From Ardebil to Ardeville
The mystery of the names of Ardebil &
Birjand
May 6, 2005
iranian.com It is the season to roll up the sleeves and commune with the yellow clayish mud
that passes for cultivable soil in my garden. I am a few weeks away from installing
the vegetable patch but the hoeing has begun in earnest to break the winter’s
crust and prepare the beds. My shovel grown old and rusty sits idle on this April
morning as the sky pisses away on the tulips and crocuses.
This is also the season that I blend the sublime with the ridiculous,
from the philosopher’s admonition to cultivate our garden,
ways and souls, to the courageous people of southeast Khorasan
who fought with shovels (bil) and how the “bil” in
Ardebil is related to the Latin “ville.” Let me explain.
A few years ago, my friend Sabatico, of whom I have written
before, mused that his acquaintance from Khorasan believed that
the fort-city of Birjand received its name from the fact that
its inhabitants used to go to war (jang) with shovels (bil) and
so eventually the “l” became “r” and “jang” became “jand” and
so we have Birjand. Every spring I rethink this anecdote and laugh
myself silly at the sight of my countrymen marching in line with
shovels resting on their weary shoulders answering the call to
arms by another megalomaniac leader. Would it not be a hoot, I
say to myself, if in reality the city contributed to the army
it served a corps of gravediggers to bury the fallen -- and
so it got its name.
I thought this was the only “bil” story that I could
savor in a lifetime until last winter when I was reading the 10th
century geographical work known as Hudud al-Alam. The Iranian
editor of this 1933 edition, Seyyed Jalaledin Tehrani, queried
if the name of the city of Ardavil (now Ardebil) was not the town
founded by Orod, the Ashkanian (Parthian) king that the Greeks
named for us as Orodville.
Neither the Encyclopaedia Iranica nor Dehkhoda’s Loghatnameh provides an answer to the etymological origin of the names Birjand
and Ardebil, other than to say that these names go as far back
as the Middle Ages. Therefore, I feel free to pontificate on the
matter without hesitation.
The clue to unraveling the mystery of Birjand is the meaning
of the word “jand” or “jond.” Dehkhoda
(vol. 16, p. 119) gives for it the meaning “army” and “town” and
I happen to think that the meaning of “jand” is a
synthesis of both meanings and it applied to a military encampment
or fortress-town. We know this to be the characteristic of places
named “kand” in Persian and Turkic, such as in Samarkand
and other towns in Afghanistan and Central Asia. By the same token,
Jondishahpour of the Sasanian period meant City of Shahpour.
The authorities agree that the first mention of Birjand occurred
in the 13th century work by Yaqut as a happening place, which
meant that it was around a lot earlier. An earlier geography seems
to have identified it as Pirchand (see entry Birjand in Encyclopaedia
Iranica). While Yaqut’s “Bir” was the Arabicized
version of the Persian “Pir,” the meaning of “pir” may
well have denoted the old town portion of the double fortress-town
setting that was Birjand.
 Of course, I know better to fall into this trap of “bir” for “pir” because “pir” may
well be a corruption of “pil” such as I discovered
a few year back when reading about Piri Bazar in Rasht that had
been in reality Pileh Bazar, where silk was landed for trade.
Every Iranian knows that “Pil” is also the brother “Fil” and
this, as my contemporaries remember from the pictorial in our
history book, is the animal the Sasanian king Qobad (Kovad) rode
into battle to face the enemy in the northeast provinces. Not
to belabor the obvious, Birjand well may have served as the emporium
of elephant trade that fitted out the Sasanian army.
Ardebil on the other hand has a tamer origin. Many think that
its name derived from one Ardebil bin Armanayn bin Nati bin Yunan.
Okay. Ferdowsi however thought it was built by the Sasanian king
Pirouz and he called it Pirouzram, City of Pirouz. I think neither
is correct, as convenient as they may be.
Ardebil (read Ard-bil) was by all accounts an emporium of trade,
where trade to and from the Caucasus and Caspian has been landing
since time immemorial and I think the place got is name from this
distinction. I begin with the first morpheme “ard” which
I think is a Persianized form of “aard,” with “ain,” that
meant donkey (see Dehkhoda, vol. 34, p. 157). The second morpheme “bil” was
in essence “bal” (see Dehkhoda, vol. 11 583) and it
was probably a form of “bar” meaning “load.” Together
(aard+bal) they denoted a loading place where trade was mounted
on donkey back. If that is outlandish, then perhaps it bears reminding
that another ancient emporium of trade in northern Iran presently
called Babol was known as Barforoush (literally where loads were
traded, market).
There is a slim possibility that the morpheme “bil” may
have referred to wild pig or boar (goraz), which is also a meaning
for the word (see Dehkhoda, vol. 11, p. 583). In which case combined
with “aard” that can also mean “standing erect” (see
Dehkhoda, vol. 34, p. 157) Aardbil could have signified a place
where one had seen the menacing sight of a boar on its hind legs.
Is that not the motif of many a Parthian and Sasanian hunt scenes?
 I close this early spring rumination with the observation by
Dehkhoda (vol. 11, p. 584) that “bil” is apparently
like “ville” meaning city and is used as a suffix
for name of towns; it has a common origin with “pol” and “pala.” I
do not know about “pol” other than its Persian meaning
for “bridge.” As for “pala” the only place
that I have experienced with it is Shirpala and that was a valley
in the Alborz Mountains were angelica (golpar) grew.
This spring I will plant my different varieties of parsley,
mints, basil and tarragon but all the while I shall pine for the
golpar of my birthland.
About
Guive Mirfendereski practices law in Massachusetts (JD, Boston College Law
School, 1988). His latest book is A
Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea: Treaties, Diaries, and Other Stories (New
York and London: Palgrave 2001)
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