Unknown Persian, the Ancient Zoroastrian

(Circa 1313 BC)

In 1904, archaeologist, Sergei Casperov, discovered bones of a human hand atop an ancient Dokhmas in what is now known as Eastern Afghanistan. He did not realize it at the time, but from the moment he placed the bones into his white canvas bag, his life would never be the same. As he lay down to sleep that night, the dream that would recur for the rest of his life, began. The first several weeks Sergei had the dream, it was a disturbing series of fragmented chaotic events, so foreign to him, that Sergei felt that he was surely losing his mind. As the dream persisted night after night, the imagery became more and more vivid. He was dreaming of an Apocalypse.

The dream began with Sergei looking at the sky, above a large elevated stone village, as winged demons descended from black clouds. Within moments, the village is engulfed in flames. He watched as the ground opened up to swallow the people as they tried to escape while birds fell from the sky. When everyone but him was gone, he looked up to see a winged angels twisting in the air with demons and they fought for ascendancy. When the air grew calmer and the sky cleared, he saw the dead emerging from huge fissures in the ground, as they were being released from Hell.

Within months of the dream's commencement, Sergei became convinced that it was a true account of the distant past. He set out for what would become a lifelong obsession, the find evidence, archaeological or otherwise, that this series of events had actually occurred. Knowing that this new direction in research would be ridiculed by the University of Moscow, Sergei continued the excavation under the guise of the original research proposal, until funding ended in 1907. Unable to finance further field research, Sergei stayed in Persia to study as much as he could about the cultural anthropology of the area, where he became the first Russian scholar of the Ancient Zoroastrian** religion. Sergei died in Moscow in 1913; nine years after his recurring dream began. He kept the bones' existence undisclosed, never relinquishing them to the University. The connection of the bones to the dream, and the apocalyptic role of the person they belonged to, is still unknown.

**Beginning in the Bronze Age, the Zoroastrian beliefs in the end of the world, and the existence of angels and demons predate Judeo-Christian doctrine, by some estimates, several thousand years.

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Image on the right side of this piece is appropriated from Frederic Leighton's "And the Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were in It" 1892)