Estiphan Panoussi’s study examines the historical names of Takht-e Solaymān, an Iranian religious and archaeological site, distinguishing established scholarship from new linguistic hypotheses. Its central argument proposes that the sanctuary may have carried two overlapping designations: an inherited sacred name and a popular name associated with festivals.

The documented tradition connects the early Islamic name Šīz with Avestan Čaēčasta and Middle Persian Čēčast or Čēst, names rooted in sacred lake traditions and associated with the Sasanian sanctuary of Ādur Gušnasp. Panoussi retains this explanation as the strongest historical foundation. He also explores possible secondary associations with Zoroastrian vocabulary, including Aši, meaning reward or recompense; Aša, denoting truth and cosmic order; and yasna and yašt, relating to worship and hymns. These associations remain exploratory rather than established derivations.

The study’s principal proposal reconstructs Sur-man or Sur-i-man as “festival place,” combining the attested Iranian word sūr, meaning feast or banquet, with a proposed element meaning place or abode. Panoussi suggests that this designation could have undergone linguistic reshaping and eventual reinterpretation as Solaymān, linking the landscape to Solomon.

Archaeological spaces used for banquets and historical accounts of local festivities provide cultural support for investigating this possibility, but they do not prove the proposed name. The work therefore calls for documentary evidence predating the fifteenth century, alongside tests of morphology, sound changes, and chronology. Ultimately, it presents the site’s names as potential witnesses to the interaction of sacred geography, religious tradition, communal celebration, and later legend across successive periods of Iranian cultural history.