Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh
50,000 couplets: the national epic of Iran
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The poet Ferdowsi spent over 30 years on the Book of Kings, some 50,000 couplets about Iran's kings and heroes from the creation to the Arab conquest. He deliberately avoided Arabic words, and the poem helped preserve the Persian language. The Shahnameh is regarded as Iran's national epic; the poet finished its final version in 1010.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — 10 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 22 years earlier
Africa
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — 10 years earlier
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — 4 years earlier
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — same year
- 1010 The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur — same year
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 50)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 30)
- Ferdowsi (aged 70)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 44)
- Leif Erikson (aged 40)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 37)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 32)
- Cnut the Great (aged 15)
- Edward the Confessor (aged 7)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 44)