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GUŠYĀR (Arabicized Kušyār) GILĀNI, ABU’L-ḤASAN B. LABBĀN b. BĀŠAHRI, an astronomer and mathematician from Gilān, whence his nesba Jili/Gilāni (fl. late 4th/late 10th-early 11th cent.). Next to nothing is known of his life; even his dates can only be determined approximately. Though it has been stated (Sezgin, GAS V, p….

GUTIANS, name used in ancient Mesopotamian texts to refer to a variety of people, mostly from the Zagros mountain area. In the astronomical and astrological literature of the first millennium B.C.E. from Babylonia (modern southern Iraq), the four cardinal points were indicated with the terms Amurru, Akkad, Elam, and Subartu….

GUTSCHMID, HERMANN ALFRED FREIHERR VON (b. Loschwitz near Dresden, 1 July 1831; d. Tübingen, 1 March 1887), classical scholar and ancient historian with a special interest in the Ancient Near East. Gutschmid began his studies in 1848 in Leipzig, where he obtained his doctorate in absentia in 1854, having in…

GÜYÜK KHAN (r. 644-46/1246-48), Mongol great khan (qaḡan), given posthumously the regnal title Ting-tsung. He was the eldest son of Ögödei (Ukadāy) by his chief wife Töregene (Turākina/ā Ḵātun), and was born in 1206 (Abramowski, p. 151). When his father ascended the imperial throne in 1229, he gave Güyük his…

GYPSUM (Pers. Gač; CaSo4.1/2H2O), produced from natural gypsum rock (pure CaSO4.2H2O) by firing in kilns or piles and subsequent pulverization by pounding and grinding. The addition of water during the building process returns the material to its solid consistency. Various processing qualities can be achieved by different firing temperatures, normally…

GYPSY. Gypsies are generally referred to by the term kowli in Persian, seemingly a distortion of kāboli, i.e., coming from Kabol, the capital of Afghanistan. It is not at all certain, however, that all the groups referred to as kowli are authentic gypsies; nor that only the groups referred to…

GYPSY i. GYPSIES OF PERSIA Gypsies are generally referred to by the term kowli in Persian, seemingly a distortion of kāboli, i.e., coming from Kabol, the capital of Afghanistan. It is not at all certain, however, that all the groups referred to as kowli are authentic gypsies; nor that only…

GYPSY ii. GYPSY DIALECTS The languages and dialects popularly called “Gypsy” (< Egipcien < qebṭi “Coptic, Egyptian”) constitute three major groups: Asiatic or Middle Eastern Domari, Armenian Lomavren, and European Romani, technical terms now used to reflect the speakers’ self-designations: Dom, Lom, and Roma, respectively. For Gypsy in Iranian-speaking areas...

G ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS   online entry caption text GABAIN, ANNEMARIE VON Figure 1. Photograph of Annemarie von Gabain. GABBA Plate I. Gabba, southwestern Persia(?), 19th century. Wool pile on wool warp and weft. 208.5 × 129.5 cm. The Textile Museum R33.00.4. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers. GABBA Plate…

GƎˊUŠ TAŠAN (the fashioner of the Cow), a divine craftsman who figures prominently in the Gathas (q.v.) of Zoroaster but falls into obscurity in the Younger Avesta, being there associated with the fourteenth day of the month, known in Middle Persian simply as Gōš. Through his poetry Zoroaster articulated a…

GƎˊUŠ URUUAN “the soul of the Cow,” the name of the archetypal Bovine, whose plight is a subject of Zoroaster’s gāθā (Y. 29), often identified as “the Cow’s Lament.” In this poem Zoroaster drew upon an old Indo-Iranian motif of a semi-divine cow. While the grammatical gender of gau- is…