What is Nowruz? Nowruz is the Iranian New Year celebration, nowadays celebrated throughout the Greater Iranian world, from Anatolia to Xinjiang. Nowadays, it is celebrated near around the time of the Spring Equinox, in late March. A very common tradition of Nowruz is the “Haft Sin” or “Seven S’s,” which are items arranged around a […]

Mount Mugh lies east of Samarkand and Panjakent in modern day Tajikistan. It is one of the most famous Sogdian archaeological sites, and became famous in the first half of the 20th Century, when a local shepherd discovered documents written in Sogdian, that were translated and greatly added to our knowledge of the Sogdians, particularly […]

On Saturday we were at Erewash Museum in Ilkeston. The museum itself is a lovely little place, centrally located just outside the market square, and covers aspects of local town history. During school half term holidays, they held an event series called “Around the World in 80 Days,” which covered aspects of world history and […]

Sogdian helmets in paintings look rather distinctive. The helmets are spheroconical, often with a scallopped browband, and triangular finial (although other finial shapes are known from surviving Sogdian helmets). One particular feature that seems fairly unique to Sogdiana are the banded cheek plates, which appear on almost every depiction of a Sogdian helmet, but are […]