Cup of Jamshid

The Cup of Jamshid, known in Persian as jām-e Jam, is a divinatory vessel from Persian mythology, once held by the rulers of ancient Greater Iran. Its name comes from Jamshid, a legendary figure in Greater Iranian tradition. The cup is also referred to as Jam-e Jahan nama, Jam-e Jahan Ara, and Jam-e Giti nama. This artifact appears widely in Persian literature and poetry, with many writers crediting the success of the Persian Empire to its possession.

The cup was used for scrying, revealing the whole world within it. According to Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, looking into it allowed one to observe all seven heavens of the universe. Divinations performed with the cup were thought to reveal deep truths. In popular depictions, such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan, it is often shown as a crystal ball; Helen Zimmern’s English translation of the Shahnameh uses the term "crystal globe."

The seven-ringed Cup of Jamshid appears in the classic poem Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam, as seen in the fifth verse of Edward Fitzgerald’s fifth translation: "Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose, / And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows; / But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields, / And still a Garden by the Water blows." It is also mentioned in the Sawāneḥ by Persian Sufi mystic Ahmad Ghazali: "As long as the world-displaying goblet is in my hand, the wheel of heaven on high lowers itself before me / As long as the Kaʿba of non-being is the qebla of my being, the most sober man in the world is intoxicated by me." In 20th-century literature, the cup appears in a poem by Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Tasvīr-i Dard ("The Portrait of Anguish"): "Even if he viewed the whole world, what did he see? Jam could not see his own reality in the wine cup."