in Middle Persian as čatrang; in Persian as šatrang, šatranj, or šaṭranj; and in Arabic as al-šaṭranj or al-šeṭranj (whence Sp. ajedrez, OFr. eschez, Fr. échecs, Eng. chess, possibly…