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Friday 19 August 2016

Ancient Persia

During the time of these early civilizations the area called Persia, modern Iran, began to develop a very sophisticated empire. This empire would battle Greece, Rome and eventually would begin to lose influence as the Islamic Empire began to expand in the 7th century.

A bronze Persian head was cast in the 1000's B.C.
Silver drinking cup was used by a king or nobleman.
Persian coins. The Achaemenid coin, was minted in the 400's B.C. The Sassanian coin, dates from about A.D. 400.
The winged Ahura Mazda, was the chief god of ancient Persia and symbol of Zoroastrianism.
An Achaemenid cylinder seal shows King Darius killing a lion. Impressions were made by rolling the seal across soft clay.
Investiture of Ardashir I, a rock relief sculpture at Naqshi Rustam, near Persepolis, shows Ardashir, founder of the Sassamid dynasty, taking the symbol of royalty from Ahura Mazda, the supreme Zoroastrian god.
Persian Empire about 500 B.C. - This map shows the Achaemenid Empire at its peak in about 500 B.C, during the reign of Darius I. Persis, later called Persia, was the centre of an empire that stretched west to the central Mediterranean Sea, east to northeastern India (now Pakistan), and from the Gulf of Oman in the south to the southern part of the present-day Soviet Union in the north. Darius ruled from several capitals.

Ancient Persia, was a land that included parts of what are now Iran and Afghanistan. Under Cyrus the Great, Darius I, Xerxes, and other leaders, it became the home of a great civilization and the centre of a vast empire. The name Persia came from Persis, which was the Greek name for the region. The Persians themselves called the region the land of the Aryans, from which the name Iran comes. The Persians called their language Aryan.
The early Persians were nomads who came to the area from what is now the southern Soviet Union in about 900 B.C. They were good organizers and administrators, and the empire they created lasted over 200 years. They made important contributions in government, law, and religion. The Persians developed an efficient system of postal delivery using relays of fast horses. They also built an irrigation system and tried to standardize weights and measures. For a quotation about their postal system, see Post office (Ancient times).
The Persians treated their subjects better than earlier rulers had, and they probably influenced the action and policies of later governments. Alexander the Great build on Persian accomplishments to unify his empire. So did the Arabs in building their civilization.
In the 500's B.C., Persia became the centre of the vast Achaemenid Empire, which included most of the known world. It extended from North Africa and southeastern Europe in the west to India in the east, and from the Gulf of Oman in the south to the Caucasus Mountains and Syr Darya River in the north. Persians invaded Greece in the early 400's B.C. But the Greeks drove them from Europe, ending the empire's expansion. Alexander the Great conquered the empire in 331 B.C. Later, Parthians and Sassanids controlled Persia before it was conquered by Arabs in A.D.641.
Way of life
The people. Ancient sculptures show that the Persians were a handsome people with long, straight noses. Persians dressed in long robes, later called caftants  and wore jewellery and false hair.
Most of the common people lived in mud huts, very much like the huts in which many of the country people of Iran live today. Nobles and kings built large stone houses and palaces. The ruins of some of these build­ings are still standing today.
The Persians adopted many of the customs of the Elamites, the people they had conquered. But they kept many traditions of the nomadic (wandering) peoples. For example, they taught their sons to ride horses, shoot bows, and speak the truth. The Persians considered it a disgrace to lie or to be in debt.
S Early Persian families formed into clans, and clans into tribes. But as the empire grew, social units larger than the family began to disappear. Persian men could have several wives. A king could select his wives only from the six highest families. Rulers had large harems, where all the women in the family lived.
Language and literature. The people of ancient Per­sia spoke Old Persian, a language of the Indo-European family related to the Sanskrit language of India and to modern Persian. The Persians developed a cuneiform system of writing (see Cuneiform). But the cuneiform system was used only for royal inscriptions, because few people could read it. The Persians used Aramaic, a Semitic language related to Hebrew, as a written lan­guage. Aramaic was widely used in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia then, and the Persians extended its use to India, central Asia, and Asia Minor (now Turkey). Local languages were used in various parts of the empire.
Little is known of the literature of ancient Persia. But stories of ancient heroes still survive, probably passed down by minstrels and through folk tales.
Religion. The Persians believed in gods of nature, such as the sun and sky. The people believed the gods had social powers. Mithra, the god of light, for example, controlled contracts. The Persians had no temples. They prayed and offered sacrifices on mountains.
Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), a prophet who lived some­time between 1400 and 1000 B.C, reformed the ancient religion. Fie preached a faith based on good thoughts, words, and deeds, emphasizing a supreme god called Ahura Mazda, "the wise spirit." Zoroaster's followers, called Zoroastrians, gradually spread his religion all over Persia. Zoroaster's teachings are found in the Gathas, part of a holy book called the Avesta.
Art and architecture in ancient Persia was a unique mixture of Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and other cultures. Remains of huge royal palaces that stood at Pasargadae, Persepolis, and Susa have been found in what is now Iran. Goblets, plates, and other objects made of gold during the Persian Empire have been found. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia, silver became popular, and many silver art objects have been found. Many museums exhibit ancient Persian textiles, rugs, and pottery.
Economy. Early Persians were farmers. They raised grain and livestock. Deserts covered much of the high­land region, and the peasants developed irrigation to grow wheat, barley, oats, and vegetables. They used un­derground tunnels to avoid evaporation by the hot sun, and brought water as much as 160 kilometres from the mountains to the valleys and plains. Highland Persia had few large towns until Alexander the Great conquered it. Crafts developed after cities were founded. Pottery, weaving, and metal work in copper, iron, gold, and sil­ver became important occupations. Pots and pans be­came more important than weapons, armour, and farm­ing tools. Potters and weavers made clothing, pottery, and rugs for the people.
Caravans carried trade goods from many parts of the world through Persia to the Mediterranean Sea. Impor­tant articles of trade included precious and semipre­cious stones, and spices. A silk route to central Asia and China was opened, probably during the 100's B.C. Trade routes from Mesopotamia to the Far East led across Per­sia, skirting the central desert.
Other routes led east to India, and north to the Cauca­sus Mountains and the Black Sea. The Persians built roads between the important cities in their empire. The most famous was the royal road that linked Sardis in
western Asia Minor to Susa near the Persian Gulf. The Persians used the roads to deliver post swiftly by relays of horsemen.
Government
Well-organized bureaus governed the Achaemenid Empire (about 550-331 B.C.). The empire was divide into provinces called satrapies, each satrapy governed by an official called a satrap. Satraps ruled and lived like minor kings. But the king of kings, who ruled the empire from Persia, had final and absolute authority. The kings codified (systematized) the laws in various parts of the empire. Troops in the satrapies were controlled by the central government. A secret service, which the Greek called the "eyes and ears of the king," informed the king of affairs throughout the empire.
Under the Parthians (155 B.C.-A.D. 225) and Sassanids (A.D. 224-641), Persians kept the title king of kings. Some of these Persian rulers were strong, but others were weak. Local lords exercised great powers during the Parthian period. A powerful state church existed under the Sassanids. Priests served in important civil post, that church and state remained separate.
History
Early civilization. The first known civilization in Persia was that of the Elamites, who settled the region perhaps as early as 3000 B.C. Tribes of Medes and Persians wandered into Persia beginning about 900 B.C. The Medes created the first state on the Persian plateau about in 700 B.C., and reached the height of their power in the late 600's B.C. The Persians, led by Cyrus the Great, overthrew the Medes in about 550 B.C
The Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus enlarged the Me­dian empire by seizing the kingdom of Lydia around 545 BC and gradually absorbing Greek colonies in Ionia, in western Asia Minor. He called this the Achaemenid Em­pire, after his ancestor, Achaemenes. He conquered Babylonia in 539 B.C and freed the Jews in captivity there. They returned to Palestine. Cyrus was killed in 530 B.C. He had created an empire that extended from the Mediterranean Sea and western Asia Minor to the upper Indus River in what is now northern Pakistan, and from the Gulf of Oman to the Aral Sea.
Cambyses, Cyrus' son, conquered Egypt in 525 B.C, but died on his way back to Persia. A civil war for con­trol of the empire followed, and Darius I, a relative of Cambyses, became king in 522 B.C.
Darius reorganized the government under the satrapy system, established the absolute power of the king of kings, and developed a regulated system of taxation. He also built palaces at Persepolis and Susa, two of his cap­itals. He expanded the Persian Empire into southeastern Europe and into what is now southern Pakistan.
About 513 B.C, the Persian army invaded the area west and north of the Black Sea, but did not conquer much land. Darius sent an army into Greece in 490 B.C., but it was defeated by Athenian forces at Marathon. Da­rius died in 486 B.C., while preparing for new attacks on Greece.
Xerxes, Darius' son, invaded Greece in 480 B.C., and defeated a force of Spartans and other Greeks after a fierce battle at Thermopylae. But the Persians suffered crushing defeats at Salamis and Plataea, and were driven from Europe in 479 B.C. See Greece, Ancient (The Persian Wars).
After Xerxes' death, Persia declined. But the empire continued to exist in spite of revolts until 331 B.C., when Alexander the Great defeated a huge Persian army at the Battle of Arbela (sometimes called the Battle of Gaugamela). This ended the Achaemenid Empire, and Persia be­came part of Alexander's empire.
The Seleucid dynasty. More than 10 years after Al­exander's death in 323 B.C., one of his generals, Seleucus, started a dynasty that ruled Persia and nearby areas. The Seleucids founded many cities and introduced Greek culture into western and central Asia. From 155 B.C, the Parthians won control of Persia.
The Parthian Empire lasted until A.D. 224. The Par­thians built a large empire across eastern Asia Minor and southwest Asia. During the last 200 years of their rule, the Parthians had to fight the Romans in the west and the Kushans in what is now Afghanistan. Civil wars erupted in the Parthian Empire.
In about A.D. 224, a Persian named Ardashir over­threw the Parthians and seized the Parthian Empire.
After more than 550 years under other rulers, Persians again ruled Persia.
The Sassanid dynasty, named in honour of Sassan, grandfather of Ardashir, ruled Persia until the mid-600's. Wars between Persians and Romans continued through much of the Sassanian reign. After the Romans adopted Christianity in the 300's, the conflict seemed to become a religious struggle between Christianity and Zoroastri­anism, the religion of the Persians.
The Sassanian civilization reached its high point in the mid-500's. Persians won several victories over the Ro­mans, and reconquered land that had been part of the Achaemenid Empire. Persian troops advanced to the wails of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), then the capital of the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire. But they were defeated there and forced to withdraw from all the land they had conquered.
The rise of Islam, a new religion in Arabia, brought a sudden end to the Sassanid dynasty in the mid-600's. Arabs invaded Persia and defeated the Persians in 637 and during the 640's. Islam spread across the Persian plateau. But the new Islamic rulers kept much of Persia's organization, art and architecture, and culture.
For the history of Persia after the Arab conquest, see Iran (History).

Related articles:
Alexander the Great          
Clothing (Ancient times)  
Cyrus the Great
Mithras
Persepolis
Salamis
Satrap
Darius I        
Darius III     
Susa
Thermopylae
Magi  
Marathon     
Media
Xerxes 1

Zoroastrianism

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