Afrasiab (afrāsiyāb) (Persian: افراسياب; Avestan: Fraŋrasyan; Pahlavi: Frāsiyāv, Frāsiyāk and Freangrāsyāk), is the name of the mythical King and hero of Turan.
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[edit] The Mythical King and Hero
According to Shahnameh ('Book of Kings') by the Persian epic-poet Ferdowsi, Afrasiab was the mythical King and hero of Turan and an archenemy of Iran. In Iranian mythology, Afrasiab is considered by far the most prominent of all mythical Turanian Kings; he is a formidable warrior, a skilful general, and an agent of Ahriman who is endowed with magical powers of deception to destroy the Iranian civilization.[1]
According to Middle-Persian and Islamic sources, Afrasiab was a descendant of Tūr (Avestan: Tūriya-), one of the three sons of the Iranian mythical King Fereydun (the other two sons being Salm and Īraj). In Bundahishn he is named as the seventh grandson of Tūr. In Avestan traditions, his common epithet mairya- (deceitful, villainous[2]) can be interpreted as meaning 'an evil man'. He lived in a subterranean fortress made of metal, called Hanakana.
According to Avestan sources, Afrasiab was killed by Haoma near the Čīčhast (possibly either referring to Urmia Lake in Azarbaijan, or Lake Hamun in Sistan) and according to Shahnameh he met his death in a cave known as the Hang-e Afrasiab, or the dying place of Afrasiab, on a mountaintop in Azerbaijan; the fugitive Afrasiab having been repeatedly defeated by the armies of his adversary, the mythical King of Iran Kay Khosrow (who happened to be his own grandson, through his daughter Farangis), wandered wretchedly and fearfully around, and eventually took refuge in this cave and died.
[edit] In Turkic literature
َAlthough the identification of the Turanians, a rival Iranian tribe, with the Turks, and Afrāsīāb with their king, is a late development,Turks cultivated the legends of Afrāsīāb as a Turkish hero after they had come into contact with the Iranians. Mahmud al-Kashgari quotes in his Dīwān loḡāt al-Tork (5th/11th cent.) a number of elegiac verses lamenting the death of Alp Er Tunga[1][3]
[edit] Archaeological site
Afrasiab (Afrosiyob) is the oldest part and the ruined site of the ancient and medieval city of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan. The term Qal’a ye Afrasiab (Castle of Afrasiab) appeared in written sources only by the end of the 17th century.
The name is popularly connected with the mythical King Afrasiab, but scholars consider it a distortion and a corrupted form of the Tajik word Parsīāb (from Sogdian Paršvāb), meaning "Beyond the black river", the river being Sīāhāb or Sīāb, which bounds the site to the North.[1]. It is interesting to point out that Afrā is the poetic form of the Persian word Farā (itself a poetic word), which means Beyond, Further, and that Sīāh means Black and Āb, Water, River or Sea (depending on the context).
The area of Afrasiab covers 219 (by some accounts 222) hectares, and the thickness of the archaeological strata reaches 8-12 metres. Archaeological excavations have been carried out in Afrasiab since the end of the 19th century, and very actively during the 1960-70s. The habitation of the territories of Afrasiab began in the 7th-6th century BCE, as the centre of the Sogdian culture.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Yarshater, E., "Afrasiab", Encyclopædia Iranica - digital library; accessed January 18, 2007.
- ^ Nyberg H. S., Die Religionen des Alten Iran, Berlin (1938). p257
- ^ Atalay, Besim (2006). Divanü Lügati't - Türk. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. ISBN 975-160-405-2, Band I, p. 41: Türklerin ulusal kahraman ve büyük Hakanı. (Turkish)
- ^ Darmesteter J., Hang-e Afrasiab, Études Iraniennes, Paris (1883), pp225-27.
[edit] External links
- Ehsan Yarshater, "Afrāsiāb", Encyclopædia Iranica
- Afrasiab featured in Rostam Comic Book
- The battle of Rustam and Afrasiab on Asian miniature
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