معرفت ادیان

The narration of the human sacrifice ritual of the Achaemenid Magi in the news of Xerxes's campaign against Greece has always been a source of much debate among researchers due to the special nature of this ritual and the different perspective of Iranian beliefs. A ritual in which we find no specific evidence of its existence in the few Iranian sources for an unknown god. On the other hand, although we do not find any evidence of the inaccuracy of the sources that tell about the existence of this ritual, the sources of many other Iranian and Indo-Iranian tribes show that such human sacrifice rituals were not unprecedented among Iranian tribes. Especially since there is a deep and remarkable similarity in the characteristics and mechanism of holding these rituals and the beliefs related to them. On the other hand, among other Indo-European tribes, we also find human sacrifice to the goddess of the earth with the same characteristics and traditional ritual methods, which confirms the existence of similar thoughts and beliefs in these ancient tribes about the goddess of the earth. On this basis, the issue of this research is also to investigate the origin and nature of the human sacrifice ritual in the Achaemenid period and its relationship with the beliefs of other Indo-European tribes, especially the rituals related to the goddess of the earth. This research, with an analytical and descriptive approach, reaches the conclusion that the human sacrifice ritual in the Achaemenid period has its roots in the ancient beliefs of the Indo-European tribes, during which the goddess of the earth, as the goddess who preserves and grants the earth, had a special place in entering new lands, during which human sacrifices had to be made to this goddess.