Majid Khaleghian

According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, the king of Media marched against Cyrus, but the Median army rebelled against their own king and handed him over to Cyrus. The day the Median army joined Cyrus’s popular uprising and ended Astyages’ tyranny, peace and justice were restored to the Iranian realm.

Nowruz marks the mythical day when Jamshid defeated evil and saved creation—symbolizing harmony between humans and the creator (Ahura Mazda) in ancient Iranian thought. Humans are not portrayed as inherently sinful beings deserving of punishment. Instead, humanity and the creator are seen as allies who protect the world of existence together.

In several of his verses, Hafez honors Adam and Eve, seeing their defiance not as disgrace, but as a dignified, even sacred, act. Had Adam and Eve remained in paradise, humanity would never have known its vast achievements. There would have been no thought, no art, no will, no poetry. We would have been creatures circling endlessly in an eternal garden, avoiding a forbidden tree.

First and foremost, it must be noted that the entire vastness of Cyrus’s empire did not result solely from his own conquests. Cyrus managed to bring the large territory of Media under his rule without a significant war. Cyrus’s other conquests were also motivated by threats from foreign powers or alliances formed against him.

Considering the evidence, we can conclude that not only do diverse historical sources from different cultures confirm the Cyrus Cylinder, but contemporary archaeological artifacts related to everyday life also support its claims.

Gōsāns were artists who narrated stories through poetry and music in the streets and neighborhoods. They served as guardians of Iran’s epic tales and passed them down to the Sasanian era. The Gōsāns’ tradition of recounting epic narratives was a rich one—especially among the storytellers of Khorasan, who benefited from both the cultural diversity and religious freedoms of the Kushan and Parthian periods in the East.