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DICHŌR, city conquered by Šāpūr I (240-70) during his second campaign against Rome in 253 (252, according to Balty), as recorded in his inscription atKaʿba-ye Zardošt(Parth. l. 7: dykwl, Gr. l. 16). The exact location in northern Syria or southeastern Asia Minor has not yet been established. Martin Sprengling’s identification…

DICKSON, MARTIN BERNARD (b. Brooklyn, 22 March 1924, d. Princeton, 14 May 1991), Iranist and Central Asianist who specialized in Safavid history. It was as a cryptographic technician for the OSS that he began his training in Persian at the University of Michigan (1943). He served in both the Asian…

DICTIONARIES i. Persian dictionaries. ii. Arabic-Persiandictionaries. iii. Bi/Multiligual dictionaries. iv. Specialized dictionaries. v. Slang dictionaries.   i. PERSIAN DICTIONARIES The history of Persian lexicography can be divided roughly into: 1. early lexicography in Persia; 2. lexicography in India; 3. lexicography in the Ottoman empire; and 4. modern lexicography in Persia….

DIDYMA (Gk. tà Dídyma, probably of Carian origin), district ca. 20 km south of the Ionian Miletus and site of a pre-Greek (Pausanias, 7.2.6) sanctuary of Apollo, to which a famous oracle was attached. Didyma was connected to Miletus by a partially paved sacred way via Panormus on the sea….

DIEU, LOUIS (LUDOVICUS) DE, Dutch Orientalist (b. Vlissingen, Flushing, April 7, 1590; d. Leiden, Dec. 23, 1642). His father Daniel de Dieu (1540-1607) was a Calvinist minister at Brussels, who in 1585 fled from the Spanish army to Flushing in the Protestant province of Zeeland. Louis studied theology and Oriental…

DIEULAFOY, JANE HENRIETTE MAGRE (b. Toulouse, 29 June 1851, d. Château de Langlade, Haute-Garonne, 25 May 1916), French archeologist, explorer, folklorist, novelist, playwright, and journalist. Jane was born into a wealthy and cultivated family of merchants. She studied at Couvent de l’Assomption d’Auteuil (1862-1870) in Paris. In May 1870, she…

DIEULAFOY, MARCEL-AUGUSTE, French archeologist (b. Toulouse, 3 August 1844, d. Paris, 25 February 1920). He thoroughly represented a generation of learned Frenchmen of the 19th century who were without university education and specialized training. But their familiarity with classical civilization combined with technical education led them to take an interest…

DIEZ, ERNST, Austrian historian of Iranian and Islamic art (b. 27 January 1878, d. 8 July 1961). Diez belonged to the first generation of European art historians, who, starting with studies in European art, soon developed an interest in Asian cultures. Diez studied with Josef Strzygowski in Graz until 1902…

DIGOR, Ossetic tribal name. The Digors, who number about 80,000 people or one-sixth of the Ossetic population, live mainly in the western districts of the former North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), at the upper reaches of the Iräf (Russ. Urukh) river, but also in the Mozdok region of…

DILL (ševed, ševīd, šebet, etc.), Anethum graveolens L. (fam. Umbellifera), an herb widely cultivated in Persia. The main use of its feathery leaves is as the sole herb in all dishes in which the main ingredient is fava beans (bāqelā), for example, bāqelā polow (pilau with fava beans), kūfta-ye ševed-bāqelā…

DIMDIM (Pers. Demdem or Domdom), name of a mountain and a fortress where an important battle between the Kurds and the Safavid army took place in the early 17th century. Mount Dimdim (elev. ca. 2,000 m) is located between the Bārāndūz river and the tributary Qāsemlū near the shore of…

DIM(I)LĪ (or Zāzā), the indigenous name of an Iranian people living mainly in eastern Anatolia, in the Dersim region (present-day Tunceli) between Erzincan (see ARZENJĀN) in the north and the Muratsu (Morādsū, Arm. Aracani) in the south, the far western part of historical Upper Armenia (Barjr Haykʿ). They are also…

DĪNMOḤAMMAD KHAN b. Olūs Khan, the Uzbek prince who, with his brother ʿAlī Solṭān, joined Shah Ṭahmāsb’s camp in 943/1536-37 during the latter’s campaign in Khorasan against ʿObayd-Allāh Khan, the Uzbek ruler of Bukhara. He was given the governorship of Nesā and Abīvard. In 945/1538-39 he regained Kᵛārazm from ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz,…