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CRYSTAL, ROCK (bolūr, bolūr-e kūhī), a pure, transparent variety of quartz (SiO2; see, e.g., Encyclo­pedia Americana, s.v. quartz), usually called “rock crystal” to distinguish it from crystal glass. The Persian term for “rock crystal,” bolūr (Pahl. bēlūr), was ultimately borrowed from Sanskrit vaiḍūrya; Ara­bic ballūr or bellawr was probably borrowed from…

CTESIAS (Gk. Ktēsías), Greek physician at the Achaemenid court and author of Persiká, who be­longed to the Cnidian school of physicians, which claimed to originate with the god Asclepius himself (Galen, XVIII.A, ed. Kühn, p. 731); he was the son of a certain Ctesiarchus or Ctesiochus (Suda, s.v.; cf. Lucianus,…

CTESIPHON (Ṭīsfūn), ancient city on the Tigris adjacent to the Hellenistic city of Seleucia, ca. 35 km south of the later site of Baghdad. The origin and meaning of the name is unknown (for the forms, see Honigmann, cols. 1102-03; Markwart, Provincial Capitals, pp. 60-61). In the Greek sources it…

ČŪB-BĀZĪ (“stick game”; also raqṣ-e čūb “stick dance”), 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. Some writers have suggested that these dances may all have originated in…

ČŪB-ḴAṬṬ (or čūḵaṭṭ; var. čūb-qaṭṭ; Dehḵodā, s.v.; in Šūštar, Kāzerūn, and other parts of southern Persia kana; Nīrūmand, pp. 150, 382; Behrūzī, pp. 224-25, 486), a stick 20-30 cm long formerly used by neighborhood shopkeepers, especially butchers and bakers, to keep individual charge accounts. In Af­ghanistan it was also used…

Čub-bāzi title Čub-bāzi genre/topic Dance language   performer Ğolām ‘Ali Ney-navāz, sornā Abbās Ney-navāz, dohol instrument Sornā; Dohol composer   author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 1:58 source Torbat-e Jām Dances East Khorāsān. Mahoor Institute of Culture…

CUCUMBER, 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 (see below). Words for cucumber in Middle and New Persian. In the Bundahišn the wādrang “cucumber” is listed as one…

CUMIN (Pers. zīra, Ar. kammūn; Cuminum cyminum L.), an umbelliferous plant of the Old World and its aromatic seeds. In Persia the word zīra/žīra (cf. Hindi/Urdu jīrā < Sk. jīraka “cumin seed”) also desig­nates caraway seeds (Ar. karāwīā, with variants), Carum carvi L., another umbellifer. The two species are usually...

CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE (b. Aalst, Bel­gium, 3 January 1868, d. Brussels, 20 August 1947), 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. After studying in Ghent, Bonn, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and…

CUNAXA, the Greek form (attested only in Plutarch, Artoxerxes 8) of the name (< Aram. keništa “syna­gogue”; Barnett, p. 16) 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, 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; the tablets were then dried in the sun…

ČŪPĀN (or čōbān “shepherd”; Mid. Pers. and NPers. šobān; Orm. ṧwan, čupān, špōn; Yid. čupān, xəš(u)wān; Shugh., ṧibōne, čupān; Par. xuwān; Pashto špə; Wakhi špün; Chr. Sogd. xwšpʾn; see Morgenstierne, I, pp. 301, 392, 409, II, pp. 202, 270, 542; Bailey, Dictionary, p. 434; Horn, Etymologie, pp. 171, 287; Doerfer,…