Table of Contents

• COURTS AND COURTIERS iv. Under the Mongols

  Peter Jackson

  During the early stages of the Mongol presence Persia was ruled, on behalf of the great khan (qaḡan, qaʾan/qāʾān) in Mongolia, by military governors based in Azerbaijan and in Khorasan, but, with the coming of Hülegü (Hūlāgū) in 654/1256 and the establishment of the Il-khanid state, the country was once again the seat of a resident sovereign.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS v. Under the Timurid and Turkman dynasties

  Monika Gronke

  Timurid and Turkman rulers and princes established outside of Samarquand and built them into important political and especially religious and cultural centers.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS vi. In the Safavid period

  Roger M. Savory

  The organization of the court and its administration.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS vii. In the Qajar period

  Abbas Amanat

  The court (darbār, darbār-e aʿẓam, dar(b)-e ḵāna) in the Qajar period was essentially organized on the ancient Perso-Turkish model inherited from the Safavid and Zand courts but with modifications in practice and function largely designed to accommo­date the Qajars’ nomadic habits.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS viii. In the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavī

  A. Reza Sheikholeslami

  When Reżā Shah (r. 1304-20 Š./1925-1941) acceded to the throne he retained a number of lower officials from the royal court of the Qajars, specifically those who had not been vocal in support of republicanism.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS x. Court poetry

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  Until modern times there were strong incentives to patronize poets and other writers wherever the seat of power was renowned as a center of culture.

• COURTS OF LAW

  Cross-Reference

  See JUDICIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS v. Judicial System in the 20th Century.

• ČOVĀRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See LORESTĀN.

• COW

  Cross-Reference

  See CATTLE.

• COWELL, EDWARD BYLES

  Parvin Loloi

  (1826-1903), polymath, scholar, and translator from Indian languages and Persian.

• ČOWGĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See POLO.

  Article Pending.

• COX, PERCY ZACHARIAH

  Floreeda Safiri

  (1864-1937), Sir, officer of the political service in the British Indian government who held several diplomatic posts in the Persian Gulf re­gion in 1893-1923 and played a leading role in nego­tiating the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919.

• COYAJEE, JEHANGIR COOVERJI

  Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

  (1875-1943), Sir, Parsi economist and student of ancient Iranian mythology.

• CRAFTS

  compiled from personal observations and reports by Carole Bier, Mehdī Ebrāhīmīān, Iran Ala Firouz, and Jay Gluck.

  Although crafts have always played a predominant role in the artistic history of Persia, in this century new market forces and social currents have interacted with deeply rooted traditions to produce new types of objects, as well as variations on more familiar ones.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CRANE

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (kolang), any of the large migratory wading birds of the family Gruidae. The kolang is mentioned in the Bundahišn as one of 110 species of birds. In classi­cal Persian poetry the crane’s ability to fly high and far; its order, discipline, and characteristic whooping sounds in flight are mentioned.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CRASSUS

  Cross-Reference

  See CARRHAE.

• CREATION

  Cross-Reference

  See COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY.

• CREMATION

  Cross-Reference

  See BURIAL.

• CRIMEAN TATAR

  Dan D.Y. Shapira

  (Krim-Tatar, Qırım-Tatar), name for various Turkic peoples who moved to the Crimean peninsula in the past and are now in other areas as well.

• CRIMINAL LAW

  Cross-Reference

  See JUDICIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS v. Judicial System in the 20th Century.

• CRIMINOLOGY

  Parviz Saney

  the study of the causation, prevention, and correction of crime.

• CROCODILE

  S. C. Anderson

  (nahang, Baluchi gandū), Croco­dylus palustris, the marsh crocodile. It inhabits fresh-water marshes, pools, and rivers, and probably the only suitable croco­dile habitat in Persian Baluchistan is along the Sarbāz river. The present intermittent distribution of this species in Pakistan and Persian Baluchistan represents a fragmentation of a once more continuous range during moister climatic regimes in the recent past.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROCUS

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  generic name of a large number of hardy bulbous flowering plants of the family Iridaceae.

• CROESUS

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  last king of Lydia (r. ca. 560-546 B.C.E.) who pioneered the coining of gold and silver money, was defeated and captured by Cyrus in the plain beside Sardis.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROSBY, OSCAR TERRY

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  (born Ponchatoula, Loui­siana, 21 April 1861, d. Warrenton, Virginia, 2 Janu­ary 1947), collector of an important group of Khotanese texts.

• CROW

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a bird of the family Corvidae, represented in Persia and Afghanistan by six genera. Several of their features are more or less reflected in Persian literature and folklore. In poetry the blackness of  the feathers (par[r]-e zāḡ) has often been used in similes to emphasize the blackness or darkness of a lock of hair, a certain night, clouds, and the like.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN

  Multiple Authors

  (Pers. and Ar. tāj), royal and divine headdress.

• CROWN i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Peter Calmeyer

  In the Achaemenid period rulers were represented wearing two different kinds of crown. Most common was a rigid cylinder with crenellated decoration, which had a long tradition in Persia; crenellations appeared on the Elamite rock relief at Kūrāngūn in Fārs and were revived again for the crown of the Pahlavi dynasty.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN ii. From the Seleucids to the Islamic conquest

  Elsie H. Peck

  It was under the Sasanian mon­archs that the crown, quintessential symbol of royal power, received its most elaborate and varied forms. From the earliest representations it is clear that new shapes were not adopted immediately; rather, the royal headgear of the conquered enemy was at first contin­ued.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN iii. On monuments from the Islamic conquest to the Mongol invasion

  Elsie H. Peck

  One of the most durable types of royal headgear was the winged crown, first observed on coins and reliefs of the Sasanian Bahrām II. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN iv. Of Persian rulers from the Arab conquerors

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  Despite abhorrence of imperial titles and regalia in early Islamic traditions, Omayyad and ʿAbbasid governors, and the rulers of Ṭabarestān, continued to employ on their coins the iconography of the coins of the Sasanian rulers Ḵosrow II and Yazdegerd III.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN LANDS

  Cross-Reference

  See ḴĀṢṢA.

• CROWN v. In the Qajar and Pahlavi periods

  Yaḥyā Ḏokāʾ

  Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) ordered the cre­ation of a tall, jeweled crown with eight peaks on a red velvet cap, the Kayānī crown. From that time on all Qajar kings wore this crown, which is now kept in the Bānk-e markazī-e Īrān (Central bank of Iran).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CROWN JEWELS of Persia

  Patricia Jellicoe

  the assemblage of jewels collected by the kings of Persia, kept now in the Bānk-e markazī-e Īrān (Central bank of Iran) in Tehran.

• CROWN PRINCE

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the officially recognized heir apparent to the throne.

• CROYANCES ET COUTUMES PERSANES

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  by the French orientalist Henri Massé (b. Lunéville, France, 2 March 1886, d. Paris, 9 November 1969), published in 1938, one of the most compre­hensive and reliable texts on general Persian folklore in a Western language.

• CRUSADES

  Peter Jackson

  in relation to Persia; the term “crusade” refers to a series of Christian holy wars fought in the Middle Ages against the Muslims in Syria and Palestine and subsequently elsewhere in the Near East and, by extension, to wars against other enemies, both within and outside Christendom, that were put on the same spiritual footing by the popes.

• CRYSTAL

  Layla S. Diba

  originally a type of fine glass developed in England in the 17th century and owing its special clarity and brilliance to the high refractive index of lead oxide in the metal; the term is often applied to fine glass in general.

• CRYSTAL, ROCK

  Brigitte Musche, Jens Kröger

  a pure, transparent variety of quartz, usually called “rock crystal” to distinguish it from crystal glass.

• CTESIAS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (Gk. Ktēsías),  Greek physician at the Achaemenid court and author of Persiká (b. perhaps ca. 441 BCE).

• CTESIPHON

  Jens Kröger

  (Ṭīsfūn), ancient city on the Tigris adjacent to the Hellenistic city of Seleucia, ca. 35 km south of the later site of Baghdad.

• ČŪB BĀZĪ

  Robyn C. Friend

  a category of folk dance found all over Persia (Hamada) and distinguished from other types of folk dance by the fact that the dancers carry sticks, which they strike together.

• ČŪB ḴAṬṬ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yusofi

  a stick 20-30 cm long formerly used by neighborhood shopkeepers, especially butchers and bakers, to keep accounts.

• Čub-bāzi

  music sample

• CUCUMBER

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  Cucumis sativus L. (of the family Cucurbitaceae), in Persia generally called ḵīār (with occasional slight variants), a term that is also em­ployed to designate the fruit of certain other plants.

• CUCURBITAE

  Cross-Reference

  See CUCUMBER.

• CULTURE

  Cross-Reference

  See FARHANG.

• CUMIN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an umbelliferous plant of the Old World and its aromatic seeds.

• CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  classical philologist and historian of religions, whose research resulted in a substantial contribution to the understanding of Mithraism and other oriental reli­gions in the Roman empire.

• CUNAXA

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the Greek form of the name of a village located some 50 miles north of Babylon, where a decisive battle was fought on 3 September 401 B.C.E. between Cyrus the Younger and his brother Artaxerxes II.

• CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the conventional name for a system of writing ultimately derived from the pictographic script developed by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (Uruk) around 3000 B.C.E. Cuneiform was written with a reed stylus, which left wedge-shaped impressions on soft clay tablets.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ČŪPA

  Cross-Reference

  See DANCE.

• ČŪPĀN

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  or čōbān “shepherd” (Mid. Pers. and NPers. šobān); even today the shepherd remains a central figure, in both the technological life and consequently the symbolic life, of all systems of animal husbandry.

• ČUPĀNĪĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See CHOBANIDS; ČOBĀN.

• CUPBEARER

  James R. Russel

  one who fills and distributes cups of wine, as in a royal household.

• CUPPING

  Cross-Reference

  See BLOODLETTING.

• CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS

  Philip Huyse

  (probably fl. 1st century CE), author of the only extant Latin mono­graph on Alexander the Great, usually called Historiae Alexandri Magni, in many respects the most complete and liveliest account of Alexander’s exploits in Asia.

• CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL

  Denis Wright

  (1859-1925), 1st Marquess of Kedleston, British statesman, traveler, and writer.

• CUSTOMS DUTIES

  Willem Floor

  a tax levied on the movement of trade. A new law ensuring Persian autonomy in establishing tariffs (ḥoqūq-e gomrokī) was enacted on 1 May 1928; it provided for an ad valorem tariff on most goods, with special rates for certain luxuries like gold, silver, and tobacco.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CUT PAPER

  Barbara Schmitz

  (qeṭʿa “decoupage,” also monabbat-kārī “filigree work”), a type of applied ornament documented in Persian manuscripts and sometimes on bookbindings from the approximate period 895-1060/1490-1650.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYAXARES

  I. M. Diakonoff

  (Gk. Kyaxárēs) king of Media in the 6th century B.C.E.

• CYLINDER SEALS

  Edith Porada

  CYLINDER SEALS. The seals of ancient Persia correspond in their types and use to those of Mesopotamia, beginning with amuletic pendants, which could also be used as seals, and developing into elaborately engraved seal stones, with a change in the Uruk period from stamp to cylinder seals.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYPRESS

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (sarv), Cupressus (Tourn.) L. The genus Cupressus is represented in Persia by one spe­cies (sempervirens L.), with three varieties: the cereiform (cereiformis Rehd.), called sarv-e nāz in Shiraz; the more common pyramidal or fastigiate, variously called sarv-e šīrāzī (Shiraz cypress) and sarv-e kāšī (Kāšān cypress); and the horizontal, known popularly by several names but usually referred to as zarbīn by modern Persian botanists.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYPRUS

  Michael Weiskopf

  The historical tradition, preserved for the most part by Diodorys Siculus, was much influenced by Isocrates’ erroneous perception of the Achaemenid empire as in a state of decline, seething with discontent and secret disloyalty to the great king.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYPRUS in the Achaemenid Period

  Antigone Zournatzi

  in the Achaemenid period. The kings of the southeastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus reportedly submitted willingly to Cyrus II and offered military assistance to the Persians in their campaigns against Caria and Babylon (539 BCE).

• CYRIACUS AND JULITTA, ACTS OF

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  Chris­tian martyrological text.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYROPAEDIA

  Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg

  (Gr. Kúrou paideía, The educa­tion of Cyrus), a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great (559-29 b.c.e.), founder of the Achaemenid empire.

• CYROPOLIS

  Igor V. P’yankov

  (Latin form of Gr. Kuroúpolis), ancient town in Central Asia probably founded by Cyrus the Great (559-30 B.C.E.).

• CYRTIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  a tribe dwell­ing mainly in the mountains of Atropatenian Media together with the Cadusii, Amardi (or “Mardi”), Tapyri, and others.

• CYRUS

  Multiple Authors

  a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great.

• CYRUS i. The Name

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Cyrus is a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great and of the second son of Darius II.

• CYRUS ii. Cyrus I

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The evidence on the early Achaemenid king Cyrus I is as follows. Herodotus attested that Cyrus the Great was the son of Cambyses and grandson of Cyrus.

• CYRUS iii. Cyrus II The Great

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  Cyrus II the Great (also known to the Greeks as Cyrus the Elder; b. ca. 600 B.C.E., d. 530 B.C.E.) was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

• CYRUS iiia. Cyrus II as Portrayed by Xenophon and Herodotus

  Robert Faulkner

  Xenophon, in his work The Education of Cyrus, makes Cyrus’s imperial founding the theme of a biography; for Herodotus, that founding dominates only Book 1 of nine parts apparently devoted to the Persian-Greek wars decades later.

• CYRUS iv. The Cyrus cylinder

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  The Cyrus cylinder is a fragmentary clay cylinder with an Akkadian inscription of thirty-five lines discovered in a foundation deposit by A. H. Rassam during his excavations at the site of the Marduk temple in Babylon in 1879.

• CYRUS v. The Tomb of Cyrus

  Antigoni Zournatzi

  The tomb of Cyrus is generally identified with a small stone monument approximately 1 km southwest of the palaces of Pasargadae, in the center of the Morḡāb plain. According to Greek sources, the tomb of Cyrus II 559-29 B.C.E.) was located in the royal park at Pasargadae.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CYRUS vi. Cyrus the Younger

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (ca. 423-01 b.c.e.),  the second of the four sons of Darius II (ca. 424-05) and Parysatis and a younger brother of Arsaces/Arsicas, later Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8).

• CYRUS RIVER (1)

  Cross-reference

  River in Fārs. See KOR.

• CYRUS RIVER (2)

  Cross-reference

  River in Central Asia. See KURA.

• Čahār pāra

  music sample

• Čahārmezrāb-e Homāyun

  music sample

• Čahāršamba-suri

  music sample

• Čakāvak

  music sample

• Chahārgāh

  music sample

• Čol Iroq

  music sample

• C~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the letter C entries