Cyrus’ daughter Atossa has captivated me for all sorts of reasons, not least: she may be the first woman to have had a mastectomy and survived. Whether she did or didn’t is a matter of some debate. Only a brief note by Herodotus informs us of her condition and treatment. The author of Bathsheba’s Breast, …
Our relationship with Iran has hardly been comfortable in the past decades, even before the latest bizarrities. Yet just when Americans were donning crazy costumes for weekend Halloween parties, and as surprising as was the snow in New York City, the calendar afforded a day for our countries to find common ground. My article in recognition of International …
“The mother of all living,” a slave-mother who despairs of saving her son, a mother who unapologetically favors one son over the other, a mother-in-law more beloved than her daughter-in-law’s own people, old mothers, young mothers, and a mother who conceives by the Holy Spirit — for as little as we know about them, the Bible’s …
Mothers of Old and Mothers Today, Happy Mothers’ Day! Read More »
Contemplating the beginnings of the Persian empire, I’m intrigued by Cassandane and Atossa, who seem to be respectively the wife and daughter of Cyrus II. Were they the means by which these first Persian emperors were identified as Achaemenid?, an i.d. of some pride that is still to describe those kings. It appears to be a family line that …
