The word 'magic' is Persian in origin.

520 BC

The magi were priests of Media and Persia, already named in Darius's Behistun inscription around 520 BC. Greeks saw them as sorcerers and astrologers, hence 'magician' and 'magic'.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• The Behistun inscriptionc. 520 BC · Mount Behistun (Iran). Darius I had a relief and an account of his accession and victories over rebels carved on a cliff by the road from Mesopotamia to Media, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. In 1835–47 Henry Rawlinson copied it, and it became the key to deciphering cuneiform, as the Rosetta Stone was for hieroglyphs.

6th century BC

More amazing facts

• 539 BC The idiom 'the writing on the wall' comes from the fall of Babylon.
• 530 BC Pythagoras is said to have forbidden his followers to eat fava beans.
• 525 BC Legend says Persia conquered Egypt with the help of cats.
• 509 BC · 508 BC Rome expelled its last king in 509 BC and Athens got democracy from Cleisthenes in 508: republic and democracy were born almost side by side.
• 509 BC SPQR, 'the Senate and People of Rome', still appears on Rome's coat of arms and city documents.
• 500 BC · 1847 The word 'gorilla' was coined not by zoologists but by Carthaginian sailors 2,500 years ago. Hanno described hairy wild people on an African island whom his interpreters called 'gorillai'. In 1847 the name went to the ape.

All amazing facts (1058) →