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ancient legend of an Yezidi shrine; Tappe Shaytan

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  Quote MediaWarLord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: ancient legend of an Yezidi shrine; Tappe Shaytan
    Posted: 05-Apr-2011 at 21:27
Nice story I found on flickr.com .
 
Part 1
 
Median tomb (@ 8th cent B.C.), W. Azerbayjan prov.
 
"@ 4 weeks before I was here a Kurdish guide offered me a lift in his tourbus back to Shiraz from Pasargadae. He had a thick book on the ancient sites and ruins of Fars prov., only the 1 province with much more than I had in my LP guide to the whole country. I asked him what good sights he could tell me about that I wouldn't find in my guide, and he was a good man to ask. I remember 2 he mentioned. First, somewhere near Kashan is an ancient maze of tunnels dug behind a cliff and designed so that if the nearby town was attacked, the locals (who'd each memorized the key to the maze) could run into it, and any outsider inclined to chase them in would become lost and trapped in the maze. !! How can that not be famous? But I'd been to Kashan and had no time to head back. The 2nd wasn't far off my route. Somewhere near a town in NW Iran is an ancient legendary Yezidi shrine, "Satan's Hill", 'Tappe Shaytan' (sp? pron. Tappay Shay-tan). Local Kurds descend by tunnel into this hill to geothermally heated chambers where they make offerings to demons or spirits of the underworld. He couldn't say exactly where the hill was located. Of course if its location was common knowledge all hell could break loose (bad pun, sorry), with arrests of the Yezidis and worse. These Kurds are officially Muslim, and even apostasy is punishable by death in Iran. (So for good luck I won't write the name of the town here). Yezidism is a religion with deep roots in the history of the area. It's dualistic (dualism was conceived in Iran, Zoroastrianism is the source of the Christian belief in a cosmic conflict between good and evil and man's free will to choose sides), and similar to Manichaeism. Yezidis are labelled as Satan-worshippers (our word 'Satan' derives from the local word 'Shaytan', Yezidis also refer to the Peacock Angel), but I think they're just being spiritually diplomatic. They worship a benign creator God as well as Shaytan and lesser angels who run the material world as god's agents. Shaytan's not evil but he can be a prick, so Yezidis try to stay on his good side and pay him special attention. (Something similar in Potosi, Bolivia, where the miners make small offerings every morning to effigies of the devil, 'El Tio' / 'the Uncle', who they believe must be the landlord. A nasty mortality rate in the mines there. www.flickr.com/photos/loupiote/5043151191/ ). Yezidis also have a caste system and a preoccup'n with the purity of the elements, ties to Zoroastrianism or an ancient regional religion which influenced Zoroastrianism.
- So I headed to this town to find Tappe Shaytan near the end of my 3 mos. in Iran
(Continued under the next photo of the Kurdish men)
- (From notes from a guide's guidebook): This here is either: 1. "A rupestral tomb of the Median period...consist[ing] of 2 stories (a 2nd lower story inside?) with 4 engaged stone columns (I could see 2 more inside), and several sepulchres. From the standpt. of sculptural technique and column'n, it ranks among the most impt. tombs of the period (708-550 BC)". 2: "a cave called Dakhmeh Sangi ('Stone Cave'), the tomb of Fera Atis, the father of Dieoces (the first Median king)." 3. "a grotto named 'Taq-i-Raka' with stonework similar to that of tombs at Nagsh-i-Rostam [which it looks to be]." Don't know which. Here's a Youtube video with info. that this could be the tomb of 'Phraortes,' son of Dieoces.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_D4Jfqy3rA "
 


Edited by MediaWarLord - 05-Apr-2011 at 21:39
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  Quote MediaWarLord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2011 at 21:28
Part 2
 
Kurds standing on what they told me was Tappe Shaytan, W. Azerbayjan prov.
 
 "(Continued from the write-up re the last photo of the Median tomb)
- When I was in Tehran, at the Golestan palace, I mentioned to a woman there that I'd be visiting this town, just the name of the town, and she said "Ah yes! Tappe Shaytan, you must find it!" So in Tehran this town was known for this shrine (the relevance of which I'll get to).
- In my search for a cheap hotel in the town I saw through the window of a phone-use establishment (where you can pay to use a phone) something low on a wall: it was face-shaped, looked like it was made of nylon, stuffed but all pinched in and flattened, with black hair hanging all around the edge, and a long strip of black leather (it looked like) along the top. It looked like a devil's head with a beard, horns, and a featureless face. I thought it might be a sign for Yezidis that this was a Yezidi-owned business (although I thought Shaytan, aka Malek Ta'us, would be represented by a peacock, but what does any non-Yezidi know?)
- I started tactfully asking around, but wtih exceptions I'll get to noone had heard of Tappe Shaytan. They'd say "I don't know of any such thing", but they wouldn't ask what I was on about and why. Iranians are usually a curious, extroverted bunch, esp. in the small towns. In Firuzabad I had a crowd follow me up the street as I headed back to my hotel for the night, which was above a garage, unlocked and semi-defunct, and I didn't want anyone to know I was staying there. I tried to shake them off but couldn't, an argument with a few just attracted more. I had to invite myself into someone's home close to the hotel, wait a while, sneak back out to the street, and even that wouldn't have worked if not for a lucky black-out. And Firuzabad was the stop for some of the best Sassanian ruins in Iran! This town has no attractions, no western tourists, so you wouldn't expect complete disinterest from the locals. And this town was known for Tappe Shaytan (remember that woman in Tehran). I took a small bus north of town to the Median tomb in the last photo, and when I asked the passengers about Tappe Shaytan's whereabouts a young man facing me pointed out the window to the east just before the driver said "Tappe Shaytan? Who is asking about Tappe Shaytan? There is no such thing!" (Again very emphatic, no questions and no explanation how he knew there was no such thing). And then the young man looked a bit sheepish. But I had a lead I think on the general direction, and after visiting the tomb I wandered off into the hills NE of town, but too few people to ask, and no luck apart from a good hike.
(Continued under the next photo of the tunnel.
"
 


Edited by MediaWarLord - 05-Apr-2011 at 21:39
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  Quote MediaWarLord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2011 at 21:34

Part 3

In a tunnel leading to an ancient Median shrine (Tappe Shaytan?, Yezidi), W. Azerbayjan prov.
 
 "(Continued from the write-up under the photo of the 4 Kurds)
- The next day someone I'd asked the day before told me he thought Tappe Shaytan might be in a village 4 km.s or so from town (but west, not east). Once there, I asked @ and was told by some locals (the 4 men in the last photo) that they thought a low mound right there with garbage strewn around was called Tappe Shaytan, but had no clue why. Around a bend a few 100 m.s on was another low mound, this one of rock, with carved steps and a platform, and a low, small, squarish tunnel carved into it at the top (shown here). According to a sign this was "Bard Conteh - historical location (1st millenium BC)", likely Median. I crawled in and along with my flashlight to a roughly carved chamber inside, all too low to stand in, but there could be fill from over the years. There was soot on the walls and ceiling, and it was warm inside, geothermally warm! I know that Yezidism is practised in northwest Iran, and this area could be a centre for it, and as a living religion it requires a functioning temple or shrine (preferably one you can STAND in), but Bard Conteh isn't it. It might've been once, one of a number in the area maybe, or it could have been used for some Median forebear to Yezidism, but for all the reasons given (the town's reputation, the inscrutable locals, etc.), I suspect Tappe Shaytan is in use deep inside a mtn. east of town.
- Crawling at the far end of the cave I found a shed snake's skin and it occurred to me that I should crawl right back out. I was told later that a local wouldn't have crawled in there for fear of poisonous snakes.
- Just so you know, I don't believe in Satan, etc. (I wouldn't seek him out if I did), and I'm not religious, I was just having fun being a sleuth for a couple days."
 


Edited by MediaWarLord - 05-Apr-2011 at 21:38
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  Quote Zert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2011 at 12:49
Interesting, cool and mysterious story. 
Outside the temples in Iraqi Kurdistan, I hadn't heard much about Yezidi temples.
It's a shame he couldn't progress further into the tunnel though. 

The Median maze also seems to be very nice.
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  Quote MediaWarLord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2011 at 18:21
Yezidis in Transcaucasia are descendants of Yezidis from north (Turkish occupied) Kurdistan, west (Syria) and south Kurdistan. But I never met an Yezidi from Iran. Ancestors of my mother are from north Kurdistan and only the paternal line of my father's father is from Lalish-Shangal region.
 
However I know that there are still some Yezidis in eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan. But we don't have any information about them, because they're to scared for the Iranian mullahs. They live as semi nomads, and they don't stay very long at the same place. There must be some Yezidis, because the most muslim Kurds were Yezidis once. And I don't think that all Yezidis in east Kurdistan converted to Islam.


Edited by MediaWarLord - 06-Apr-2011 at 19:21
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  Quote MediaWarLord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2011 at 18:35
Btw, I don't think that the Yezidis gave the name to that hill and called it "Tappe Shaytan". Because it's prohibited for the Yezidis to use the word "Shaytan".
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