Table of Contents
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PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN v. SASANIAN PERIOD
Rüdiger Schmitt
For Sasanian times, priority treatment must be given to the names attested in non-literary, that is, epigraphic sources (in the broadest sense of the word).
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PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN vi. ARMENIAN NAMES OF IRANIAN ORIGIN
Rüdiger Schmitt
Linguistic research has documented that the majority of Iranian lexical and other borrowings in Armenian originated in the Parthian language.
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PERSONAL NAMES, SOGDIAN i. IN CHINESE SOURCES
Y. Yoshida
Especially during some hundred years before the An Lushan’s rebellion (755-63 C.E.), when Tang controlled Central Asia, a great many Sogdians were encountered in northern China.
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PESTS, AGRICULTURAL
Cyrus Abivardi
“Pest” refers to any animal or plant causing harm or damage to people or their animals, crops, or possessions, even if it only causes annoyance.
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PESYĀN, MOḤAMMAD-TAQI KHAN
Stephanie Cronin
(1892-1920), military officer with strong nationalist sentiments who served in the Government Gendarmerie from its inception until he was killed in a skirmish by Kurdish tribal forces.
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PEUCESTAS
Ernst Badian
officer under Alexander the Great on his campaign in Asia.
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PEYK-E SAʿĀDAT-E NESWĀN
Nassereddin Parvin
women's magazine published in Rašt , 1927-30.
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PEYMĀN
Nassereddin Parvin
periodical published (1933-42) in Tehran by Aḥmad Kasravi, historian of the Constitutional Revolution.
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PHILATELY i. The Postage Stamps of Iran
Roman Siebertz
Postage stamps, which were introduced to Iran in 1868, have from the outset served as an object of utility as well as an instrument of official self-representation.
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PHILATELY vi. POSTAL HISTORY
Mano Amarloui
To stop the spread of certain information, postal matter were, at times, strictly controlled. Not all mail was opened, but special attention was paid to particular senders and addressees. To legitimize censorship, special censor marks were applied on envelopes.
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PHILOSOPHY
Cross-Reference
see under FALSAFA.
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PHOENIX MOSQUE
George Lane
Over the centuries, the mosque has been mentioned by a variety of very different names. It is referred to as the Li Bai Ssŭ on some steles and as Wu-lin Gardens on a 13th-century street map. The name Li Bai Temple is thought to be the oldest designation.
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PHRAORTES
I. Medvedskaya
the second king of the Median dynasty. All information about him is from Herodotus.
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PHRATAPHERNES
Ernst Badian
a member of the highest Persian aristocracy at the end of the Achaemenid period. He probably belonged to one of the Six Families that had helped Darius I gain the throne.
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PIANO IN PERSIAN MUSIC
Hormoz Farhat
The first piano is known to have arrived in Persia as a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Fatḥ ʿAli Shah.
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PILARAM, FARAMARZ
Hengameh Fouladvand
(1937-1983), a modernist artist, educator and among the founders of the Saqqā-ḵāna School of Art.
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PIR-E ZAN
Anna Krasnowolska
a calendar-related legend about an Old Woman who personifies winter.
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PIŠ-PARDA
William O. Beeman
a short comedy sketch, musical number, or dance performed before the main theatrical performance, or in an intermission between acts of a performance.
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PÎREMÊRD
Keith Hitchins
(1867-1950), pen-name of Tawfiq, son of Maḥmud, son of Ḥamza (in Kurdish: Tewfîq kurî MehmûdʿAḡa kurî Hemze ʿAḡa), Kurdish writer, journalist, and public intellectual.
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PLANE TREE
Cross-Reference
See ČENĀR.
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PLANETS
Antonio Panaino
In antiquity, only five planets, visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) were known; in many early traditions, the Sun and the Moon, were added to their number. Hence, some sources mention both the “five” and the “seven” planets.
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PLANTAIN
Cross-Reference
See BĀRHANG.
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PLATTS, JOHN THOMPSON
Parvin Loloi
(1830-1904), scholar and teacher of Persian at the University of Oxford. He wrote a widely used Persian grammar and published an edition and an English translation of Saʿdi’s Golestān.
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PLUM
Cross-Reference
See ĀLŪČA.
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POLAK, Jakob Eduard
Christoph Werner
(1818-1891), Austrian physician and writer who was instrumental in establishing modern medicine in Iran.
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POLAND ii. PERSIAN ART AND ARTIFACTS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS
Beata Biedrońska-Słota, Dorota Malarczyk, and Barbara Mękarska
Persian art has been present in Poland since medieval times. Among the objects—bought or brought back as war booty, like carpets, textiles, tents, richly ornamented weaponry, gold products—illuminated Persian manuscripts were also to be found.
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POLAND iii. Iranian Studies in Poland
Anna Krasnowolska
The development of Iranian studies in Poland was preceded by some nonscholarly interest in Persian language and culture.
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POLEMICS i. BETWEEN SHIʿITES AND JEWS
Daniel Tsadik
Twelver (Eṯnā ʿAšari Emāmi) Shiʿite polemics refer here to arguments gleaned from compositions written by Shiʿites.
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POLL TAX
Cross-Reference
See JEZYA.
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POLO, MARCO
Michele Bernardini
(1254-1324), Venetian merchant and traveler (b. Venice or Curzola, 1254; d. Venice, 8 January 1324), whose travel accounts gained worldwide fame and whose description of the countries he visited between 1271 and 1298 represents a primary geographical and historical source concerning Asia during the Mongol domination.
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POLOW
Cross-Reference
See BERENJ “rice” i. In Iran, sec. “Rice in the Iranian diet. ”
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PONTUS
Brian McGing
Greek “sea,” generally taken in the ancient world to refer to the Black Sea; also applied to the Hellenistic kingdom of the Mithridatid rulers that emerged in northern Asia Minor at the end of the 4th century BCE.
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POPE, ARTHUR UPHAM
Noel Siver
Pope was born on February 7, 1881 in Phenix, Rhode Island where his father Louis Pope was a minister in a local church. He was raised in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Descended from English Puritans who had settled in the Boston area in 1634 Pope remained proud of his New England roots throughout his life.
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PORTUGAL i. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE (1500-1750)
Joao Teles e Cunha
Portuguese-Persian relations had some importance for both countries during the early Modern Age, coinciding with the rise and fall of the Safavids.
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Poseidon: in Bactria
Frank Holt
Poseidon in Bactria presents the unusual pairing of an Hellenic sea-god with landlocked Central Asia.
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POŠT-E KUH
Ernie Haerinck and Bruno Overlaet
The exploration of Pošt-e Kuh started relatively late in comparison with other regions of Persia and the Near East. Until about 1929, the quasi-autonomous governors (wāli) of Pošt-e Kuh ruled over this region. Major Henry C. Rawlinson was the first European to explore the region.
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POSTERS
Christiane Gruber
in Iran.
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PREHISTORY OF IRAN: ARTIFICIAL CRANIAL MODIFICATIONS
Aurelie Daems and Karina Croucher
Cranial modification is one of the most obvious examples we have from the archaeological record of the active manipulation of the body during life, with implications in terms of the reflection of identity and identity construction.
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PROCOPIUS
Henning Börm
of Caesarea, Greek historian (born ca. 500, died ca. 560). His description of Sasanian internal affairs and Persian-Roman relations is in part highly useful and reliable, and he is a primary source for the way the elite of the Later Roman Empire looked on the Persians.
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PROSODY
Multiple Authors
systems, styles, and theories of versification in the Iranian world.
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PROSODY i. Remnants of Proto-Indo-European Poetic Craft in Iranian
Rüdiger Schmitt
reconstructions of a special poetic language assumed for the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their reflections in other ancient Indo-European languages including Iranian.
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PROSODY iii. MIDDLE PERSIAN
Gilbert Lazard
There are remnants left of pre-Islamic poetry within western Middle Iranian languages: fragments of Manichean religious hymns, some poems preserved in the literature of Pahlavi, and poetical pieces in New Persian not following the rules of classical versification.
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PROSODY iv. New Persian
Cross-Reference
The study of poetic metre and of the art of versification, including rhyme, stanzaic forms, and the quantity and stress of syllables. See ʿARUŻ.
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PROTOTHYES
Rüdiger Schmitt
according to Herodotus 1.103.3 the father of the Scythian king Madýēs, who is said to have gone into battle against the Medes.
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PSALMS, BOOK OF
Cross-Reference
in Iran and Central Asia. See the following entries:
BIBLE, with multiple sub-articles on translations into Iranian languages, from pre-Islamic times to the present.
JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES OF IRAN ix. Judeo-Persian Literature.
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PUNJABI
Christopher Shackle
Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab with about 26 million speakers in India and more than 60 million in Pakistan.
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PUR BAHĀʾ JĀMI, TĀJ-AL-DIN
George Lane
poet, pun master, satirist, and often scathing social commentator.
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PURDĀWUD, EBRĀHIM
Cross-Reference
(1885-1968), pioneer of studies in the religious and cultural history of Iran. See
HISTORIOGRAPHY ix. Pahlavi Period (2) Specific Topics (b) Purdawud.
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PURSIŠNĪHĀ
Mahnaz Moazami
a collection of 59 questions and answers in Avestan and Middle Persian relating to matters of Zoroastrian religion
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PUYANDA, Moḥammad-Jaʿfar
Jalil Doostkhah
(1954-1998), scholar and translator of literary texts and sociological studies. He never joined any political organization or party, but was a diligent defender of democracy and freedom of speech and belief.
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