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The Achaemenid Empire connects to exactly one symbol in this atlas, the winged disc known today as the Faravahar, and the connection runs through an image whose meaning is still genuinely argued over.

Cut in Stone, Borrowed in Form

The Achaemenid Empire ruled from Cyrus the Great's conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE to Alexander's conquest in 330 BCE, the period in which Zoroastrianism became closely associated with Persian kingship while the empire's rulers, Cyrus above all, gained a reputation for tolerating the religions of conquered peoples. The winged disc carrying a robed male figure is cut at Persepolis, at Behistun, and on the royal tombs from Darius the Great onward, the best known Achaemenid religious image there is. The form itself is borrowed rather than invented: winged solar discs are standard in Egyptian and Neo-Assyrian art well before the Persians, often with a god set within the disc.

A Name and a Meaning Both Modern

What the image represents is genuinely disputed. The popular identification with the fravashi, the pre-existent spirit of a person, competes with the view of Taraporewala, Shahbazi and Boyce that it stands for khvarenah, the royal glory, and with an older reading as Ahura Mazda himself. The name faravahar is modern, and its use as a badge of Zoroastrian and Iranian identity is a twentieth century development, centuries after the empire that cut the image into its royal monuments had already fallen. The only bridge this atlas holds between an ancient empire and a symbol runs through a name coined long after both.

Where To Read More

• Achaemenid EmpireThe empire this atlas connects to exactly one symbol
• FaravaharAnthropomorphicThe symbol itself, cut at Persepolis and Behistun, its meaning still disputed and its name modern