A Survey of Wonders and Marvels of Europe in a Unique Persian Manuscript

Marvelous Manuscripts hold a salient position in each country's culture; some of which change into myths and the other foster the production of different literary works. Geographers and historians embelish their writings with those contents as well. Some of these materials are offsprings of imagination and the others based on fact. Reflection of those materials in ancient historical works was deemed common. Odysius of Homer in the West literature much like Sandbad Nameh, Eskandar Nameh and Shahnameh in the East literature serve as good examples of the mentioned reflection. The present marvelous manuscript is authored in the middle of 13th century and has devided marvels into two categories of natural and human. Natural marvels on which human being exerts no influence are as follows: marvels pertaining to animals, plants and trees, mountains, stones and mines, rivers, springs, wells and seas and also heavenly marvels. Human marvels on the other hand consist of the following. Marvels pertaining to spiritual and physical conditions of human beings, marvels pertaining to monuments built by humans, marvels pertaining to human inventions and innovations, marvels pertaining to magic spells, and mervels pertaining to wars and battles. The present work extracts the above-mentioned marvels which concern Europe in one way or another