Cyrus the Great Day

Cyrus the Great Day, 7 Aban, honors the founder of the first Persian Empire. Cyrus took the throne in 559 BC — the very year the Shahanshahi calendar counts from — and extended the Achaemenid Empire from the Indus to the Mediterranean: the largest empire the world had yet seen.

After taking Babylon in 539 BC, Cyrus issued the Cyrus Cylinder: a clay tablet proclaiming freedom of religion, the return of exiles to their homelands, and an end to forced servitude. Held today in the British Museum, it is widely regarded as the first charter of human rights. The Hebrew Bible praises him for freeing the Jews from their Babylonian captivity.

His plain, majestic tomb at Pasargadae still stands after two and a half thousand years. In recent years Iranians gather there on this day to honor their ancient heritage — a symbol of national identity and of Iranians’ bond with their pre-Islamic history.