StumbleUpon | Persiana's blog posts

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/21646518/

Thu, 22 May 2008 19:25:41 -0700

Sassanian (226-651 AD) glassware *
National Museum of Iran

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/20845105/

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:36:57 -0700

Virtue

Maxim 36, Gulistan ("The Rose Garden")

Even after falling into mud a jewel retains its costliness, and dust, although it may rise into the sky, is as contemptible as before. Capacity without education is deplorable and education without capacity is thrown away. Ashes are of high origin because the nature of fire is superior, but as they have no value of their own, they are similar to earth and the price of sugar arises not from the cane but from its own quality.

The land of Canaan having no natural excellence,
The birth of a prophet therein could not enhance its worth.
Display thy virtue if thou hast any, not thy origin.
The rose is the offspring of thorns and Abraham of Azer.

~ Saadi of Shiraz (1200-1292 AD)

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/20789713/

Sat, 03 May 2008 12:41:38 -0700

Suez Canal Inscription
Darius named the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Pars (Pars = Persian)

I have translated the following article (source: CHN - Cultural Heritage News) from Persian:

Over 2000 years ago (more precisely about 480 BC), when Darius the Great [of ancient Iran] built the Darius Canal which eventually became known as the Suez Canal, he ordered an inscription to be engraved there in Egypt. That inscription contains the oldest reference in history to the Persian Gulf.

The Darius Canal connected the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for the first time. The inscription of Darius, commemorating the engineering feat, is now held in the Louvre Museum of France.

The Suez Canal inscription is one of the most important documents that contains the name of Persian Gulf in an unambiguous manner.

That inscription, which manifestly declares the order of Darius the Great in digging the Canal, contains 12 lines and was written in the Old Persian language.

[...]

In the seventh line of the inscription the speech of Darius is stated as such:
"King Darius says I am a Parsi (Persian) from Pars (Persia). I ordered this waterway (canal) dug from the Piraveh River (Piraveh = ancient Persian for the Nile River) which flows in Egypt, by that connecting it towards the Sea of Pars (then known as the Sea of Persia--The Persian Gulf). Thus, I ordered this canal to be dug, and exactly as I specified it was dug, then the shipping convoy sailed from here, Egypt, to Pars (Persia) as I wished."

In the tenth line of the inscription the Ancient Persian words "Abi Darieh Tieh HechaParsa AeiTi" unambiguously refers to the "Sea of Persia" and there is no doubt whatsoever that the waterway called the Persian Gulf nowadays was then, in 500 BC, called the Sea of Persia.

[...]

The Greeks referred to the Persian Gulf as "Persicus Sinus" for the first time, which corresponds the same meaning: the Persian Gulf.

Since the name Persian Gulf was written for the first time in valid historical documents by non-Persians, no racial bias can be ascribed to the naming.

Straben (Eng: Strabo), the Greek historian of 1st century AD, has repeatedly used Persicus Sinus ("Persian Gulf") in his book to refer to the waterway. He mentioned that Arabs, on the other hand, lived between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf (That is Arabian Peninsula - needless to mention Iran is separated from that Peninsula via the Persian Gulf.)

As well, Flavious Arianus (Eng: Arrian - Thanks Zalmoxsis for the spellings), another Greek historian, in his book "The History of Alexander's warring adventures" refers to the waterway as "Persicun Keet" which corresponds to no other naming but the Persian Gulf.
**End**

I must add that the British were the first to encourage the naming abuse among the Arabs in the past few decades. Their aim had been to turn this waterway into a strategic British waterway. Later, in the 1980s some Americans followed suit trying to turn this into an American Gulf. The way to achieve those objectives: encouraging the use of bogus name of Arabi?n Gulf.

A few years ago they encouraged The National Geography to abuse the naming. After massive Iranian boycott and petition all across the world * the Magazine corrected its mistake and apologized. Last year, the Louvre Museum, under Arab sponsorship abused the naming. This time, only one letter from Iran's cultural heritage official was sufficient to remind Louvre of the naming on the historical maps & documents in their possession, which made the Museum to adjust back to the civilized norm. Currently, the most serious Western abusers are the BBC and the Google Earth.

NO to the uneducated, unscientific norm for the same reason of calling the English Channel as the French Channel would be wrong.

The UN only uses the historically correct name Persian Gulf - and that is it.

--> Acknowledgement - British Foreign Ministry

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/20660166/

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:20:46 -0700

Ghosts busted!

If you've been stumbling for sometime, you may have accumulated a number of 'ghost friends' who have deleted their accounts but they add up to your 200 friends limit. Here's a way to remove them.

After enquiring Erik was very kind to share this with me and I am posting on for other Stumblers with his kind permission.

(There's one problem though, you must have logs of your earlier Friends List in order to know their ID. Erik explained that I could also use Wayback machine which I have no idea what that is. But I had a log of friends before I went inactive last summer so I managed to remove some 20 of them. I suggest saving your friends page once in a while.)

The ultimate guide to ghost busting

**Begin Erik's notes**
"Basically, this technique involves typing in a URL:

      http://www.stumbleupon.com/user.php?removefriend=FRIEND_ID&fauth=AUTH_PASS

Obviously, you have to change the FRIEND_ID to your friend's ID. AUTH_PASS is a random load of letters and numbers, which is basically an encrypted version of your password. To find it, if you view the source of your blog, and search for 'fauth' you will find something like:

Where XXX is your AUTH_PASS. You can also just go to your page and type in:

      javascript:alert(document.getElementsByName('fauth')[0].value);

Which is just a small bit of Javacsript that does exactly the same thing and returns your AUTH_PASS. Once you have that and your friend's ID, just stick it into the URL and type it into your browser.

e.g.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/user.php?removefriend=374729&fauth=85739jdj8484.dj47udh47

Basically, this method is just mimicking the Remove Friend button, except changing the ID it sends back to Stumbleupon.

P.S. If you only know their names, I think you can just use the Wayback machine to find their ID's."
**End**

Every ghost friend that you remove you will see a Stumbleupon message as this:

'No such user

NO SUCH USER

If this still doesn't work for you, please Contact Us to let us know :)'

That should mean you have successfully removed one.

DISCLAIMER
Persiana

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/18943832/

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:03:12 -0700

Norouz in Iran; a comprehensive account

The "tree" of Norouz is thousands of years old and has sprout myriads of "leaves." It has come to mark unity in diversity - a biodiversity of spring cultures.

Spring blossoms in Sari city, Mazandaran province (more pics..), near the Caspian Sea

The divergent customs of Norouz among various cultures of Iran:

Iranian villager ready to welcome the New Year with her special Norouz arrangements

'O Reformer of hearts and minds ..'

Norouz Cards

From the PART I, which gives translation of the above calligraphic art:

With the commencement of the New year, all members of the family wear their clean and new dress and gather around the Haftseen table of Norouz:

The family members then pray for their prosperity by the word of

O Reformer of hearts and minds,
Director of day and night
and transformer of conditions,
change ours to best
in accordance with your will.'

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/16386438/

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:29:12 -0800

Definition of a classical Persian poet

A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup,
then raise it to nourish your beautiful, parched, holy mouth.
~ Hafez

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/8646921/

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:50:43 -0700

Alright my friends, I won't be Stumbling for the next two weeks or so. Nowrouz is on Wednesday 21st of March and there won't be any more time for Stumbling. Looking forward to the festivities, the family & friends visits and will be going to the north by the Caspian, where one can retreat to the nature, soon.

Thank you to my wonderful and kind friend Marydee for such delightful Stumbles.

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/8599545/

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 07:51:09 -0700

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/8619194/

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:24:39 -0700

Nowrouz in the region

"He who celebrates and has fun on the day of Nowrouz will spend his life cheerfully until the next Nowrouz celebration."

Omar Khayyam

Cultural festivals take place across the region, including in:

The Uzbek capital Tashkent

(If interested, read about Nowrouz in Uzbekistan)
The Tadjik capital, Dushanbe

The Azeri capital, Baku

Which one is it?

..and many others. The least common denominator of people who have a connection to the Iranian culture is Nowrouz.

http://Persiana.stumbleupon.com/review/8489569/

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:04:19 -0700

I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to the messages or post any new Stumbles for a week. I was away on travel. Please allow me some time before I can send replies.