Topic: ritual (5)

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

  The barsom plaque is one of the small gold votive plaques of the Oxus Treasure (British Museum 123949): a standing man in Median dress holding before him a slim bundle of rods, the barsom of Iranian worship. It is the clearest surviving material image of the rite the texts only name, one of about…

• Survey essayReligion & the Lie: the Achaemenid religious world

  Achaemenid religion, as the kings proclaimed it, turned on a single polarity: the worship of Ahura Mazdā, the Wise Lord who set the world in order, against the drauga, the Lie that forever works to corrupt it. The kings of Persia proclaimed themselves the god's chosen instruments in that struggle;…

• PeopleThe Magi

  The Magi (Old Persian magu-) were the priestly class of the western Iranians, the one body of religious specialists named across the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian ages. Herodotus counts them among the six Median tribes and names them the officiants without whom no Persian could…

• ConceptThe Sacred Fire

  The sacred fire (Avestan ātar) was the purest of the good creations and the earthly emblem of aša/arta, tended by the Magi and honoured in the open air at free-standing stone fire-holders. The roofed sanctuary whose consecrated flame is kept perpetually alight belongs to the later empire and…

• PersonZarathustra

  Zarathustra (Zoroaster to the Greeks) is the Iranian prophet and poet-priest whose seventeen hymns, the Gāthās, exalt Ahura Mazdā as the one God and lay upon every person a choice: aša, the Truth, or druj, the Lie. His date, his homeland, even (to a few sceptics) his existence are among the most…