Daily History Challenge · No. 102 · Thursday 8 October 2026 · Chain

Puzzle No. 102: Chain

The anchor was Zoroaster and the rise of dualist religion (1200 BCE). Every challenger is listed below with its year.

The anchor

c. 1200 to 900 BCEZoroaster and the rise of dualist religion

The Iranian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) preached a reformed religion centred on a single supreme creator god, Ahura Mazda, and an ethical-cosmic dualism between Asha (truth and right order) and Druj (the lie and chaos), in which human beings must freely choose to side with good against evil. His teachings are preserved in the Gathas, a set of hymns composed in an archaic Iranian language and traditionally ascribed to the prophet himself, forming the oldest layer of the sacred Avesta. Zoroastrianism introduced or sharpened ideas with a long afterlife in world religion, including a powerful cosmic struggle between good and evil, individual moral responsibility and judgment after death, a final triumph of good and the renewal of the world. Becoming the dominant faith of successive Iranian empires, it influenced later religious thought and is frequently discussed in connection with eschatological and dualist motifs in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroaster's date is highly uncertain, with scholarly estimates ranging across several centuries.

Read the full story · See the world in 1200 BCE