The most difficult Persia riddles

Tomyris was a Massagetean ruler who reigned over the Massagetae, an Iranian people from Scythian pastoral-nomadic confederation of Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. Tomyris led her armies to defend against an attack by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire, and, according to Herodotus, defeated and killed him in 530 BC. The names of Tomyris, and her son Spargapises, who was the head of her army, are of Iranian origins.

The Shahnameh is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 "distichs" or couplets the Shahnameh is the world's longest epic poem written by a single poet. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century.

The Saluki is among the oldest dog breeds originally bred in the Fertile Crescent. Historically, Salukis were used for hunting by nomadic tribes of Persia. Typical quarry included the gazelle, hare, fox and jackal. Breeding in the West did not start until the 19th century.

Ahura Mazda ("Wise Lord") was probably the main god in pantheon of the pre-Zoroastrian Iranians. In both the religion of Darius, Xerxes and Zoroaster, he was worshipped as the supreme god to the point that the rest were almost excluded.

Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, Iran.