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Photo of the Registan Square courtesy of AXP Photography, via Unsplash, Dec 14th 2022

Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 3. Samarqand & the Timurids

‘Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 3. Samarqand & the Timurids’ The Timurid Empire امپراتوری تیموری In the last blog post we looked at the rise and fall of the Mongols in Iran and the khanate that sprang up in their wake: ایلخانیان ‘the Ilkhanate’. Today we will be looking at the next great empire

Photo of the Arg of Tabriz by Elmju, accessed from Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons 

Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 2. The Ilkhanids

Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 2. The Ilkhanids ایلخانان In this blog series we will be taking you on a whistle-stop tour of various Persian architectural styles, from the Achaemenids to the present day: We’ll begin at Persepolis by exploring the lavish imperial architecture of the Achaemenids. Then we will venture to northwest Iran

Picture of the Gate of All Nations with the lamassu visible on the right hand side. Image by Alborzagros on Wikimedia Commons, 2011

Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 1. Persepolis and the Achaemenids

Persian Architectural Styles through the Ages: 1. Persepolis and the Achaemenids In this blog series we will be taking you on a whistle-stop tour of various Persian architectural styles, from the Achaemenids to the present day: We’ll begin at Persepolis by exploring the lavish imperial architecture of the Achaemenids. Then we will venture to northwest

‘The Brahmi numeral system and its descendants’, image from Wikimedia Commons

Where do our numerals come from? A short history of the Indo-Arabic numeral system

Where do our numerals come from? A short history of the Indo-Arabic numeral system Did you know that until the 15th century AD the majority of people in medieval England were still using Roman numerals to write out dates and numbers? We take for granted being able to use the numbers 1-9 to do arithmetic,

Portrait of Forough Farrokhzad, from amordadnews.com, 2021

Re-Imagining the Self in Nature: Through the Lens of Forugh Farrokhzad

Re-Imagining the Self in Nature: Through the Lens of Forough Farrokhzad By Matilda Moffitt The established language of nature in classical Persian poetry is used by Farrokhzād in new ways to re-imagine the female subject, who has often been limited by the language and stories that depict her. In her poetry, Farrokhzād draws upon a

Image by Ralph on Pixabay

The Language of Nature in the Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad

The Language of Nature in the Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad By Matilda Moffitt In the second part of this blog series on natural imagery in Persian poetry, we will look at a corpus of recurring natural images, a language of nature, in the work of Forugh Farrokhzād. Having previously familiarised ourselves with depictions of the

Image of a traditional Haft Seen display by Pouya Jabbarisani on Unsplash.

Nowruz: the most Persian of celebrations

Nowruz: the most Persian of celebrations It’s fair to say that Nowruz نوروز (literally meaning ‘new day’) is the most quintessentially Persian celebration of them all. In this blog post we will explore Nowruz’s origins, and look at how, 3,000 years on, the Persian New Year is celebrated by millions of people around the globe. 

Image by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

Chahārshanbe Suri: The Festival of Fire

Chahārshanbe Suri: The Festival of Fire Chahārshanbe Suri چهارشنبه سوری is a Persian festival celebrated on the final Tuesday evening of the Persian solar year, that’s to say the last Tuesday evening before Nowruz. This year (1402 AH/2023 AD) it falls on Tuesday 14th March.   In this blog post we will give you a quick

Chahār Bāgh school in Isfahan Province, by Mostafa Meraji on Unsplash, 2019.

Introducing the Garden in Persian Poetry, by Matilda Moffitt

Introducing the Garden in Persian Poetry by Matilda Moffitt In this tripart blog series, we will be focusing on the natural world in both classical and modern Persian poetry, but primarily in the work of Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967 AD). There is a recurring corpus of natural images in Persian poetry that have specific symbolic meanings.

Image by Mostafa Meraji on Pixabay.

All about ezāfe, part 2

Looking at the ezāfe construction from a linguistic perspective, part 2: a fresh approach to ezāfe analysis. In the last blog post (part 1) we looked at some different examples of اضافه ezāfe in Persian, and learned how the different realisations of the ezāfe construction are categorised within Persian grammar. In part 2, I want

Image by Mehdi Saem on Unsplash, 2021

All about ezāfe, part 1

Looking at the ezāfe construction from a linguistic perspective, part 1: what is ezāfe and how is it described within a traditional Persian grammatical framework?   Introduction The اضافه ezāfe construction is one of the fundamental building blocks of learning Persian grammar, and it deserves some attention. Now you will often hear linguists say that

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

Persian expressions with body parts 5: دست dast ‘hand’ and پا pā ‘foot’

Persian expressions with body parts 5: دست dast ‘hand’ and پا pā ‘foot’ Persian contains many idiomatic phrases, expressions and compound verbs which utilise the common body parts like سر sar ‘head’, چشم cheshm ‘eye’, دل del ‘heart’, پشت posht ‘back’, and پا pā ‘foot’. These body parts often carry a multitude of different meanings, such as when an