Barsom

Barsom [blswm; Manichaean Middle Persian brswm] is the Pahlavi word for “the bunch of twigs used in the Yasna ceremony” as defined in MacKenzie Pahlavi. According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica it is the Middle Persian form of the Avestan word barǝsman. These twigs were used in the celebration of certain ceremonies, the number of which depended upon the ceremony, and came from either the haoma plant or pomegranate. Today brass or silver wires are substituted for twigs. It is argued that the act of holding barsom and repeating prayers is a means of praising “... the Creator for the support accorded by nature and for the gift of the produce of the earth…and is intended to express gratitude to the Creator for His boundless gifts.”¹

You will find this term used in various numismatic works discussing, for example, Sasanian coinage. Göbl SN Section 19 Reverse/The Coin Type uses the variant spelling “barsnom”. In this section Robert Göbl discusses, among other things, the object found in the hand(s) of the fire attendants who are represented as such on various coin types: either barsom bundles or swords. The term is also used by Rika Gyselen in SNS I, p. 191 footnote 39 where she expresses her doubt that the fire attendants on the coinage of the Shapur I are holding barsom bundles, contra Göbl. In SNS II, in his discussion of the coinage of Narseh, Michael Alram mentions the fire attendants as holding barsom bundles (see. p. 289 ff).

¹M. F. Kanga, “Barsom”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition. Originally Published and Last Updated: December 15, 1988. Accessed January 2, 2021.

Sasanian King of Kings Narseh (r. 293 - 302 AD). AR Drachm; 28mm; 3.99g; die position 3h. Göbl SN II/2; SNS II Type Ia/1a Phase 1. Note the barsom bundles in the left hand of each fire attendant. [Unaltered image from T. K. Mallon’s Sasanian Empire pages on his archived website “The Coins and History of Asia”. The image contains the following note: Courtesy William B. Warden, Jr. collection. Accessed January 3, 2021].

From the Oxus Treasure: 5th Century - 4th Century BC, Achaemenid period. Rectangular gold plaque, embossed and chased depiction of a male figure in Median dress carrying a barsom bundle. [Resized image from the British Museum website used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license].