Topic: religion (15)

• ConceptAhura Mazdā

  The supreme god of the Achaemenid kings, the "Wise Lord", named at the head of the royal inscriptions as creator of earth, heaven, and man, and as the god who bestows kingship and upholds order against the Lie.

• ConceptArta (Truth, right order)

  The Iranian principle of truth, righteousness, and cosmic and social order, opposed to the Lie (drauga); the moral axis of Achaemenid royal ideology and, later, a central concept of Zoroastrianism.

• PersonDarius I

  The third and greatest of the Achaemenid Great Kings (r. 522–486 BCE), who seized a contested throne, reorganised the empire into its lasting administrative shape, and made the war of Truth against the Lie the public creed of his kingship.

• ObjectGold plaque of a barsom-bearer (Oxus Treasure)

  One of the small gold votive plaques of the Oxus Treasure showing a figure in Median dress holding a bundle of rods — the barsom of Iranian ritual; the clearest surviving material image of the rite the texts describe.

• SourceHerodotus, The Histories

  The earliest surviving Greek history, and the fullest classical account of the Persians — their rise, their customs and religion, and the wars with Greece; indispensable, endlessly informative, and to be read with a critical eye as an outsider's report.

• ConceptMithra

  The ancient Iranian god of covenant, the sworn oath and the light of the sun; the all-seeing guardian who punishes the oath-breaker, invoked in royal inscriptions from Artaxerxes II onward and woven through the Achaemenid ethic of good faith.

• PlaceNaqsh-e Rostam

  The cliff a few kilometres from Persepolis where the great Achaemenid kings were entombed; the tomb of Darius I carries the DNa and DNb inscriptions and a relief of the king at worship before the fire beneath the winged symbol — the fullest single image of Achaemenid royal religion.

• Survey essayReligion & the Lie: the Achaemenid religious world

  A survey of Achaemenid religion: the worship of Ahura Mazdā and the ideology of Truth against the Lie; the Magi and their rites of fire, oath, and death; the toleration of subject gods; and the vexed question of the kings' relationship to Zoroaster.

• EventThe Accession of Darius (522 BCE)

  The violent, contested seizure of the Achaemenid throne in 522 BCE — the killing of a king said to be an impostor magus, and the founding case of the Achaemenid ideology of the Truth against the Lie; whether Darius told the truth about it is itself disputed.

• SourceThe Behistun Inscription (DB)

  Darius I's monumental cliff-relief and trilingual inscription recounting his seizure and defence of the throne against Gaumāta and a wave of rebels; the single most important primary source for the reign, and the key that deciphered cuneiform.

• ConceptThe Drauga (the Lie)

  The Iranian principle of falsehood and disorder, the cosmic and political adversary of arta (Truth); in Darius's Behistun inscription, the force embodied by every rebel and pretender against the rightful king.

• PeopleThe Magi

  The hereditary Iranian priestly class (originally, Herodotus says, a Median tribe) who conducted sacrifice, tended the sacred fire, interpreted dreams and omens, and presided over rites of birth, oath, and death in the Achaemenid world.

• ConceptThe Sacred Fire

  Fire, the purest of the creations and the visible focus of Iranian worship, tended by the Magi in the open air at stone fire-holders; the enclosed fire-temple of later Zoroastrianism is a Sasanian development and an anachronism for the Achaemenid period.

• ArtworkThe Winged Symbol (the figure in the winged ring)

  The winged ring, often enclosing a robed male figure, that hovers above the king at Behistun, Persepolis and the royal tombs; the Achaemenid sign of divine sanction, whose precise identity — Ahura Mazdā, the royal glory, or a general emblem of god-given kingship — is genuinely unresolved.

• PersonZarathustra

  The Iranian prophet whose hymns, the Gāthās, exalt Ahura Mazdā and the choice between Truth and the Lie; his date, homeland and exact relation to Achaemenid religion are among the most disputed questions in the field.