Fire, a primordial power has long held a certain fascination for mankind. Anything from its ability to heat early caves, and later homes, and then when fire was confined into gas boilers, we still decorate our homes with candles.
It has also been a topic for religions, often just candles in churches — but more profound for the Zoroastrians — and underneath a gallery in central London, you can find a Zoroastrian temple with its eternal flame burning brightly.
As it happens, the temple is temporary, as is the fake flame within, for this is an exhibition that seeks to explain some of the mysteries of this truly ancient religion.
Zoroastrianism originated amongst Iranian tribes in Central Asia around 2,000 years before Christ turned up in Galilee and then it spread to Iran where it became the principal faith until the advent of Islam. Central to the religion is the belief in a sole creator god, Ahura Mazda, his agent Zarathustra (Zoroaster) and the dichotomy between good and evil.
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