User:Arashel1991/The claim of the lion and sun seal of the Achaemenid period

The Lion and Sun Seal claim of the Achaemenid period The history of the Lion and Sun symbol goes back to the Achaemenid period and even before that, and the oldest existing document is an inscription from the time of Xerxes, which is still kept in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg Russia. to be

Some non-Historyists believe that in this form, the lion is the symbol of Mitra and the sun (the woman riding on the back of the lion) is the symbol of the goddess Anahita.

The remaining documents from the Parthians show that in the Parthian period, the sun was present on the national seal of Iran, but in the works obtained from the Sassanid era, the sign of the lion and the sun are abundantly present, including the number of eighteen seals that are near The Aral Lake also found gold and silver dishes decorated with lion and sun motifs, or Shiro "Gordoneh Ya Mehr" (a broken cross meaning the rotation of the sun) on top of it, which clearly reveals the age of this sign.

From the narrations of Nabisan history, it appears that after the spread of Islam, the lion appeared on the flag of Iran during the reign of Sultan Masoud of Ghaznavi, which some people have attributed to the king's interest in hunting lions, and after him and in later periods, this sign It was repeated many times on the flag.

Ahmad Kasravi wrote in Nask Khana about the birth of the sun and the sun from the words of Ibn Ibri and "Mukhtasar al-Tarikh al-Dawwal": "Ghiyas al-Din Ki Khosro, the son of Ala al-Din Kikavus, one of the kings of the Seljuk dynasty of Rome, fell in love with a Georgian prince. Ki Khosro becomes so enamored that he agrees to a Georgian girl's request to mint a coin with her face on it, but Ki Khosro's relatives do not consider it permissible to print the face of a non-Muslim woman on the coins in order to support the religion of Islam. With Ki Khosro's insistence, a solution is thought out to get out of this impasse. The figure of a lion is written on the coin, and above it, the sun, which represents the face of a Georgian beauty, is placed, and in this way, the desire of the lover is fulfilled. The coins of many of those coins are still in hand, which supports the story that Ibn Ibri tells.

But as it can be seen from this statement, Kasravi did not have access to the sources of the Achaemenid and Sassanid eras, and it is clear that what they said based on the knowledge of that day, without taking into account the evidence of archaeological findings, Its examples were mentioned earlier, and it is obvious that if the Georgian prince is depicted in the form of the sun on the lion's back, it was only in the form of a sign that reached the Seljuk era from ancient times.

During the Safavid and Afshariya eras, this symbol was seen on the national flag of Iran, and from the era of Shah Abbas, it became the main emblem of Iran.

With the rise of the Qajar dynasty and the reign of Agha Mohammad Khan, he, who was naturally a spiteful person, issued an order to transform it due to his enmity with Nader Shah and because he considered the lion and the sun to be the sign of Nader's reign.

People around him said that the lion is the symbol of "Asda Allah Ali" and the sun is the light of truth. Therefore, Agha ordered to be religious that if it is the lion of Ali, give it to Zulfiqari, and like this, a curved sword (Iranian sword is flat) was added to this sign. (N.K.: Nasser Anghat, Shir and Khurshid, the three thousand year mark)

Because with the passage of time and changes in people's beliefs and opinions, myths and symbols take on the color and flavor of people's beliefs, and because there has been a belief for centuries that the lion is a symbol of Ali, this saying that the Iranian flag indicates obedience It is true about Ali and Khurshid, it is not true at all.

Stamp specifications
This image of the seal is made of blue chalcedony with a height of 29 mm. Amelie Court and the book of ancient history of Cambridge University, where it is kept, is the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, in the eastern hall of ancient Iran. The ancient history book considers the seal to belong to the 4th century BC. This seal was discovered in Gori in Anapa in southern Russia. But it is made in Turkey and it was made for a Persian.

Transferring the concept of halo of light from among the rivers to other civilizations
According to Simo Parpola, a professor of Assyrian studies, this seal is an example of the transfer of the concept of halo of light from Mesopotamian civilizations to newer civilizations. The concept of halo of light has been a concept that has a history of thousands of years among Rhodans and from there it entered other civilizations such as Byzantium and Christianity. The rejection and effect of this concept can be continuously documented since 2600 thousand years BC. Traditionally, gods and goddesses were depicted with a halo of light among the rivers.

As the transformation of the goddesses of Mezan Rodan into Anahita
The text of the ancient history book of Cambridge University shows this seal of the Achaemenid king worshiping a goddess who is in a halo of light and on the back of a lion. Since this type of painting has traditionally been the method of drawing Ishtar among the Rhodans. This goddess is probably Anahita. According to Emily Court, the goddess in the picture is usually considered to be Anahita, who took the characteristics of Ishtar, whose animal was a lion.

According to Simo Parpola, professor of Assyrian studies, this seal shows Anahita's appearance to the king. This seal was probably made by a Greek artist on the edge of the Black Sea. Although its dress and crown are Persian, other details are a version of older works that have a history of several centuries in Assyria. The tradition of such paintings usually has a long tradition in Assyria and shows the appearance of Ishtar riding a lion over the king and a member of the royal family. The importance of this sign is that it is an example of the integration of different cultures and also an example of how to transfer beliefs and cultures from one civilization to another.

According to Kaveh Farrokh, although works of Iranian rituals can be found in this seal, but this seal is an imitation of Mian Rodan artworks. Kaveh Farrokh considers this work as an example of the Iranian-Greek heritage of the Anatolian region. where nobles of Achaemenid descent and with Iranian-Greek culture ruled Anatolia after the fall of Achaemenids.

According to Parpola, this seal, in addition to indicating the acceptance of the concept of halo of light by Iranians. It shows how an important Iranian goddess (Anahita) merges into a Mesopotamian goddess. This dissolution has been accompanied by the acceptance of the entire belief system, religious rituals, beliefs and artistic methods of representing the goddess Mian Roudi.

External link
A member of the royal family praying to Ishtar from the Neo-Assyrian period

A member of the royal family praying to Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and war