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PAVRY, BAPSY CURSETJI (b. 1902; d. Bombay, India, 1995; PLATE I), daughter of Parsi Zoroastrian Dastur Cursetji Erachji Pavry (1859-1947). She was a student of A.V. Williams Jackson at Columbia University, at the same time as her brother, Jal Dastur Cursetji Pavry (1889-1985). A former pupil of Queen Mary High…

PAYĀM-E MAŠREQ, title of a collection of Persian verse, by Muhammad Iqbal. Iqbal begins his Urdu preface to the work with the following words: “The Payām-e Mašreq owes its inspiration to the Western Divān of Goethe, the German philosopher of life, about which the Israelite poet of Germany, Heine, says:…

PAYANDEH, Abu’l-Qasem (Abu’l-Qāsem Pāyanda, b. Jowzān, Najfābād, 1908 or 1911; d. Tehran, 8 September 1984), journalist, translator, and fiction writer. Payandeh was taught reading and writing in a traditional elementary school (maktab; see EDUCATION iii) at his birthplace. In 1922 he went to Isfahan, where he received a traditional education…

PEARL (dorr, loʾloʾ [both large pearls], marjān [small pearls]). i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD In modern Persia the term morvārid is generally used to designate the “oriental pearl” (see Gershevitch). Such pearls are hard, shiny grains, rarely larger than a seed, that grow in the shells of many species of shellfish, especially…

PEARL ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD Introduction. In the Islamic era pearls have been widely used as jewels. They have been pierced and strung to make necklaces or sewn onto textiles (garments, tents, cushions); used to decorate hats, crowns, daggers, and scabbards; employed in a wide array of other objects of art;…

PEJMAN-E BAKHTIARI, HOSAYN (Ḥosayn Pežmān-e Baḵtiāri, b. Tehran, Ābān 1279 Š./November 1900; d. Tehran, Āḏar 1353 Š./December 1974), prominent poet, lyricist, writer and  translator. LIFE Hosayn Bakhtiari (better known as Pejman-e Bakhtiari) was the only child born to ʿAli-Morād Khan Mirpanj-e Baḵtiāri (d. 1909), constitutionalist and noted khan of the…

PELLIOT, PAUL (b. 28 May, 1878, d. 26 Oct. 1945), French orientalist who particularly contributed to the study of the languages and the history of the diverse religions and cultures of Central Asia. Trained as a Sinologist, Pelliot arrived in China in 1900 via Vietnam in time to be trapped…

PERICLES (ca. 495-429 B.C.E.), Athenian politician and commander. His father, Xanthippus, after playing the leading role in the victory of Mycale, which destroyed the Persian army of Asia Minor and the Phoenician fleet, and seizing Sestos for the Athenians, had successfully prosecuted Miltiades, the victor of Marathon (all 489 B.C.E.)….

PERIKHANIAN, ANAHIT  (b. Moscow, 24 April 1928; d. Saint Petersburg, 27 May 2012; Figure 1), scholar of Iranian studies, specializing in Sasanian jurisprudence, history, and society.  She was born into the Russian family (of Armenian origin) of Georg Perikhanian, an electrical engineer, and Arusyak, a physician. Anahit Georgievna Perikhanian went…

PERROT, JEAN (b. Besançon, France, 10 June 1920; d. Paris, 26 December 2012; Figure 1), French archeologist and the last director of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran (1968-83). Jean Perrot was born in a small village near Besançon in eastern France.  His parents were both schoolteachers, and he was the…

PERSEPOLIS (called Taḵt-e Jamšid “Jamšid’s Throne” in Persian), the ruined monuments of the acropolis of the city of Pārsa, the dynastic center of the Achaemenid Persian kings, located in the plain of Marvdašt, some 57 km northeast of Shiraz. One of the best-known sites of the ancient world (FIGURE 1),…

PERSEPOLIS ADMINISTRATIVE ARCHIVES, two groups of clay tablets, fragments, and sealings produced and stored by administrative agencies based at Persepolis. The groups are named for their find spots: the Persepolis Fortification Archive (Figure 1, A) and the Persepolis Treasury Archive (Figure 1, B). Clay sealings found elsewhere in the fortification…

PERSEPOLIS ELAMITE TABLETS, administrative records in Elamite inscribed on clay tablets. Parts of two archives of such tablets were discovered in Persepolis in 1933-34 and 1936-38 by the archaeological expedition of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. They belonged to administrative records kept by agencies of the Achaemenid…