Welcome to stdferdowsim

Population genetic simulations for Persian mythology and the Shahnameh.

stdferdowsim is a library of demographic and genome models for creatures, spirits, and heroes from Persian mythology, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, and Zoroastrian cosmology. Simulate Simurgh, Divs, Jinn, Manticores, and dozens more with made-up but population-genetically plausible parameters — powered by msprime and SLiM and built on the stdpopsim framework.

Be not content with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth. — Rumi

First steps

• Install: Installation — get stdferdowsim on your machine.

• Explore: Catalog — 36 species and 360 demographic models.

• Run: Tutorial — examples and workflows.

Quick run

Install and simulate 10 Simurgh samples with a ghost-admixture model:

$ pip install stdferdowsim
$ stdferdowsim SimAvi -d GhostAdmixture_3F10 -o simurgh.trees -L 100000 Main:10 Secondary:10

Then open simurgh.trees in tskit or continue with the tutorial.

Catalog at a glance

The full catalog lists every species and demographic model. By category:

• Shahnameh Creatures & Heroes - Simurgh avianus, Divus mazandarensis, Azhdaha draconius, Rostam heroicus

• Spirits, Jinn & Peris - Jinnus persicus, Peri paradisi, Al daemonius, Daeva warrior

• Mythical Birds & Beasts - Huma paradisica, Manticore persicus, Senmurv birddog, Chamrosh griffinus

• Zoroastrian Cosmology - Faravahar glorius, Mithra solarius, Yazata guardian

• Cross-cultural & Regional - Nart heronius, Marduk mortalis

• Generic models - Generic demographic models (any species)

Contents:

• Introduction
  • Purpose
  • Model complexity taxonomy
  • Species categories
  • First steps
  • Citations
  • Licence and usage
• Installation
  • Requirements
  • Conda
  • Pip
  • Running the CLI
• Catalog
  • Shahnameh Creatures & Heroes
  • Spirits, Jinn & Peris
  • Mythical Birds & Beasts
  • Zoroastrian Cosmology
  • Cross-cultural & Regional
  • Generic models
• Tutorials
  • Running stdferdowsim with the command-line interface (CLI)
  • Running stdferdowsim with the Python interface (API)
  • Example analyses with stdferdowsim
• Command-line options
  • Positional Arguments
  • Named Arguments
  • msprime specific parameters
  • SLiM specific parameters
  • Sub-commands
• API
  • Quick reference
  • Species definitions
  • Demographic Models
  • Gene conversion and bacterial recombination
  • Selection and DFEs
  • Selection and sweeps
  • Generic models
  • Simulation Engines
• Development
  • Installation
  • GitHub workflow
  • Adding a new species
  • Adding a new demographic model
  • Adding a recombination/genetic map or annotation
  • Lifting over a recombination/genetic map
  • Adding a DFE model
  • Coding standards
  • Naming conventions
  • Unit tests
  • Code Coverage
  • Documentation
  • Making a new release
• Changelogs
  • Upcoming
  • [0.1.0] - 2026-02-15
  • [0.3.0] - 2025-03-18
  • [0.2.1a] - 2024-07-06
  • [0.2.0] - 2022-11-01
  • [0.1.2] - 2020-05-29
  • [0.1.1] - 2020-01-02
  • [0.1.0] - 2019-12-18

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page