The Denkard, a summary of the partly lost Great Avesta of the sixth century, contains the story Zarathustra and his protector Hystaspes. Denkard 7.4.65-87 is offered here in the translation by Mary Boyce.
The following text, which has with some justice been likened to the Christian "creed", probably dates to the earliest days of Zoroastrianism, but seems to have undergone linguistic changes, because it is known in the relatively late Old Avestan language,…
Zoroastrianism's most remarkable feature is the dualism between the good god Ahuramazda and his rival, the Evil Spirit or The Lie. This translation of one of the key texts, Yasna 30.1-6, 8-9, was made by Mary Boyce.
Axidares: king of Armenia (r. c.110 CE) from the Arsacid dynasty.Axidares was a son of the Parthian king Pacorus II (r.78-105), who had made his son king of Armenia, a buffer state that had caused several conflicts between the Parthians and…
Azarmedukht: queen of Persia, ruling in 631, member of the Sasanian dynasty.Main deeds:
Name: Azarmedukht
The Sasanian king Khusrau II fought a long war against the Byzantines, but was defeated by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius.
In 628, Khusrau was replaced by his son Kavad…
Azitawataya: Neo-Hittite town in southern Turkey, now known as Karatepe ("the black hill") or Aslantaş ("the lion's stone").History
Musicians (South Gate)
In…
Babylon was the capital of Babylonia, the alluvial plain between the Euphrates and Tigris. After the fall of the Assyrian empire (612 BCE), Babylon became the capital of the ancient Near East, and king Nebuchadnezzar adorned the city with several…
Hanging Gardens of Babylon: one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. There is no evidence that it existed.Babylon was the cultural capital of the ancient Near East. Many monuments have become famous, like the Ištar Gate, now in…
Babylonia is the Greek name of what the inhabitants knew as Mât Akkadî, the fertile alluvial plain between the Euphrates and Tigris. This was the heartland of the Babylonian Empire, which dominated the ancient Near East between the fall of…