Episode 38

What Spake Zarathustra?

It's almost officially springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and the vernal equinox brings with it another reason to celebrate: Nowruz! Commonly known as Persian New Year, Nowruz has its roots in a millennia-old religion founded by a man named Zartosht whose ideas had a profound impact on the world. Anna introduces fire temples and what ancient writers had to say about Zoroastrianism, while Amber hypes the Bronze Age in Central Asia and suggests some ways in which Zoroastrian ideas have affected other religions.

Nowruz: Traditions for Persian New Year (United States Institute of Peace: The Iran Primer)

What life was like when Zoroaster lived? (Zoroastrian Kids)

Avesta (Livius.org)

Zoroastrians of Central Asia: Evidence from Archaeology and Art (FEZANA Journal via Academia.edu)

Records of the General Conference, 31st session, Paris, 2001, v. 2: Proceedings (UNESCO)

Ancient Sogdiana: A ‘Zoroastrian Stronghold’ (Avesta.org)

Parsi Woman Excommunication Case (Supreme Court Observer)

Early Chahar-Taqi Fire Houses and Temples (Heritage Institute)

The culture and social institutions of ancient Iran (WorldCat.org)

Ātaškada (Encyclopedia Iranica)

Fire Altars and Fire Temples in the First Millennia BC/AD in the Iranian World (via ResearchGate)

Zoroastrians in East Africa (The Zoroastrian Diaspora)

The Obscure Religion that Shaped the West (BBC Culture)

An Archaeology of Religion (via Google Books)

A Rare Glimpse Inside A Zoroastrian Temple In New York (HuffPost)

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The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

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The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.