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A bearded figure rising from a winged disc with a ring in hand.
Also known as: Farohar, Fravahar, Winged disc figure, Zoroastrian emblem
The Faravahar is the best-known emblem of Zoroastrianism and of Iranian identity, and what it actually depicted in Achaemenid Persia is genuinely unresolved: the identification with the fravashi, the guardian spirit, is a modern reading that Iranian-studies scholarship does not confirm. The popular list of meanings for each feather is a twentieth-century invention.
Denotes Zoroastrianism and, more broadly, Iranian cultural identity, drawn as a robed male figure emerging from a winged disc.
Contexts: Public information
Has no established ancient meaning: the identification with the fravashi is a modern interpretation, and Achaemenid sources do not name the figure.
Widely circulated accounts assigning a meaning to each ring of feathers are twentieth-century inventions with no ancient source. Scholarship treats the figure's original identity as unresolved.
Contexts: Public information
Is used today as a secular emblem of Iranian identity by Iranians of many faiths and none, a use distinct from its religious one.
Contexts: Public information
A pair of broad outstretched wings with layered feathers, a ringed disc at the centre, and the upper body of a bearded man rising from it holding a ring.