كتاب و صندوق

Sanduq and Books

This paper discusses the word sanduq (chest or case), a Persian word used for more than a thousand years. Quoting examples from Persian texts, the writer shows the various instances the word has been used. The word, the writer illustrates, has been used to refer not only to a place of storage but to the following as well: coffin; wooden networks or hollow cubic gravestones placed on tombs, a place for keeping valuable objects and documents; a box where magicians kept their tools; a box for keeping and transporting books and, specifically, for keeping volumes of the Qurʹan. The word has also entered into many figurative expressions such as sanduq-e sine "The chest", sanduq-e sar (The chest of the head), sanduq-e saʹat (the chest of the clock), etc.