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The royal symbol of eagle (1)

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02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs
02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs



 		Keywords
eagles
immortality
Persians
Period
Achaemenid Empire 		Channel
Iranian culture

Text
Mesopotamian and Iranian syncretism in the solar motive of eagle, which is a hallmark of Iranian royal ideology with the implications dealing with beliefs concerning immortality. The origin of the eagle symbolism in the Old Persian empire goes back to the Ancient Mesopotamian idea of the mythic bird Anzu, probably mixed with Indo-Iranian conceptions of the “eagle’s tree”.

Bibliography

Harmatta 1979, 317-318Harmatta, J. “Royal Power and Immortality. The Myth of the two Eagles in Iranian Royal Ideology.” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 27 (1979) 305-319.

Andrea Piras


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000724.php

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