Origin The mythical Pishdadian age of the Shahnameh's early kings
The tyrant king of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, kissed on each shoulder by Ahriman disguised as a cook and left with a serpent growing from each shoulder that must be fed human brains daily; the blacksmith Kaveh raises a revolt after Zahhak's men take his sons, and the hero Feridun overthrows him, binding rather than killing him inside Mount Damavand.
Facts
Attestation
HistoricityLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record 2 Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 3 Traditions Revering This Figure Attributions
Mythic AssociationIranologists trace Zahhak back to the Avestan dragon Azi Dahaka, three headed and three mouthed in Zoroastrian scripture, reading Ferdowsi's fully human tyrant with two serpents as a historicized, humanized late retelling of an older purely monstrous demon. 3 TraditionIn the Shahnameh he is a tyrant king possessed by Ahriman, with serpents growing from his shoulders that must be fed human brains, until the hero Fereydun overthrows him and binds him in chains inside Mount Damavand, where Zoroastrian tradition holds he remains imprisoned until the end of the world. 2 Identity
SymbolThe two serpents growing from his shoulders after Ahriman's kiss, which must be fed human brains daily, remain the defining image of his tyranny across every retelling of Ferdowsi's account. 1 Canonical ReferenceThe Avesta's own Zamyad Yasht already credits Fereydun, there called Thraetaona, with the binding of the three headed dragon Azi Dahaka inside Mount Damavand, centuries before Ferdowsi's Shahnameh gives the fuller, humanized version of the same binding. 1 History
Historical NoteFerdowsi completed the Shahnameh around 1010 AD, drawing on older Sasanian era Persian prose sources and oral epic tradition that reach back to the Avestan dragon Azi Dahaka, so the poem is a late compilation of a much older, layered tradition rather than its origin point. 3 Position Profile
Key TextShahnameh, the reign of Zahhak; his monstrous forerunner Azi Dahaka appears earlier in the Avesta 1 Origins
Origin PeriodThe mythical Pishdadian age of the Shahnameh's early kings 2 Origin of the NameZahhak is the New Persian form of the Avestan name Dahaka, and the epithet Bewarasp attached to him in some Persian sources, meaning possessor of ten thousand horses, is read by some Iranologists as a trace of an older, separate strand of tradition about him later folded into the dragon narrative Ferdowsi inherited. 1 Scholarship
How Its Legacy Is ContestedKaveh the blacksmith's revolt against Zahhak's tyranny is still commemorated as a symbol of popular uprising in modern Iranian political culture; scholars dispute how far this element reflects an old part of the story against how far Ferdowsi himself emphasized or elaborated it. 2 Life
Office HeldRuled as a usurper king over Iran for a thousand years in the Shahnameh's chronology, rather than being killed he is bound by the hero Feridun inside Mount Damavand after the blacksmith Kaveh's revolt. 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Zahhak directly: "API record for "Bowl Depicting King Zahhak with Snakes Protruding from His Shoulders," a glazed earthenware bowl, 12th to 13th century, with alterations the Met's own record dates either to the..."
Source Bowl Depicting King Zahhak, accession 64.274.3 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
This source names Zahhak directly: "The scene shows Faridun, the just king who overthrows the tyrant Zahhak, inside Zahhak's own palace."
Source Faridun in the Palace of Zahhak, Metropolitan Museum of Art
This source names Zahhak directly: "record for "Faridun in the Palace of Zahhak," a folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Abu'l Qasim Firdausi, attributed to India, Kashmir, late 19th to early 20th century, in ink, opaque..."
Source Faridun in the Palace of Zahhak, Metropolitan Museum of Art
This source names Zahhak directly: "kings of Iran, including the tyrant Zahhak and his overthrow by the smith Kaveh and the hero Feridun, in Dick Davis's verse and prose translation."
Source Divinity Atlas Original Articles, Second Edition
Source Shahnameh: The Persian Book of KingsAbolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis
Belongs to Tradition
Source A History of ZoroastrianismMary Boyce
Depicted In
The Met's own title for this bowl names the subject outright, "King Zahhak," a direct identification rather than a bare thematic tag.
Source Bowl Depicting King Zahhak, accession 64.274.3 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Originated In
Source Zahhak (Wikipedia)
Related To
Source A History of ZoroastrianismMary Boyce
Source Shahnameh: The Persian Book of KingsAbolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis
Revered In
Sources
1. The Avesta
2. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
Abolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis, Viking Penguin, 2006
3. A History of Zoroastrianism
Wikidata: Zahhak
Wikidata Q1200843, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Bowl Depicting King Zahhak, accession 64.274.3 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Metropolitan Museum of ArtDepicted In: Bowl Depicting King Zahhak with Snakes Protruding from His Shoulders (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 64.274.3), accession 64.274.3View the Source Zahhak (Wikipedia)
Originated In: Persia, LeadQuote, Originated In: Persia, Lead
is a personification of evil in Iranian mythology and historiography
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