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Within the enclosure, by the way which led up to the tomb, a small building had been constructed for the Magi who guarded it, a duty which had been handed down from father to son ever since the time of Cyrus' son, Cambyses. They had a grant from the King of a sheep a day, with an allowance of meal and wine, and one horse a month to sacrifice to Cyrus. There was an inscription on the tomb in Persian, signifying: O man, I am Cyrus son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of Persia and ruled over Asia. Do...

In January or February 324, Alexander reached the old religious capital of Persia, Pasargadae. Here, he visited the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid empire, who had lived two centuries before. The Greek author Arrian of Nicomedia describes the events in section 29.1-11 of his Anabasis. The translation was made by Aubrey de Sélincourt. At the same time he moved forward himself with the lightest infantry units, the mounted Companions, and some regiments of archers, along the road to Pasargadae. [...] Arrived at the Persian frontier, he found that Phrasaortes, the governor, had died while the...

A clay cylinder dating from the time of one of Persia's greatest rulers, Cyrus the Great, has been returned on loan to Iran following a prolonged dispute with the British Museum in London. In February Iran threatened to cut ties with the British Museum in protest to what it called politically motivated delays in returning the cylinder. However the museum says the delay occurred so that the cylinder could be compared with two stone tablets that were recently discovered. British Museum director Neil MacGregor says the cylinder has plenty of historical significance. "It's about Cyrus's respect for different peoples and...

The Islamic Republic Is Not Iran By Amil Iman We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in, in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess. The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the...

A few months ago, the normally hostile Iranian regime took the rather unusual step of adding a Jewish holy site to its National Heritage List. On December 9, 2008, Iranian news outlets reported that the tomb of Mordechai and Esther, the heroes of the Purim saga, would now be under official government protection and responsibility. The purported tomb of Mordechai and Esther in Iran. Photo: Courtesy The move cast a brief spotlight on the site, which is well-known to Iranian Jews but largely unfamiliar to those outside the country. And with Purim being celebrated this week, it is worth taking...

 In Remembrance of Cyrus the Great by Amil Imani The Islamic Republic of Iran seems to be fearful.   It happened on January 26, 2008, at the UCLA Freud PlayHouse in Los Angeles, California. It brought the world's most renowned scholars and top performing artists together to remember the life of Cyrus the Great, the founding father of Persia and the mighty Persian Empire - perhaps the most exemplary, magnificent and just king the worldPerhaps the most exemplary, magnificent and just king the world has ever known.has ever known.   The event put together visual arts, the ambiance of...

TEHRAN - The Jewish women in the back rows of the synagogue wear long garments in the traditional Iranian style, but instead of chadors, their heads are covered with cheerful, flowered scarves. The boys in their skullcaps, with Hebrew prayer books tucked under their arms, scamper down the aisles to grab the best spots near the lush, turquoise Persian carpet of the altar. This is Friday night, Shabbat - Iranian style, and the synagogue in an affluent neighborhood of North Tehran is filled to capacity with more than 400 worshipers. It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic...

"Iranian people's feelings toward Israelis are not as bad as you think," Saeed Kharazi Zadeh, a greying Iranian IT engineer told me after I introduced myself as a reporter for The Jerusalem Post. Zadeh was part of the Iranian delegation which had a booth at the UN Summit on Information Society held in Tunis November 15-17. I reminded the 48-year-old government employee that in October his president declared that "Israel should be wiped off the map." I told him that many Israelis fear that Iran would indeed try to attack Israel. Zadeh laughed incredulously. "There have been many terrorist actions...

WATCH THE VIDEO HEREThe video is about the recent "Forgotten Empire" exhibition at British Museum in London

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 31 – Iran is building a dam which once completed will destroy the 2,500-year-old historic ruins of tomb of the first Achaemenian king of ancient Persia. The Sayvand Dam being constructed in the central Fars province will inevitably cause river waters to submerge Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, and Pasargard, the site of the mausoleum of the first Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. The dam which is near completion is some eight kilometres from Pasargard and 50 kilometres from Persepolis, according to an official in Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organisation. The dam is to start operation in...

The Islamic regime is to submerge part of Iran's past in a shameful historical cleansing, in order to avoid facing more nationalistic problems with future generations. The construction of a very controversial dam project is near completion and soon, the tomb of "Cyrus the Great" and "Persepolis" would be submerged under water. Cyrus the Great (580-529 BC) (known as Kourosh in Persian; Kouros in Greek; Kores in Hebrew) was the first Achaemenian Emperor and founder of Iran, who issued a decree on his aims and policies, later hailed as his charter of the rights of nations. Inscribed on a clay...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An Iranian-born U.S. citizen and Navy veteran was detained in Iraq by American forces after troops said they found a common component for improvised explosive devices in his taxi, according to U.S. defense officials. His family says Cyrus Kar, 44, was in Iraq to film scenes for a documentary on King Cyrus the Great, founder of Persia, when he was arrested at a checkpoint in mid-May. He had also filmed in Iran, Tajikistan, Turkey and Afghanistan and consulted with scholars, they said. Kar's family first learned of his troubles May 24, when he called them to...

One of the truly astounding prophecies of the Bible is found in the last verse of Isaiah 44, together with chapter 45:1ff, (an unfortunate chapter break). It has to do with Cyrus, king of Persia. According to the historian Herodotus (i.46), Cyrus was the son of Cambyses I. He came to the Persian throne in 559 B.C. Nine years later he conquered the Medes, thus unifying the kingdoms of the Medes and the Persians. Cyrus is mentioned some 23 times in the literature of the Old Testament. Isaiah refers to Cyrus as Jehovah’s “shepherd,” the Lord’s “anointed,” who was providentially...