Explore Iranica

ANSHAN (or ANZAN), the name of an important Elamite region in western Fārs and of its chief city. Akkadian and Sumerian texts of the late third millennium B.C. first attest the land of Anshan. Elamite rulers of the second millennium B.C. traditionally took the title King of Anzan and Shushan…

ANTHROPOLOGY (New Persian mardomšenāsī), social and cultural, in Iran and Afghanistan (see also Afghanistan iv). Anthropology as an Iranological discipline evolved from a Western interest in non-Western and especially non-literate societies; over the past fifty years it has developed a holistic and relativistic approach to the ethnographic description of life…

ANTHROPOMORPHISM in Iranian religions. Ahura Mazdā in the gāthās was conceived of, although invisible and immortal, as of human form, with eyes (Y.31.13), hands (43.4) and tongue in the mouth (31.3); but he was of gigantic size since he, or his Salutary Spirit, was said (30.5) to be clad in the…

ANTI-ALBORZ, the highland between Tehran and Semnān on the southern flank of the central Alborz range. The name, which has no equivalent term in Persian, was given to the region, on the analogy of the Anti-Atlas, by the French geologist André Rivière (“Contribution à l’étude géologique de l’Anti-Elbourz,” Bulletin de…

ANTIA, EDULJI KERSASPJI (1842-1913/1212-83 yazdegerdi), Parsi scholar, born of priestly stock in Navsari in Gujarat, where he received his early education, becoming ervad (priest) while studying at the Sir Cawasji Jehangir Zarthoshti Madressa, where Avesta and Pahlavi were taught on traditional lines. From there he went to Bombay becoming one…

ANTIOCH, town in northern Syria situated at the foot of Mount Silpius on the left bank of the Orontes (ʿĀṣī) near the Mediterranean coast. Known also as Antioch of Daphne, it was founded in 300 B.C. by Seleucus I Nicator, who named it Antiocheia (Ar. Anṭākīya) in honor of his…

ANTIOCH, city name given to a number of Seleucid foundations. Antioch in Persis, a settlement founded or refounded in Persis (Fārs) by the Seleucid king Antiochus I (324-263 B.C.). The city is attested in two Greek inscriptions from Magnesia on the Maeander. In the earlier of these Antiochus I applies…

ANTIOCHUS, name of thirteen kings of the Seleucid dynasty, several of whom were active in Iran. They are as follows: Antiochus I Soter Antiochus II Theos Antiochus III Megas Antiochus IV Epiphanes Nicephorus Antiochus V Eupator Antiochus VI Epiphanes Dionysus Antiochus VII Antiochus VIII Epiphanes Philometor Kallinikos Antiochus IX Philopator Antiochus…

ANTIOCHUS OF COMMAGENE (full title Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philoromaios Philhellen, Theos signifying his divinity), Seleucid ruler, the son of Mithradates Callinicos and Laodice, the daughter of the Seleucid king Antiochus VIII Grypos , reigned in Commagene from 69 (or, less probably, 64) to ca. 31 B.C. According to the horoscope…

ANTONY, MARK, Roman general (ca. 82-30 B.C.; Figure 1) who led a campaign in Armenia during the Parthian period. Following the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae (Ḥarrān) in 53 B.C., the Roman leadership sought a war of revenge. After Mark Antony became master of the East through a pact with…

ANŪŠA MOḤAMMAD B. ABU’L-ḠĀZĪ, ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR, Khan of Ḵīva 1074-98/1663-87. Anūša Moḥammad inherited his father’s rule in Ḵīva when the latter stepped aside in order to write history, study religion, and combat Kalmuk Mongol pagans and Iranian heterodoxy. Anūša’s first move was to reestablish relations with the Turkmen tribes that had…

ANUŠAWAN, grandson of Ara, legendary king of Armenia, called sawsanuēr “devoted to the plane tree” (Arm. saws-i; for a derivation from Iranian, see H. W. Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge, 1979, p. 428, s.v. sūṣṭa) because of his divination from the soughing of the leaves of the tree in…

ANŪŠERVĀN B. MANŪČEHR B. QĀBŪS, ruler of the Daylamī dynasty of the Ziyarids in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān during the early 5th/11th century. He was the grandson of the celebrated amir and prose stylist, Šams-al-Maʿālī Qābūs b. Vošmgīr, and his father, Manūčehr, was the son-in-law of Maḥmūd of Ḡazna. Toward the…

ANŪŠERVĀN B. ḴĀLED B. MOḤAMMAD KĀŠĀNĪ, ABŪ NAṢR ŠARAF-AL-DĪN, high official who served the Great Saljuq sultans and the ʿAbbasid caliph during the first half of the 6th/12th century. He was born at Ray in 459/1066-67; the date of his death at Baghdad is variously given as 532/1137-38 and 533/1138-39….