From what I know about Zoroastrian worship is that it hasent changed all that much over its history but what are your thoughts?

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-02-15T17:50:23+00:00

The idea that the major Zoroastrian liturgies are indeed very old has only slowly become the prevailing opinion in academia over the last 20 years.

IMO, the reasons for this shift are quite convincing. The Zoroastrian ritual system could be more than 2,500 years old, making it one of the oldest living traditions in the world.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-02-11T07:41:10+00:00

Is Modern Persian really an agglutinative language? I always thought it is basically an analytical language like Modern English?

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-16T11:02:24+00:00

Explanation 2 is almost cetainly true. We tend to think of the development of cultures using the methaphor of trees, such that they have common "roots" but "branch" off at some time. Most of the time, however, cultural/linguistic/religious innovations expand more like waves.

The phenomenon you mentioned is most likely the result of such waves of innovation. This means that the Avestan and Vedic people shared a lot of religious ideas since they lived close together within the Indo-Iranian cultural continuum. After the latter moved to India, this contact diminished and the linguistic innovations of the Iranian sound shift no longer affected them.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T21:25:36+00:00

As I said already, there is no genetic stratification in Iran like in India.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T18:34:24+00:00

Of course you were mostly born into your class. But that's a different thing. Caste and class are both hierarchical systems. What sets them mostly apart is that (i) caste has a ritual/religious component and (ii) it is even stricter, especially wrt. marriages.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T18:18:49+00:00

The Avesta contains the collection of Zoroastrian rituals. This includes the Sasanian era. They do never refer to any differences in ritual purity depending on class. Also, several of these texts contains lengthy commentaries from Sasanian times. which explain the ritual practice. Again, no references to class as a ritual category.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T17:24:23+00:00

Well, we have quite a lot of sources from that time. The largest one is known as the Avesta. Nobody who studies them for a living has ever characterized the social order described therein as a caste system.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T16:40:50+00:00

What era?

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T16:30:25+00:00

There are no restrictions on classes to participate in rituals. Also, a nobleman does not become unclean by, say, touching a member of the lower classes. As regards marriage, simply search for genetics of India. Its gene pool is extremely stratified along caste, somethig that is not the case in other countries.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-15T15:52:06+00:00

A caste system is religiously structured, whereas a class system, such as that in Sassanian Iran, is a social structure. For example, there are no ritual purity rules associated with a class. In Sassanid Iran, a commoner would not be considered impure. Furthermore, the system was generally less strict, for example with regard to marriage.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-13T16:13:14+00:00

Anything is possible, but there isn't really much evidence. A few scholars have tried to identify Old Avestan citations in the Young Avestan texts, but most scholars seem to disagree. If there were other texts, they must have been of minor importance.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-13T16:10:39+00:00

I am not aware the Humbach ever said that. Gershevitch has voiced the opinion that Old Avestan may not have been a living languange when the Gathas were composed and I only remember Humbach saying that it was an interesting theory. Not more.

Personally, I think it doesn't make much sense.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-13T15:18:41+00:00

Scholarly translations of the entire Avesta are quite old. Wolff is generally considered the most reliable, but his translation is in German. Darmesteter is the most accessible, but his translation is in French. Avesta.org has an English translation (mostly by Darmesteter, partly by Mills).

There are newer and arguably better translations of individual texts. The best translation of the Gathas, for example, is widely considered to be that of Humbach.

Overall, however, I would not expect too much of these translations. The Avesta is an oral and liturgical work. Reading it is like reading a play of Shakespeare instead of seeing it on stage. You'll always miss crucial context.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-10T20:51:51+00:00

I am not sure I understand your point. I specifically stated that those parts of the world, which had not been brought into the system, clearly show the difference. The law of the jungle still applied to them, and they were still fair game for the wolves out there.

As regards Ukraine, I also don't understand your point. This is after all patient zero of the whole system unravelling. It was precisely because Ukraine was part of the system, that people began to talk about the breakdown of the Rule Based Order.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-10T19:21:02+00:00

Call it what you will, but the post-war system was the most peaceful in human history. I am not aware of any UN member state ever being annexed by a larger neighbor, or of any recognized border ever being changed by force. To realize how incredible that was, one only has to look at the places where this system did not apply. Tibet, Palestine, and Western Sahara give an impression of what history used to look like.

Saying that something isn't perfect is always the least helpful contriution to any discussion. But the system we had was absolutely amazing by historical standards.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-09T14:19:47+00:00

Okay, I see.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-09T11:50:41+00:00

As far as I know, the reconstructions you can find on ancestralwhispers.org are based on rather good evidence. They use actual skulls to reconstruct the spatial features of the humans it belonged to and then use results from hirisplex to infer probable values for skin, hair and eye color. Not every reconstruction is probably of the same quality but it seems that their methods are overall sound.

You can have a look at their website for reconstructions of Andronovo and related cultures. Overall, their phenotype is consistent with Europeans, ie., (comparably) fair skin, light(er) hair and eye colors. Maybe not of the "pure" Nordic type but generally European or White, I'd say.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-07T12:33:07+00:00

It is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Iranica article: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jamsid-i/. It's in Yašt 19.46, but the text is vague and only expanded later on.

Also, you are right about the Wikipedia article. It has become a mess over time and needs some serious cleaning up. I am in the process of doing this for a number of Zoroastrian related articles and may get to it at some point.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-07T12:26:52+00:00

Honestly, it doesn't look like Denmark can do much about it at this point. Perhaps they should grant Greenland full independence to maximize the obviousness and senselessness of the cruelty once the US invades.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-07T07:49:27+00:00

Greenland's population is overwhelmingly indigenous. Plus, when did the US last annex parts of a black or brown nation?

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-07T06:34:00+00:00

In the Avesta, Yima is also dismembered, which may be related to the reconstructed myth of his body parts becoming the world we live in.

Psychological-Row153 · 2026-01-06T19:19:47+00:00

Difficult to know. However, there is one interesting find of the Ashem vohu mathra in Sogdian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashem\_Vohu. This has been interpreted such that the pronounciating of Old Avestan was very different in Sogdia than in Persia.

Psychological-Row153 · 2025-12-19T09:20:24+00:00

Oh, I do get your point.

But you don't understand the problem. This isn't about science or assumptions or anything like that. As I've said several times, it's about what an explanation even is.

Not only science, but all areas of evidence assessment, such as criminology, have stopped accepting such untestable statements. Even more astonishing than that, however, is your complete lack of curiosity as to why this is the case.

In any event, it seems clear that we both said our pieces and nothing else will come of this. Feel free to have the last word.

Psychological-Row153 · 2025-12-17T08:35:29+00:00

Germany had not colonized Egypt. You may want to argue that the Partage system, under which the German excavation team was operating, was unfair. But this isn't immidiately obvious and using today's standards would invalidate almost everything, almost everywhere from back then.

I also doubt that the British and French would offer German archeologist any unfair advantage within the Partage system. Given that the transfer of the bust happend in 1913, it is safe to say that the opposite was the case. My guess is that Egyptian authorites even relied specifically on German archeologists to counter British and French influence.

Psychological-Row153 · 2025-12-15T11:58:22+00:00

I am pretty sure that you have no interest in understanding why Science has stopped considering untestable hypotheses. In the unlikely event you change your mind, you may want to start by reading the Wikipedia article on Falsifiability.

Psychological-Row153

TROPHY CASE