undercurrent

The people (especially the woman with scarf) and places, they are very Iranian.

Although it could be that Cornwall and Iran are secret twins, it's more probably another dimension to the same phenomenon - old people seem to be the same worldwide; I suppose in this respect they offer a rear-view mirror on the world from which they came and which has passed away so rapidly, leaving them behind. I often wonder how someone born, say, in the 1930s can cope with the sheer amount of change and acceleration that's happened in their lifetime, without yielding to insane despair and confusion - after all I was born 'here' and I often can't cope with it myself).

In England, at least, I understand this disappeared world to be a place where all colours except brown, grey, beige, or black were banned, everyone looked old (as opposed to now when 40-year-olds try wretchedly to look 14), and everyone dressed the same. Everyone wore hats too, and smoked incessantly.

Well, even regardless of age and oldness, they are amazingly corresponding with each other.

by the way Reza, did you ever get a photo of that newly-excavated Iranian winged deity?

I visited the dig site, but taking pictures is prohibited until the end of excavation. The cyclopean statue is highly exceptional; its obscenely panoplied body still radiates some kind of unrecorded / untamed monstrosity. My archeologist friend thinks it originally belongs to Pasargad (the tomb of Cyrus). This, I guess, makes things a bit puzzling:

1. The deity is obviously demonic. Two snakes grown from the back of his head (or neck?) correspond with the characteristics of the most famous villain in Middle East mythologies, Zahak or Dahak (Dah + Aak = ten plagues), on whose shoulders two snakes or black worms (nemat) take root (after being kissed by Druj on his shoulders). According to Persian mythologies, Zahak is the one who has already reached the end of darkness, the renegade Zoroastrians (or the cult of Druj-) have invented many strategies to bring the new Zahakian Age (The New Pest Order?) through the heart of monotheism and its hunger for immaculacy. Serpent is an explicit figure of demonism in ancient Persian culture and pre-Achemenian Zorostarianism (Ahura-Mazda fights Azhi-Dahaka, the great serpent to bring peace to the world). This makes the current ambiguous commentaries around Cyrus as the great righteous emperor and the one who spread Zoroastrianism in Persia fundamentally problematic ... the deity strongly connects him to the cult of Druj who tried to promote and intensify the paranoid mechanisms of Zoroastrianism to unground its entire system and releasing its schizotrategic lines.

2. Many documents available that Achemenian kings used multiple tombs to evade grave robbery and defilement. Does Pasargad really belong to Cyrus? Most of archeologists think so.

I’ve contacted the department of Iranian archeological studies at Columbia University (it regularly updates the news) but they apparently have no information. Anyway, I’m trying to get permission for taking a couple of pictures.