Western/Central Asia

“The world is fleeting, and as insubstantial / As a breath of wind; it flings a guiltless man / Into a dungeon, lifts another up / To glory and a throne, but finally / The star that rules our lives lays both of them / Within the grave’s grip and beneath the dust.”

Ferdowsi, The Legend of Seyavash from the Shahnameh (trans. Dick Davis)

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Homer, Iliad

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe, Western/Central Asia

Epic of King Gesar

Ancient World, East Asia, India and Southeast Asia, Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Ferdowsi, Shahnameh

Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Attar, The Conference of the Birds

Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

The Book of Dede Korkut

Location, Mediterranean, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Alpamish

Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Time Period, Transcribed in the 20th and 21st century, Western/Central Asia

Epic of Köroghlu

Location, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Manas

Location, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Lakhnavi, The Adventures of Amir Hamza

India and Southeast Asia, Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

David of Sassoun (Sasna Tsrer)

Location, The Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia