Yusef Saadat, a researcher at CERES, Ruhr University Bochum, has published a new article in Iranian Studies examining the mechanics of the Činwad Bridge in Zoroastrian eschatology. The article argues that some Zoroastrian narratives describe the transformation of the bridge’s surface, which is difficult for the wicked but easy for the righteous to cross, as a revolving movement.

Drawing on dispersed and intricate evidence from a number of Middle Persian texts, Saadat reconstructs the mechanics of this rotation and examines the role of the scales as the force that drives the movement. Using conceptual metaphor theory, he further suggests that the presence of such a mechanism in eschatological descriptions may point to the existence of comparable semi-automated systems in everyday life, or at least to the circulation of such an idea among the social elites of the period.

The full article is available via the DOI link below:
https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2026.10171