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CUPBEARER, Parthian tkrpty, loanword in Ar­menian takarāpet (cf. Pers. taḡār “trough,” Arm. takaṟ “barrel”; Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, p. 251 no. 639). The Parthian form is attested as the title of one *Zødkirt in the inscription of Narseh at Paikuli (ca. 293 c.e.), in a list of officials, following the scribe…

CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS (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. Although virtually nothing of Curtius Rufus’ life is known, literary parallels, as…

CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL, 1st Marquess of Kedleston (b. Kedleston, Darbyshire, England, 11 January 1859, d. London, 30 March 1925), statesman, traveler, and writer. The eldest son of the fourth Baron Scarsdale of Kedleston, Derbyshire, where the family owned land and had been settled since the 12th cen­tury, Curzon, like others…

CUSTOMS DUTIES (bāj-e rāh, rāh-dārī), a tax levied on the movement of trade. Pre-Islamic Persia. There are no data available on customs duties in the Achaemenid empire. Although subjects of the empire engaged in foreign trade (see commerce ii), there is no information on how it was taxed. Under the…

CUT PAPER (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; in Turkey the art of qeṭʿa (katı) continued into the 19th century and included a greater variety of subjects (Çiğ; Rogers, pp. 18-23, 34;…

CYAXARES (Gk. Kyaxárēs, Herodotus’ transcription of OIr. *hUvaxštra, a name rendered in Akkadian as mÚ-ak-sa-tar, mUk-sa-tar, mÚ-ma-ku-iš-tar, in Elamite as Ma-ki-iš-tur-ri, Ma-ak-iš-tar-ra [-m- to be read (-w-)], Old Phrygian ksuwaksaros; the etymology is obscure; see Iranisches Personennamenbuch I/2, p. 27, V/4, p. 34, cf. p. 27: evidence in Lycian?), king…

CYLINDER SEALS. The seals of Persia correspond in their types and use to those of Mesopotamia, beginning with amuletic pendants, which could also be used as seals, and developing into elaborately engraved seal stones, with a change in the Uruk period from stamp to cylinder seals. The latter seal form…

CYPRESS (sarv), Cupressus (Tourn.) L. The genus Cupressus is represented in Persia by one spe­cies (sempervirens L.), with three varieties: the cereiform (cereiformis Rehd.), called sarv-e nāz in Shiraz; the more common pyramidal or fastigiate, variously called sarv-e šīrāzī (Shiraz cypress) and sarv-e kāšī (Kāšān cypress); and the horizontal, known…

CYPRUS, an island in the eastern Mediterranean off the southern coast of central Anatolia, not men­tioned in any of the Old Persian imperial inscriptions but under Achaemenid control from the reign of Cambyses son of Cyrus (520s B.C.E.) to the reign of Darius III (336-31 B.C.E.). It was never organized…

CYPRUS, ISLAND OF, in the Achaemenid period. The kings of the southeastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus reportedly submitted willingly to Cyrus II (see CYRUS iii) and offered military assistance to the Persians in their campaigns against Caria and Babylon (539 BCE) (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.4.2 and 8.6.8, with the comments of Stylianou,…

CYRIACUS AND JULITTA, ACTS OF, Chris­tian martyrological text. The Greek original is lost, but versions survive in several languages, including Latin, Armenian, Syriac, and Arabic. Part of a Sogdian version, translated from the Syriac, is extant in a fragment with the signature T ii B 60 [No. 13] (unpub­lished; preserved…

CYROPAEDIA (Gr. Kúrou paideía, The educa­tion of Cyrus), a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great (559-29 b.c.e.), founder of the Achaemenid empire. It is the longest work written by the Athenian gentleman, soldier, and writer Xenophon (b. ca. 430­-25 b.c.e., d. after 356), who served in the expedition of…

CYROPOLIS (Latin form of Gr. Kuroúpolis), ancient town in Central Asia probably founded by Cyrus the Great (559-30 b.c.e.). The alterna­tive name Kuréschata [for another town of the same name see below] probably reflects Iranian *Kuru(š)-­kaθa-, lit. “the (reinforced) settlement of Kuruš/Cyrus” (Benveniste, pp, 163-65; Abaev), but was interpreted by…