Darius I The Great - Blog Posts
The Fake Texts of Ancient Greek 'Historians': the Behistun Inscription, Ctesias, Diodorus Siculus, Darius I the Great, and Semiramis
In a previous article published under the title 'Aristotle as Historical Forgery, the Western World’s Fake History & Rotten Foundations, and Prof. Jin Canrong’s Astute Comments', I wholeheartedly supported the position taken by the prominent Chinese Prof. Jin Canrong about Aristotle and I explained why Aristotle never existed as he is known today and most of his texts were not written by him, but by the pseudo-Christian Benedictine monks of Western Europe for the purpose of the ferocious imperial and theological battle that Rome carried out against New Rome-Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. You can find the table of contents and a link to the publication at the end of the present article.
Contents
Introduction
I. A fictional concept: the origin of the fraud
II. A construct based on posterior textual sources
III. The deceitful presentation
IV. 5th century BCE texts found in 15th c. CE manuscripts do not make 'History'.
V. Abundant evidence of lies and deliberate distortions attested in the manuscript transmission
VI. Darius I the Great, the Behistun inscription, and Ctesias
VII. The historical Assyrian Queen Shammuramat and the fictional Queen Semiramis of the 'Ancient Greek sources'
VIII. The malignant intentions of the Benedictine liars: from the historical Darius I the Great to the fictional Semiramis
IX. The vicious distortions of the Benedictine liars: from Ctesias to Herodotus
The Behistun inscription
Introduction
In the present article, I will offer a typical example of text falsification carried out by the Catholic monks, who did not 'copy and preserve' manuscripts of ancient Greek and Latin texts, as it has been mendaciously said by Western European and North American academics and lying scholars, but they purposefully falsified, distorted, concealed, destroyed and/or contrived numerous texts.
This enormous forgery took place in Western Europe between the 2nd half of the 8th century and the 1st half of the 15th century; the colonial era was launched exactly afterwards. For this reason, few manuscripts with Ancient Greek and Roman texts date before the 8th c.; in fact, most of them have been either distorted and replaced or hidden in the vast libraries still owned, controlled and administered that the anti-Christian Roman Catholic Church.
The purpose of this devious and evil effort was the fabrication of a fake narrative about the forged antiquity and the supposed importance of the Western Europeans according to the needs of world conquest, prevalence and preponderance of the pseudo-Christian Roman Catholic Church; this bogus-historical dogma, as direct opposition to and ultimate rejection of Orthodox Christianity, would be initially imposed as the 'scientific discipline of History' in Western Europe and subsequently projected onto the rest of the world by means of colonial invasion, indigenous identity destruction, moral integrity demolition, cultural heritage disintegration, educational subordination, economic exploitation, military subjugation, and socio-political domination.
In other words, the monastical scribes and copyists created an entirely fake Euro-centric past, which became the rotten foundation of Western Europe. This fallacy became known as Judeo-Christian world and Greco-Roman civilization. However, the decipherment of ancient languages (Egyptian hieroglyphic, Old Achaemenid Iranian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Sumerian, Hurrian, Hittite, Urartu, Ugaritic, etc) and the study of millions of original texts, which were not copies of earlier sources but contemporaneous to the events that they narrated, sounded the death knell of the era of history fabrication programs.
With the post-Soviet rise of the great continental powers (China, India, Russia, etc.), the economic-military-political-ideological-educational-academic-cultural tyranny of the Western World started being overthrown throughout the earlier colonized world. The historical forgery that the colonial rulers imposed collapsed, the falsehood of the Eurocentric dogma of World History started being revealed and rejected, and an overwhelming project of total de-Westernization appeared as a prerequisite for the liberation of the Mankind from the lies of the European Renaissance, the Western Humanities, the White Supremacism, the Western European colonialism and racism, as well as from the falsehood of numerous subsystems of the construct, such as Classicism, Hellenism, Orientalism, etc.
In our days, it is imperative for anti-colonial scholars to unveil the distortions applied to Ancient Greek and Latin texts by the medieval monks. Consequently, historians from all over the world have to work together in order to denounce and obliterate the Western fraud and the fake History of the Western Man, which consists in arbitrarily taking 14th c. CE manuscripts as authentic narratives of Ancient History.
I. A fictional concept: the origin of the fraud
Apparently, the present brief article cannot be an exhaustive presentation of the Western fraud, and of the historical forgery that the Western monks, manuscript copyists, collectors, academics and propagandists attempted to impose worldwide through colonial conquests, massacres and tyrannies. However, I can still enumerate the major founding myths of the Western World.
Two thematic circles of historical distortions and fraudulent claims made by the Western academia revolve around the following two entirely fabricated entities, which have conventionally but erroneously been called
a) "the Greco-Roman world" and
b) "Biblical Israel" and "Judeo-Christian civilization".
These ahistorical entities never existed. The original concept of those notions is purely fictional, and it therefore remains always unquestioned in the fraudulent Western universities. In this regard, the sources that the Western academics evoke to support their claims are posterior, untrustworthy, forged and therefore worthless.
At times, some of those texts represent merely ancient authors' misperceptions of earlier texts and authors; however, more often, the ancient texts have been tampered with. On other occasions, ancient texts that refute the lies of other historical sources are hidden from the general public and conventionally discussed among the Western academic accomplices.
II. A construct based on posterior textual sources
The entire construct hinges on the deceitful presentation of several types of material forged, collected, concealed, interpreted, contextualized, narrated, repeatedly but intentionally discussed, supposedly questioned, and selectively popularized; this was due to the fact that the said material was incessantly utilized for the colonial needs and targets of the Western European powers (England, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and more recently the US). In fact, the Western World's fake History was created as the ultimate support of all colonial claims.
This process happened within a system in which posterior textual sources (preserved in medieval manuscripts) have occupied the central position, whereas the ancient epigraphic material, which was contemporaneous to the historical events under study, has been deliberately disregarded.
All later discovered data and pieces of information were either adjusted to the construct or methodically hidden; this is how the original concept, pathetically believed almost as a religious dogma, remained totally unchallenged down to our days.
III. The deceitful presentation
The quintessence of the deceitful presentation involves a vicious trick; people (pupils and students, but also scholars and intellectuals, as well as the general public) are taught and made accustomed to care mainly about the absolutely insignificant dates of birth and death of historical persons (authors, rulers, etc.), and not about the dates of the manuscripts in which these individuals are mentioned as supposed authors; this situation turns readers, students and scholars into pathetic idiots.
Subsequently, we cannot seriously afford to describe Herodotus as a 5th c. BCE writer, because there is no manuscript with texts attributed to him, dating before the 10th c. CE. In addition, if we take into account the enormous number of other ancient authors decrying, denigrating and rejecting Herodotus' absurdities and malignancy, we have to permanently and irrevocably obliterate Herodotus from the History of Mankind and consider his false, paranoid and racist texts as a double Crime against the Mankind:
first, with respect to the original narrative (to which we don't have access as it was distorted by medieval monastical scribes and copyists) because the author attempted to disparage the superior Iranian civilization and the majestic Achaemenid universalist empire, while undeservedly praising the South Balkan barbarians, and
second, as regards the currently available text, which was forged as per the discriminatory intentions of the monks who altered and distorted it in their effort to fabricate the fake, modern divide (or dichotomy) East-West, and to offer a shred of historicity to it.
IV. 5th century BCE texts found in 15th c. CE manuscripts do not make 'History'.
People get therefore addicted to considering as a true and original 'work' (of an ancient author) the manuscript (or manuscripts) in which the specific treatise, essay or book was copied perhaps 10 or 15 centuries after the author composed it. Due to a long chain of intermediaries (namely library copyists, librarians, scholars, monks, collectors, purchasers and/or statesmen), the transmitted text may have been partly or totally changed.
There is absolutely no guarantee as regards the honesty, the good intentions, the unbiased attitude, and the benevolent character of the perhaps 5, 10, 20 or 50 persons who -living in different eras and without knowing one another- may have constituted the chain of (unknown to us) intermediaries between the hand of the author and that of the last copyist whose manuscript was preserved down to our times.
Example: very little matters today whether the ancient author Diodorus Siculus or Siceliotes (西西里的狄奧多羅斯) actually lived in the 1st c. BCE or in the 3rd c. CE; quite contrarily, what is important for history-writing is the fact that the earliest known manuscript of his famous 'Bibliotheca Historica' (世界史) dates back to the 10th c. CE.
Consequently, the first piece of information that should be stated after the name of any 'ancient' Anatolian, Macedonian, Thracian, Greek, Roman and other author is the date of the earliest extant manuscript of his works.
V. Abundant evidence of lies and deliberate distortions attested in the manuscript transmission
An extraordinarily high number of original sources excavated in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan, Iran and elsewhere, and subsequently deciphered, can be dated with accuracy; example: the Annals of great Assyrian emperor Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BCE) were written during his reign. They are contemporaneous and therefore original.
However, in striking contrast to them, almost all the manuscripts with the works of ancient Greek and Roman authors whose texts have formed the backbone of the fraudulent historical dogma of the Western academia are not contemporaneous but posterior by, at times, 1500 or 2000 years.
Even worse, numerous ancient Greek authors' texts were not preserved through a manuscript tradition at all; they were saved as references in posterior authors' works. This concerns, for instance, Ctesias (克特西亞斯), an Ancient Carian (Anatolian) physician and erudite scholar, who lived and worked in the court of the Achaemenid Iranian emperor Artaxerxes II in the 5th c. BCE.
Later, willing to offer potential guidebooks to Iran and India for the use of various peripheral peoples and tribes of the Balkan region, Ctesias elaborated in Ancient Ionian (愛奧尼亞希臘語) two treatises to describe the state of things in Iran and in India. To the Western academic bibliography, his works are known (in Latin) as 'Persica' and 'Indica'.
These texts were not saved integrally in manuscripts copied for the purpose of preserving Ctesias' works, but they were preserved in Diodorus Siculus' 'Bibliotheca Historica'. Although he is not known through authentic and contemporaneous Iranian sources, we can deduce that Ctesias certainly spoke fluently the official language of the Empire and read Old Achaemenid cuneiform. Eventually, he may have also studied and learned Babylonian and Elamite cuneiform, namely two ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform languages and writings the use of which was maintained by Iranian scribes.
Apparently, Ctesias had a firsthand insight, as he lived for many years in Parsa (Persepolis), the capital of the Achaemenid Empire and he also traveled extensively along with the Iranian emperor. But, unfortunately, the following ordeal was produced.
VI. Darius I the Great, the Behistun inscription, and Ctesias
One century before Ctesias served Artaxerxes II, the empire of Iran was saved by Darius I the Great (大流士一世; reign: 522-486), who overthrew a usurper, namely the Mithraic (密特拉教祭司) magus Gaumata (高墨达), and by so doing, preserved on the throne a dynasty of faithful Zoroastrian (瑣羅亞斯德教徒) monarchs.
To commemorate his great victory and the consolidation of the his dynasty, Darius I the Great had an enormous rock relief and a monumental inscription (貝希斯敦銘文) engraved on the rocks of Mount Behistun (貝希斯頓山), at a distance of 150 km west of Hamadan (哈马丹; Ekbatana/埃克巴坦那) in Western Iran (15 m high by 25 m wide and 100 m up the cliff). As it can be easily understood, these events occurred after the assassination of Cambyses, at the very beginning of Darius I the Great's reign.
It goes without saying that the successors of Darius I the Great and the imperial Iranian administration knew perfectly well the historical details and were fully aware of the imperial inscription that immortalized the event, which had obviously become the cornerstone of the imperial education.
VII. The historical Assyrian Queen Shammuramat and the fictional Queen Semiramis of the 'Ancient Greek sources'
However, one century later, when Ctesias lived in Iran, served the Iranian Emperor, and spoke Old Achaemenid Iranian (and if not, he was surrounded by the Empire's top interpreters and advisers), something disastrously odd 'happened'.
According to Diodorus Siculus, who explicitly stated that he extensively quoted from Ctesias' text (Bibliotheca Historica, II 13), the imperial Carian physician and author appears to have attributed the Behistun inscription and the rock reliefs to none else than the Assyrian Queen Shammuramat (薩穆-拉瑪特), who was the queen consort of the Assyrian Emperor Shamshi Adad V (沙姆什·阿達德五世; reign: 824-811) and co-regent (811-805) during the first years of reign of her son Adad Nirari III (阿达德尼拉里三世; reign: 811-783)!
Furthermore, in the 'Ancient Greek' text of Diodorus Siculus, the monumental inscription was said to be written in Assyrian cuneiform (Συρίοις γράμμασιν)! Even worse, in the same text (as preserved today), it was also stated that, in the rock relief, there was also a representation of the Assyrian queen!
Ctesias' text, as preserved by Diodorus Siculus, is truly abundant in information, but it is historically impossible and therefore entirely forged. Due to this and many other texts, an enormous chasm was unnecessarily formed between
a) the historical queen Shammuramat of Assyria, whose historicity is firmly undeniable, due to the existence of several contemporaneous cuneiform sources excavated in Assyria, and subsequently deciphered and published,
and
b) the purely fictional Assyrian queen Semiramis (沙米拉姆) of the posterior Ancient Greek textual sources that were supposedly 'preserved' (but in reality deliberately distorted and forged) in the Benedictine manuscripts of Western Europe's monasteries.
However, if we examine closely the facts, we will surely understand what truly occurred in this case; then, we will be able to fathom how the fake History of the Western world was fabricated.
The Behistun inscription is trilingual, as it was written in Old Achaemenid Iranian (the earliest form of written Iranian languages), Babylonian, and Elamite; this was a very common practice during the Achaemenid times (550-330 BCE). The main figure of the associated rock relief is Darius I the Great, evidently the representation of a male royal.
One way or another, with respect to the Behistun inscription and rock relief, Ctesias certainly knew everything that we know today after the successive decipherments of the Old Achaemenid, Babylonian and Elamite cuneiform writings, or perhaps even more, due to the then extant oral tradition.
VIII. The malignant intentions of the Benedictine liars: from the historical Darius I the Great to the fictional Semiramis
The Behistun inscription is not Assyrian; the representation is not that of female royal; and the monument is totally unrelated to Shammuramat, who had lived 300 years before Darius I the Great and 400 years before Artaxerxes II's physician Ctesias. More importantly, by that time, the Assyrian Empire did not occupy the lands surrounding Behistun. Accompanied by Iranian imperial officers and his associates, Ctesias certainly learned all the details of the monumental inscription that we can now read in articles, courses, lectures, books and encyclopedias.
The narrative was a triumph for Darius I the Great and a spectacular rebuttal of the vicious Mithraic Magi who had supported the defeated evil sorcerer and villain Gaumata. Apparently, writing a guidebook for Iran to help marginal people of the Empire's Balkan periphery, Ctesias did not have any reason to say lies. Moreover, we don't have any reason to believe that Diodorus Siculus needed to distort the truth to that extent, when copying and thus preserving Ctesias' masterpiece for the posterity.
However, the transmission of the details about the Behistun inscription embarrassed the Benedictine copyists who wanted to denigrate Darius I the Great and to portray his great empire in a most derogatory manner. They had already proceeded in this manner, distorting other manuscripts, forging texts, and fabricating their pseudo-historical narratives at will.
That is why Ctesias' pertinent text, which had certainly been preserved in its original form within Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica, was intentionally distorted by the Benedictine 'Holy Inquisition of Libraries', which fabricated the myths of today's Western world some time after the middle of the 8th c. CE. To be accurate, Ctesias' historical description was entirely replaced by a fictional and historically nonsensical account.
The unbelievable lies -invented and included in Diodorus Siculus' quotations from Ctesias- risked making of the fictional queen Semiramis a world ruler! Whereas the Assyrian Empire at the end of the 9th c. BCE did not control even the western half of today's Iranian territory, the unequivocally mythicized Semiramis had supposedly sent her armies up to India where those fictitious Assyrian soldiers were trampled by the elephants. This worthless narrative that replaced Ctesias' original text may very well have been invented as a 'historical' excuse for Alexander the Great's failure to advance deep inside India.
IX. The vicious distortions of the Benedictine liars: from Ctesias to Herodotus
But if the fictional Semiramis' Indian campaign is entirely false, so are then the preposterous narratives of Herodotus about Darius I the Great's and Xerxes I the Great's campaigns in the insignificant and barbarian circumference of South Balkans. These texts involved evil purposes, heinous anti-Iranian biases, fictional battles, racist discourses, vicious lies, incredibly large number of the Iranian armies, and absurdly high number of Iranian casualties.
The mendacious but idiotic Benedictine monks, who wrote those slander tales did not apparently expect that, sometime in the future, excavations would bring to light splendid Iranian antiquities, original cuneiform documentation, and trustworthy contemporaneous historical sources, whereas a systematic effort of decipherment would offer to people all over the world direct access to historical texts written in dead languages, thus irrevocably canceling Herodotus' nonsensical report and, even more importantly, the later distortions that the Benedictine monks made on their worthless manuscripts.
In any case, had those fictional campaigns against 'Greece' had a shred of truth to them, they would have certainly been documented one way or another in various Old Achaemenid, Babylonian, Elamite, Imperial Aramaic, Egyptian hieroglyphic or other sources; but they were not.
Even worse, the meaningless and ludicrous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and their likes would have been commemorated by the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, and the Attalids all the way down to the Romans and the Eastern Romans. But we know quite well that the nonexistent, fictional past of the so-called Ancient Greek world was absolutely irrelevant to them: precisely because it had not yet been fabricated.
===================
Aristotle as Historical Forgery, the Western World’s Fake History & Rotten Foundations, and Prof. Jin Canrong’s Astute Comments
Contents
I. Aristotle: a Major Founding Myth of the Western World
II. When, where and by whom was the Myth of Aristotle fabricated?
III. The Myth of Aristotle and its first Byproducts: Scholasticism, East-West Schism, the Crusades & the Sack of Constantinople (1204)
IV. Aristotelization: First Stage of the Westernization and the Colonization of the World
V. Aristotelization as Foundation of all the Western Forgeries: the so-called Judeo-Christian Heritage and the Fraud of Greco-Roman Civilization
VI. The Modern Western World as Disruption of History
VII. The Myth of Aristotle and the Monstrosity of Western Colonialism
======================
Download the article in PDF:
History of Achaemenid Iran 1B, Course I - Achaemenid beginnings 1B
Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Outline
Western Orientalist historiography; early sources of Iranian History; Prehistory in the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia
6- Western Orientalist historiography
The modern Western European specialists on Iran were first based on the Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Latin sources and on travelers' records and descriptions. On his way to China, the Italian Franciscan monk Odoric of Pordenone was the first European to probably visit (in 1320) the ruins of Parsa (Persepolis) that he called 'Comerum'. The site was then known as Chehel Minar (چهل منار /i.e. forty minarets) and later as Takht-e Jamshid (تخت جمشید/i.e. the throne of Jamshid, a great hero of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and of the Iranian legendary historiography about which we discussed). The Venetian Giosafat Barbaro visited the same location in 1474 and, being the victim of the delusions about which I spoke already, he attributed the erection of the majestic monuments to the Jews!
After the rise of the Safavid dynasty and the formation of the two alliances (the French with the Ottomans and the English with the Iranians), an English merchant visited Persepolis in 1568 and wrote a description that was included in Richard Hakluyt's 'Voyages' (1582). Old Achaemenid cuneiform inscriptions were first noticed and reported by the Portuguese António de Gouveia, who visited the site in 1602 and wrote about it in 1611. It is only in 1618 that the Spanish ambassador (to the court of the Safavid Shah of Iran Abbas I/1571-1629; reigned after 1588) García de Silva Figueroa associated the location with the great Achaemenid capital that was known as Persepolis in the Ancient Greek and Latin sources.
The Italian Pietro Della Valle spent five years (1616-1621) in Mesopotamia and Iran, visited Persepolis (1621), made copies of several inscriptions that he noticed there and took them back to Europe, along with clay tablets and bricks that he found in Babylon and Ur. This was the first cuneiform documentation brought to Europe. With respect to Persepolis he wrote that only 25 of the 72 original columns were still standing.
Good indication of the lunacy that Western Europeans experienced at those days due to their erroneous reading of the untrustworthy Ancient Greek historical sources about Achaemenid Iran is the following fact: after traveling in Asia and Africa, Sir Thomas Herbert wrote in his book (1638) that in Persepolis he saw several lines of strange signs curved in the walls. These were, of course, Old Achaemenid cuneiform inscriptions, but at the time, the modern term 'cuneiform' had not been invented; however, excessively enthused with Greek literature about Ancient Iran, he 'concluded' that these characters 'resembled Greek'! He mistook cuneiform for Greek! So biased his approach was!
The term 'cuneiform' ('Keilschrift' in German) was coined (1700) by the German scholar and explorer Engelbert Kaempfer, who spent ten years (1683-1693) in many parts of Asia. The monumental site of the Achaemenid capital was also visited by the famous Dutch artist Cornelis de Bruijn (1704) and the famous jeweler Sir Jean Chardin, who also worked as agent of Shah Abbas II for the purchase of jewels. He was the first to publish (1711) pertinent copies of several cuneiform inscriptions.
The German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr took the research to the next stage when he copied and published (1764) the famous rock reliefs and inscriptions of Darius the Great; in fact, he brought complete and accurate copies of the inscriptions at Persepolis to Europe. He realized that he had to do with three writing systems and that the simpler (which he named 'Class I') comprised 42 characters, being apparently an alphabetic script. Niebuhr's publication was used by many other scholars and explorers, notably the Germans Oluf Gerhard Tychsen, who published the most advanced research on the topic in 1798, and Friedrich Münter, who confirmed the alphabetic nature of the script (in 1802).
The reconstitution of the Iranian past proved to be far more difficult a task than that of the Ancient Egyptian heritage. This is so because, if we consider the Old Achaemenid Iranian cuneiform and the Egyptian hieroglyphics as the earliest stages of the two respective languages and scripts, Coptic (the latest stage of the Egyptian language) was always known in Europe throughout the Christian and Modern times, whereas Pahlavi and Middle Persian (the corresponding stages of the Iranian languages) were totally unknown. For this reason, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, the first French Iranologist and Indologist, played a key role in the decipherment of the cuneiform writing, although he did not spend time exploring it. But having learned Pahlavi and Farsi among the Parsis of India, he managed to study Avestan and he translated the Avesta as the sacred text of the Zoroastrians was preserved among the Parsi community. Pretty much like Coptic was essential to Champollion for the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphic, the pioneering work of Anquetil-Duperron and the knowledge of Avestan, Pahlavi, Middle Persian and Farsi helped the French Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy and the German Georg Friedrich Grotefend make critical breakthroughs and advance the decipherment of the Old Achaemenid.
Grotefend's Memoir was presented to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1802, but it was rejected; in fact, he had deciphered only eight (8) letters until that moment, but most of his assumptions were correct. He had however to wait for an incredible confirmation; after Champollion completed his first step toward the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822, he read the Egyptian text of a quadrilingual inscription on the famous Caylus vase (named after a 18th c. French collector). Then, Champollion's associate, the Orientalist Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin, announced that Grotefend's reading of the imperial Achaemenid name 'Xerxes' did indeed correspond to what the Egyptian hieroglyphic text testified to. This situation generated an impetus among Orientalist scholars and explorers; until the late 1830s and the early 1840s, Grotefend, the French Eugène Burnouf, the Norwegian-German Christian Lassen, and Sir Henry Rawlinson completed the task.
Shush (Susa), an Elamite and later an Achaemenid capital, was explored in 1851, 1885-1886, 1894-1899, and then systematically excavated by the French Jacques de Morgan (1897-1911), whereas Pasargad (the early Achaemenid capital) was first explored by the German Ernst Herzfeld in 1905. Persepolis was excavated quite later, only in the 1930s by Ernst Herzfeld and Erich Schmidt of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Not far from Hamadan (the ancient capital Hegmataneh/Ekbatana of the Medes), the splendid site of Mount Behistun (Bisotun) had become world-famous even before it was excavated (initially in 1904) by Leonard William King and Reginald Campbell Thompson (sponsored by the British Museum). This was due to the fact that the famous trilingual Behistun inscription and the associated reliefs were carved at about 100 m above ground level on a cliff, and explorers had to scale the cliff. Several fascinating descriptions of the extraordinary location were written by travelers and visitors, before academic work was carried out there. Putting his life in risk, Rawlinson copied the Old Achaemenid text in 1835, and this helped him advance considerably the decipherment of the script.
Without the decipherment of the Old Achaemenid, it would be impossible for Rawlinson to decipher the Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform, and later for others to read the Hittite script which enabled us to have access to the most important and the most original Anatolian literature of pre-Christian times.
Behistun (Farsi: Bisotun / Old Iranian: Bagastana, i.e. 'the place of God') was mentioned by Ctesias, who totally misunderstood the inscription, attributing it to the 'Babylonian' Queen Semiramis and describing it as a dedication to Zeus! In reality, the text is part of the Annals of Emperor Darius I the Great, duly detailing his victory over a rebellion; the Iranian monarch dedicated his triumph to Ahura Mazda. Now, Semiramis seems to be an entirely misplaced Ancient Greek legend about the historical Queen of Assyria (not Babylonia!) Shammuramat. The Assyrian queen was consort of Shamshi Adad V and co-regent with her son Adad-nirari III (during his reign's early phase). But the Assyrian Queen had nothing to do with Mount Behistun and the Achaemenid Iranian inscription.
In the early 17th c., Pietro della Valle was the first Western European to come to Behistun and sketch the remains. As a matter of fact, many European travelers and explorers visited Behistun, saw the impressive inscription, and disastrously misinterpreted it, due to their preconceived ideas, mistaken readings, and unrealistic assumptions.
A foolish English diplomat and adventurer, Robert Sherley, visited the location in 1598, and he considered the astounding reliefs and the inscriptions as 'Christian'! Napoleon's subordinate, General Claude-Matthieu, Comte de Gardane, visited the place in 1807 only to see in the monuments the representation of 'Christ and his twelve apostles'! In 1817, Sir Robert Ker Porter thought that the impressive relief and inscriptions detailed the deeds of Emperor Shalmaneser V of Assyria and the transportation of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel to the NE confines of Assyria. Last, quite interestingly, the German spiritual-scientific society Ahnenerbe, which used Hitler for their non-Nazi, highly secretive projects, explored Behistun in 1938.
7- Early sources of Iranian History: Assyrian-Babylonian Cuneiform
The early sources of Iranian History are Assyrian-Babylonian historical documents pertaining to the military, commercial and/or administrative activities of the Neo-Assyrian kings in the Zagros mountains and the Iranian plateau; these sources shed light on the earliest stages of Median, Persian and Iranian History, when the ancestors of the Achaemenids were just one of the many tribes that settled somewhere east of the borders of the Assyrian Empire.
Since the 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian and Akkadian historical sources referred to nomads, settlers, villages, cities, strongholds and at times kingdoms situated in the area of today's Iran. Mainly these tribes and/or realms were barbarians who either partly damaged or totally destroyed the Mesopotamian civilization and order. That's why they were always described with markedly negative terms. On the other hand, we know through archaeological evidence that several important sites were located in the Iranian plateau, constituting either small kingdoms or outstanding entrepôts and commercial centers linking Mesopotamia with either India or Central Asia and China.
For instance, settled somewhere in the Middle Zagros, the Guti of the 3rd millennium BCE constituted a barbaric periphery that finally destroyed Agade (Akkad), the world's first empire ever; and in the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, the Kassites descended from Middle Zagros to Babylon, after the Old Babylonian kingdom was destroyed (in 1596) by the Hittite Mursilis I, and they set up a profane kingdom (Kassite dynasty of Babylonia) that the Assyrians never accepted as a heir of the old Sumerian-Akkadian civilization.
As both ethnic groups learned Akkadian / Assyrian-Babylonian, their rulers wrote down their names, and thus we know that neither the Guti nor the Kassites were a properly speaking Iranian nation; the present documentation is still scarce in this regard, but there are indications that some of these people bore Turanian (or Turkic) names.
For thousands of years, South Zagros and the southwestern confines of today's Iran belonged to Elam, the main rival of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. Viewed as the true negation of the genius of Mesopotamian civilization, Elam was ruled by the 'kings of Shushan and Anshan'; the two regions corresponded to Susa (and the entire province of Khuzestan in today's Iran) and South Zagros respectively. The name that modern scholarship uses to denote this nation and kingdom is merely the Sumerian-Akkadian appellation of that country. In Elamite, the eastern neighbors of the Sumerians called their land 'Haltamti'. Their language was neither Indo-European (like Old Achaemenid and Modern Farsi) nor Semitic (like Assyrian-Babylonian); it was also unrelated to Sumerian, Hurrian and Hattic, the languages of the indigenous populations in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Recent linguistic research offers tentative approaches to the relationship between Elamite and the Dravidian languages, thus making of it the ancestral language of more than 250 million people.
Elamite linear and cuneiform writings bear witness to the life, the society, the economy, the faith and the culture of the Elamites, as well as to their relations with the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. But they cannot help us reconstitute the History of the Iranian plateau, because the Elamites never went beyond the limits of South Zagros.
With the rise, expansion and prevalence of Assyria (from the 14th to the 7th c. BCE), we have for the first time a Mesopotamian Empire that showed great importance for the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau; consequently, this means that, for the said period, we have more texts about these regions, which earlier constituted the periphery of the Mesopotamian world, but were gradually incorporated into the ever expanding Assyrian Empire. Thanks to Assyrian cuneiform texts, we know names of tribal chieftains and petty kings, cities, fortresses, ethnic groups, etc., and we can assess the various degrees of Assyrianization of each of them; but it is only at the time of Shalmaneser III (859-824 BCE) that we first find a mention of the Medes and the Persians. The former are named 'Amadaya' and later 'Madaya', whereas the latter are called 'Parsua' (or Parsamaš or Parsumaš).
Assyrian cuneiform texts about the Medes and the Persians more specifically are abundant during the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BCE) and at the time of the Sargonids (722-609 BCE). It is noteworthy that the Parsua were first located in the region of today's Sanandaj in Western Iran and later they relocated to the ancient Elamite region of Anshan (today's Iranian province of Fars), which was devastated and emptied from its population by Assurbanipal (640 BCE). After the great Assyrian victory, which also involved the destruction of Susa, Assyrian texts mention the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus I, as Kuraš, king of Parsumaš. He sent gifts to Nineveh and he also dispatched his eldest son ('Arukku' in Assyrian from a hypothetical 'Aryauka' in Ancient Iranian) there - nominally as a hostage, but essentially as a student of Assyrian culture, sacerdotal organization, and imperial administration and procedures.
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III
Tiglathpileser III
Sarrukin (Sargon of Assyria) with his son and successor Sennacherib (right)
8- Pre-History in the Iranian plateau, and Mesopotamia
During the 4th, the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE, the major hitherto excavated Iranian archaeological sites are the following:
Tepe Sialk
Located near the modern city of Kashan, in the center of the Iranian plateau, and excavated in the 1930s by the Russian-French Roman Ghirshman, the site was first occupied in the period 6000-5500 BCE. The remains of the zikkurat (dating back to around 3000 BCE) show that it was the largest Mesopotamian style zikkurat. Tepe Sialk IV level (2nd half of the 4th millennium BCE) testifies to evident links with Sumer (Jemdet Nasr, Uruk) and Elam (Susa III). The site was abandoned and reoccupied in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE (Tepe Sialk V and VI). Its location and the archaeological findings let us understand that the site was a key commercial center that linked Mesopotamia with Central Asia and China.
Tureng Tepe
Located close to Gorgan in Turkmen Sahra (NE Iran) and excavated by the American Frederick Roelker Wulsin in the 1930s and by the French Jean Deshayes in the 1950s, the site was inhabited in the Neolithic and then continually from 3100 to 1900 BCE, when it appears to have been the major among many other regional settlements and in evident contact with both, Mesopotamia and Central Asia. There was a disruption, and the site was occupied again only in the 7th c. BCE (Tureng Tepe IV A) by newcomers.
Tepe Yahya
Located at ca. 250 km north of Bandar Abbas and 220 km south of Kerman, the site was of crucial importance for the contacts between Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley; it was also in contact with Central Asia. Excavated by the Czech-American Clifford Charles Lamberg-Karlovsky, the site was inhabited from ca. 5000 to 2200 BCE and then again after 1000 BCE. The genuine 'Yahya Culture' covered the first half of the 4th millennium BCE. The Proto-Elamite phase started around 3400 BCE (Tepe Yahya IV C); few proto-Elamite tablets have been unearthed from that stratum. This period corresponds to the strata Susa Cb and Tepe Sialk IV. During the 3rd millennium BCE, the site appears to have been the center of production of hard stone carving artifacts; dark stone vessels produced here were found / excavated in Mesopotamia. Similar vessels and fragments of vessels have been found in Sumerian temples in Mesopotamia, in Elam, in the Indus River Valley, and in Central Asia.
Not far from Tepe Yahya are situated several important sites that testify to the strong ties that the entire region had with Sumer and Elam in the West, the Indus River Valley in the East and Central Asia in the North; Jiroft gave the name to the 'Jiroft culture' which is better documented in the nearby site of Konar Sandal and covers the 3rd millennium BCE. Further in the east and close to the triangle border point (Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan), Shahr-e Sukhteh was an enormous site which thrived between 3200 BCE and the end of the 3rd millennium BCE. It was associated with both, the 'Jiroft culture' and the Helmand culture, which was attested in several sites in South Afghanistan. Elamite texts were also found in that site, which already offered many surprises, involving the first known artificial eyeball and the earliest tables game with dice.
Several important prehistoric Mesopotamian sites demonstrate parallels and contacts with the aforementioned sites, notably
- Tell Halaf (near Ras al Ayn in NE Syria; the Neolithic phase lasted from 6100 to 5400 BCE, and the Bronze Age covers the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE),
- Tell al Ubaid (near Ur in Dhi Qar governorate; 6500-3700 BCE),
- Tell Arpachiyah (near Nineveh; the site was occupied in the Neolithic period, like Tell Halaf and Ubaid),
- Tepe Gawra (close to Nineveh; the site was occupied from 5000 to 1500 BCE),
- Tell Jemdet Nasr (near Kish in Central Iraq; 3100-2300 BCE), and
- Uruk {near Samawah in South Iraq; type site for the Uruk period (4000-3100 BCE), it was a major Sumerian kingdom and it was the world's most populated city in the middle of the 4th millennium BCE with ca. 40000 inhabitants and another 90000 residents in the suburbs}.
In the next course, I will present a brief diagram of the History of the Mesopotamian kingdoms and Empires down to Sargon of Assyria – with focus on the relations with Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau.
Tepe Sialk
Tureng tepe
Tepe Yahya
--------------
To watch the video (with more than 110 pictures and maps), click the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1B
------------------------
To listen to the audio, clink the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1 (a+b)
------------------------------
Download the course in PDF:
History of Achaemenid Iran 1A, Course I - Achaemenid beginnings 1A
Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Tuesday, 27 December 2022
Outline
Introduction; Iranian Achaemenid historiography; Problems of historiography continuity; Iranian posterior historiography; foreign historiography; Western Orientalist historiography; early sources of Iranian History; Prehistory in the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia
1- Introduction
Welcome to the 40-hour seminar on Achaemenid Iran!
It is my intention to deliver a rather unconventional academic presentation of the topic, mostly implementing a correct and impartial conceptual approach to the earliest stage of Iranian History. Every subject, in and by itself, offers to every researcher the correct means of the pertinent approach to it; due to this fact, the personal background, viewpoints and thoughts or eventually the misperceptions and the preconceived ideas of an explorer should not be allowed to affect his judgment.
If before 200 years, the early Iranologists had the possible excuse of studying a topic on the basis of external and posterior historical sources, this was simply due to the fact that the Old Achaemenid cuneiform writing had not yet been deciphered. Still, even those explorers failed to avoid a very serious mistake, namely that of taking the external and posterior historical sources at face value. We cannot afford to blindly accept a secondary historical source without first examining intentions, motives, scopes and aims of it.
As the seminar covers only the History of the Achaemenid dynasty, I don't intend to add an introductory course about the History of the Iranian Studies and the re-discovery of Iran by Western explorers of the colonial powers. However, I will provide a brief outline of the topic; this is essential because mainstream Orientalists have reached their limits and cannot provide us with a real insight, eliminating the numerous and enduring myths, fallacies, and deliberately naïve approaches to Achaemenid Iran.
In fact, most of the specialists of Ancient Iran never went beyond the limitations set by the delusional Ancient 'Greek' (in reality: Ionian and Attic) literature about the Medes and the Persians (i.e. the Iranians), because they never offered themselves the task to explain the reasons for the aberration that the Ancient Ionian and Attic authors created in their minds and wrote in their texts about Iran. This was utterly puerile and ludicrous.
And this brings us to the other major innovation that I intend to offer during this seminar, namely the proper, comprehensive contextualization of the research topic, i.e. the History of Achaemenid Iran. To give some examples in this regard, I would mention
a - the tremendous, multilayered and multifaceted impact of the Mesopotamian World, Civilization and Heritage on the formation of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, and more specifically, the determinant role played by the Sargonid Empire of Assyria on the emergence of the first Empire on the Iranian plateau;
b - the ferocious opposition of the Mithraic Magi to the Zoroastrian Achaemenid court;
c - the involvement of the Anatolian Magi in the misperception of Iran by the Ancient Greeks; and
d- the utilization of the Ancient Greek cities by the Anti-Iranian side of the Egyptian priesthoods, princes and administrators.
To therefore introduce the proper contextualization, I will expand on the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Sargonid times, not only to state the first mentions of the Medes and the Persians in History, but also to show the importance attributed by the Neo-Assyrian Emperors to the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau, as well as the numerous peoples, settled or nomadic, who inhabited that region.
There is an enormous lacuna in the Orientalist disciplines; there are no interdisciplinary studies in Assyriology and Iranology. This plays a key role in the misperception of the ancient oriental civilizations and in the mistaken evaluation (or rather under-estimation) of the momentous impact that they had on the formation of the World History. There are no isolated cultures and independent civilizations as dogmatic and ignorant Western archaeologists pretend.
Only if one studies and evaluates correctly the colossal impact of the Ancient Mesopotamian world on Iran, can one truly understand the Achaemenid Empire in its real dimensions.
2- Iranian Achaemenid historiography
A. Achaemenid imperial inscriptions produced on solemn occasions
Usually multilingual texts written by the imperial scribes of the emperors Cyrus the Great, Darius I the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II, and Artaxerxes III, as well as of the ancestral rulers Ariaramnes and Arsames.
Languages and writing systems:
- Old Achaemenid Iranian (cuneiform-alphabetic; the official imperial language)
- Babylonian (cuneiform-syllabic; to offer a testimony of historical continuity and legitimacy, following the Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great, who presented himself as king of Babylon)
- Elamite (cuneiform-logo-syllabic; to portray the Persians in particular as the heirs of the ancient land of Anshan and Sushan that the Assyrians and the Babylonians named 'Elam' and the indigenous population called 'Haltamti' / The first Achaemenid to present himself as 'king of Anshan' is Cyrus the Great and the reference is found in his Cylinder unearthed in Babylon.)
and
- Egyptian Hieroglyphic (if the inscription or the monument was produced in Egypt, since the Achaemenids were also pharaohs of Egypt, starting with Kabujiya/Cambyses)
Imperial inscriptions are found in: Babylon (Cyrus Cylinder), Pasargad, Behistun, Hamadan, Ganj-e Nameh, Persepolis, Naqsh-e Rustam, Susa, Suez (Egypt), Gherla (Romania), Van (Turkey), and on various items
B. Persepolis Administrative Archives
This consists in an enormous documentation that has not yet been fully studied; it is not written in Old Achaemenid as one could expect but mainly in Elamite cuneiform. It consists of two groups, namely
- the Persepolis Fortification Archive, and
- the Persepolis Treasury Archive.
The Persepolis Fortification Archive was unearthed in the fortification area, i.e. the northeastern confines of the enormous platform of the Achaemenid capital Parsa (Persepolis), in the 1930s. It comprises of more than 30000 tablets (fragmentary or entire) that were written in the period 509-494 BCE (at the time of Darius I). The tablets were written in Susa and other parts of Fars and the territory of the ancient kingdom of Elam that vanished in the middle of the 7th c. (more than 130 years before these texts were written). Around 50 texts had Aramaic glosses. More than 2000 tablets have been published and translated. These texts are records of transactions, distribution of food, provisioning of workers, transportation of commodities, etc.; few tablets were written in other languages, namely Old Iranian (1), Babylonian (1), Phrygian (1) and Greek (1).
The Persepolis Treasury Archive was found in the northeastern room of the Treasury of Xerxes. It contains more than 750 tablets and fragments (in Elamite) and more than 100 have been published. They all date back in period 492-458 BCE. These tablets are either letters or memoranda dispatched by imperial officials to the head of the Treasury; they concern the payment of workmen, the issue of silver, and other administrative procedures. Only one tablet was written in Babylonian.
The entire documentation offers valuable information as regards the function of various imperial services, namely the couriers, the satraps, the imperial messengers, the imperial storehouse, etc. The archives shed light on the origin of the imperial administrators, as ca. 1900 personal names have been recorded: 10% were Elamites (who had apparently survived for long far from their country after the destruction of Susa by Assurbanipal (640 BCE), fewer were Babylonians, and the outright majority consisted of Iranians (Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Sakas, Arians, etc.).
C. Imperial Aramaic
The diffusion of the use of Aramaic started already in the Neo-Assyrian times and during the 7th c. BCE; the creation of the 'Royal Road', the systematization of the transportation, the improvement of communications, and the formation of the network of land-, sea- and desert routes that we now call 'Silk-, Spice- and Perfume- Road' during the Achaemenid times helped further expand the use of Aramaic. The linguistic assimilation of the Babylonians, the Jews and the Phoenicians with the Aramaeans only strengthened the diffusion of the Aramaic, which became the second international language ('lingua franca') in the History of the Mankind (after the Akkadian / Assyrian-Babylonian). Gradually, Aramaic became an official Achaemenid language after the Old Achaemenid Iranian.
Except the Aramaic texts attested in the Persepolis Administrative Archives, thousands of Aramaic texts of the Achaemenid times shed light onto the society, the economy, the administration, the military organization, the trade, the religions, the cults, the culture and the spirituality attested in various provinces of the Iranian Empire. At this point, only indicatively, I mention few significant groups of texts:
- the Elephantine papyri and ostraca (except Aramaic, they were written in Hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Coptic, Alexandrian Koine, and Latin) – 5th and 4th c. BCE,
- the Hermopolis Aramaic papyri,
- the Padua Aramaic papyri, and
- the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents from Bactria (48 texts written on leather, papyrus, stone or clay, dating from the period 353-324 BCE, and mainly from the reign of Artaxerxes III whereas the most recent dates from the reign of Alexander the Great).
Here I have to add that the widespread use of Imperial Aramaic and its use as a second official language for Achaemenid Iran brought an end to the use of the Elamite (in the middle of the 5th c.) and, after the end of the Achaemenid dynasty and the split of the state of Alexander the Great, contributed to the formation of two writing systems, namely Parthian and Pahlavi which were in use during the Arsacid and the Sassanid times. Imperial Aramaic helped establish many other writing systems, but this goes beyond the limits of the present seminar.
3- Problems of historiography continuity
There are no historical references to the Achaemenid dynasty made at the time of the Arsacids (Ashkanian: 250 BCE-224 CE) and the Sassanids 224-651 CE); this situation is due to many factors:
- the prevalence of another Iranian nation of probably Turanian origin, namely the Parthians and the Arsacid dynasty,
- the rise of the anti-Achaemenid, anti-Zoroastrian Magi who tried to impose Mithraism throughout Iran during the Arsacid times,
- the formation of an oral epic tradition and the establishment of a legendary historiography about the pre-Arsacid past during the Sassanid times, and
- the scarcity of written sources and the terrible destructions that occurred in Iran during the Late Antiquity, the Islamic era, and the Modern times (early Islamic conquests, divisions of the Abbasid times, Mongol invasions, Safavid-Ottoman wars, Western colonial looting, etc.).
This situation raised Western academic questions of Iranian identity, continuity, and historicity. But this attempt is futile. Iranian historiography of Islamic times shows that these questions were fully misplaced.
4- Iranian posterior historiography (Iranian historiography of Islamic times)
With Tabari (839-923) and his voluminous History of Prophets and Kings we realize that there were, in spite of the destructions caused because of the Islamic conquests, historical documents on which he was based to expand about the Sassanid dynasty; actually one out of the 40 volumes of the most recent translation of Tabari to English (published by the State University of New York Press from 1985 through 2007) is dedicated to the History of Sassanid Iran (vol. 5). And the previous volume (vol. 4) covers the History of Achaemenid and Arsacid Iran, Alexander the Great, Nabonid Babylonia, Assyria and Ancient Israel and Judah.
Other important Iranian historians of the Islamic times, like Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi (995-1077), Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247-1318) who wrote the truly first World History, Alaeddin Aṭa Malik Juvaynī (1226-1283), and Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi (ca. 1370-1454), did not expand much on pre-Islamic periods as the focus of their writing was on contemporaneous developments.
However, the aforementioned historians and all the authors, who are classified in this category, represent only one dimension of Iranian historiography of Islamic times. A totally different approach and literature have been illustrated by Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Abu 'l Qasem Ferdowsi (940-1025) was not the first to compose an epic in order to standardize in mythical terms and legendary concepts the pre-Islamic Iranian past; but he was the most successful and the most illustrious. That is why many other epic poets followed his example, notably the Azeri Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209) and the Turkic Indian Amir Khusraw (1253-1325).
Within the context of this poetical historiography, historical emperors of pre-Islamic Iran appear as legendary figures only to be then viewed as materialization of divine patterns. The origin of this transcendental historiography seems to be retraced in the Sassanid times, but all the major themes are clearly of Zoroastrian identity and can therefore be attributed to the Achaemenid world perception and world conceptualization.
It is essential at this point to state that, until the imposition of modern Western colonial academic and educational standards in Iran, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and the corpus of Iranian legendary historiography was the backbone of the Iranian cultural, intellectual and educational identity.
It is a matter of academic debate whether an original text named Khwaday-Namag, written during the Sassanid times, and now lost, is at the very origin of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and of the Iranian legendary historiography. The 19th c. German Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke is credited with this theory that has not yet been proved.
All the same, the spiritual standards of this approach are detected in the Achaemenid times.
5- Foreign historiography
Ancient Greek (in reality, Ionian and Attic), Ancient Hebrew and Latin sources of Achaemenid History exist, but first they are external, second they appear to be posterior in their largest part, and third they often bear witness to astounding inaccuracies, fables, untrustworthy data, misplaced focus, excessive verbosity without real substance, and -above all- an enormous and irreconcilable misunderstanding of the Iranian Achaemenid reality, values, world view, mindset, and behavior.
The Ancient Hebrew sources shed light on issues that were apparently critical to the tiny and unimportant, Jewish minority of the Achaemenid Empire; however, these Biblical narratives concern facts that were absolutely insignificant to the imperial authorities of Parsa. One critical issue is concealed by modern scholars though; although all the nations of the Empire were regularly mentioned in the Achaemenid inscriptions and depicted on bas reliefs, the Jews were not. This undeniable fact irrevocably conditions the supposed 'importance' of Biblical texts like Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, etc. All the same, these foreign historical sources are important for the Jews.
The Ionian and Attic accounts of events that were composed by the Carian renegade Herodotus, the Dorian Ctesias, and the Athenian Xenophon present an even more serious problem. They happened to be for many centuries (16th – 19th c.) the bulk of the historical documentation that Western European academics had access to as regards Achaemenid Iran. This situation produced grave biases among Western academics, because they took all these sources at face value since they had no access to original documentation. The grave trouble persisted even after the decipherment of the Old Achaemenid cuneiform writing and the archaeological excavations that brought to daylight original Iranian imperial documentation.
Only recently, at the end of the 20th c., leading Iranologists like Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg started criticizing the absolutely delusional History of Achaemenid Iran that modern Western scholars were producing without even understanding it by foolishly accepting Ancient Ionian myths, lies and propaganda against the Iranian Empire at face value. This grave problem had also two other parameters:
- first, there was an enormous gap of civilization and a tremendous cultural difference between the Iranian imperial world view, the spiritual valorization of the human being, and the Zoroastrian monotheism from one side and the chaotic, disorderly and profane elements of the western periphery of the Empire. The so-called Greek tribes in Western Anatolia and in the South Balkans were not only multi-divided and plunged in permanent conflict; they were also extremely verbose on common issues, they desecrated the divine world with their nonsensical myths and puerile narratives, and they defiled human spirituality with their love stories about their pseudo-gods. But, very arbitrarily and quite disastrously, the so-called Ancient Greek civilization had been erroneously taken as 'classics' by modern Europeans at a time they had no access to Ancient Oriental sources.
- second, the vertical differentiation between Imperial Iran as the blessed land of divine mission and the disunited and peripheral lands of conflict, discord and strife that were inhabited by the Greek tribes was reflected on the respective, impressively different types of historiography; to the Iranians, few words written by anonymous scribes were enough to describe the groundbreaking deeds of divinely appointed rulers. But for the Greeks, the useless rumors, the capricious hearsay, the intentional lie, the nefarious expression of their complex of inferiority, the vicious slander, and the deliberate ignominy 'had' to be recorded and written down.
The fact that Herodotus' and Xenophon's long narratives have long been taken as the basic source of information about Achaemenid Iran demonstrates how disoriented and misplaced modern Western scholarship is. But by preferring to rely mainly on the Ancient Greek lengthy and false narratives, and not on the succinct, true and chaste Old Achaemenid Iranian inscriptions, they totally misrepresent Ancient Iranian History, preposterously extrapolating later and corrupt standards to earlier and superior civilizations.
And whereas Ancient Roman authors, who wrote in Latin (Pliny the Elder, Seneca the Younger, etc.), and Jewish or Christian historians, who wrote in Alexandrine Koine, like Flavius Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima, reproduced the style of lengthy narratives that turns History to mere gossip, the great Babylonian scholar Berossus was very reluctant to add personal comments to his original sources or to allow subjective considerations and thoughts to contaminate his text.
In any case, the vast issue of the multilayered damages caused by the untrustworthy Ancient Greek historiography to modern Western academics' perception and interpretation of Achaemenid Iran is a topic that deserves an entirely independent seminar.
--------------
To watch the video (with more than 110 pictures and maps), click the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1Α
By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
------------------------
To listen to the audio, clink the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1 (a+b)
------------------------------
Download the text in PDF:
Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ: Σταυρόσχημοι Λαξευτοί Τάφοι των Αχαιμενιδών & Ανάγλυφο του Βαλεριανού, Αιχμάλωτου Ρωμαίου Αυτοκράτορα, Γονατιστού προ του Έφιππου Σαπούρ Α’ (240-270)
Naqsh-e Rustam: Cruciform Carved Tombs of the Achaemenid Dynasty & Relief of the Roman Emperor Valerian Captive and Kneeling before Emperor Shapur I (240-270)
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 19 Σεπτεμβρίου 2019. Στο κείμενό του αυτό, ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης παρουσιάζει όψεις της διαχρονικής σημασίας της αχαιμενιδικής νεκρόπολης του Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ, βασιζόμενος σε στοιχεία τα οποία παρέθεσα σε διάλεξή μου στο Καζακστάν (τον Ιανουάριο του 2019) σχετικά με την εσχατολογική σημασία ορισμένων ιερών χώρων του Ιράν.
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/ναξ-ε-ρουστάμ-σταυρόσχημοι-λαξευτοί-τ/ ================
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Πολύ πιο εντυπωσιακό από την κοντινή (10 χμ) Περσέπολη είναι το απόμακρο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ (نقش رستم / Naqsh-e Rostam / Накше-Рустам, δηλαδή ‘η Εικόνα του Ρουστάμ’, ενός Ιρανού μυθικού ήρωα), ένας κορυφαίος προϊσλαμικός ιρανικός αρχαιολογικός χώρος που τα πελώρια μνημεία του, λαξευτά στον βράχο, ανάγλυφα ή οικοδομημένα αυτοτελώς, καλύπτουν 1200 χρόνια Ιστορίας του Ιράν, από την αρχή των Αχαιμενιδών (Χαχαμανεσιάν / 550-330 π.Χ.) μέχρι το τέλος των Σασανιδών (Σασανιάν / 224-651 μ.Χ.)
Εδώ βρισκόμαστε στα ιερά και τα όσια των Αχαιμενιδών: ο επιβλητικός βράχος λαξεύτηκε επανειλημμένα για να χρησιμεύσει ως αχαιμενιδική νεκρόπολη. Είναι αλήθεια ότι οι Πάρθες, οι οποίοι αποσχίσθηκαν από την Συρία των Σελευκιδών (το μεγαλύτερο κράτος των Επιγόνων) το 250 π.Χ. κι έστησαν την μακροβιώτερη ιρανική προϊσλαμική δυναστεία (τους Αρσακίδες – Ασκανιάν: 250 π.Χ. – 224 μ.Χ.), δεν ένοιωσαν κανένα δεσμό με τον συγκεκριμένο χώρο και δεν ανήγειραν κανένα μνημείο στην περιοχή. Άλλωστε, η Περσέπολη παρέμεινε πάντοτε εγκαταλελειμένη μετά την καταστροφή της από τον Μεγάλο Αλέξανδρο.
Και το Ιστάχρ, η μεγάλη σασανιδική πρωτεύουσα που είναι επίσης κοντά, ήταν μια μικρή πόλη, η οποία απέκτησε ισχύ μόνον μετά την άνοδο των Σασανιδών. Ουσιαστικά, για να αντλήσουν πειστήρια ιρανικής αυθεντικότητας και ζωροαστρικής ορθοδοξίας, οι Σασανίδες απέδωσαν εξαιρετικές τιμές στους σημαντικούς αχαιμενιδικούς χώρους δείχνοντας έτσι ότι επρόκειτο για ένα είδος επανάκαμψης ή παλινόστησης.
Για να επισκεφθεί κάποιος το Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ, το Ιστάχρ και την Περσέπολη σήμερα, πρέπει μάλλον να μείνει στην Σιράζ (شیراز / Shiraz / Шираз) που απέχει περίπου 40 χμ και είναι σήμερα η πέμπτη μεγαλύτερη πόλη του Ιράν και η πρωτεύουσα της επαρχίας Φαρς, δηλαδή της καθαυτό Περσίας. Αυτό είναι μια ακόμη απόδειξη του γεγονότος ότι κάνουν τρομερό λάθος όσοι Έλληνες από άγνοια αποκαλούν το Ιράν ‘Περσία’. Η Περσία είναι μόνον μια επαρχία του Ιράν κι οι Πέρσες είναι ένα μόνον από τα έθνη του Ιράν. Κι έτσι ήταν πάντα – για πάνω από 2500 χρόνια Ιστορίας του Ιράν. Η Σιράζ ήταν η πρωτεύουσα των ισλαμικών δυναστειών των Σαφαριδών και των Βουγιδών (Μπουαϊχί) που αποσπάσθηκαν από το Αβασιδικό Χαλιφάτο της Βαγδάτης στο δεύτερο μισό του 9ου χριστιανικού αιώνα.
Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ (Νουπιστάς/Nupistaš στα Αρχαία Αχαιμενιδικά)
Οι λαξευτοί αχαιμενιδικοί τάφοι στο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ είναι ορατοί από χιλιόμετρα μακριά κι ένας ταξιδιώτης τους επισκέπτεται καλύτερα (με άπλετο φως και χωρίς σκιές) το μεσημέρι, καθώς οι προσόψεις των πελωρίων διαστάσεων λαξευτών τάφων στρέφονται προς τα νότια, καθώς ο τεράστιος βραχώδης λόφος έχει διάταξη από ανατολικά προς δυτικά.
Δεν κάνω μια τυπική αρχαιολογική παρουσίαση για να δώσω τις διαστάσεις με λεπτομέρειες, γι’ αυτό σημειώνω εδώ μόνον ενδεικτικά στοιχεία για τον τάφο του Δαρείου του Μεγάλου: η απόσταση του χαμηλότερου επιπέδου της πρόσοψης του τάφου από το έδαφος μπροστά σ’ αυτό (όπου στέκονται οι επισκέπτες του χώρου) είναι περίπου 15 μ.
Αυτό σημαίνει ότι όλοι οι τάφοι είναι υπερυψωμένοι κι έτσι λαξεύθηκαν και φιλοτεχνήθηκαν. Το ύψος της σταυρόσχημης πρόσοψης είναι 23 μ περίπου και η απόαταση του υψηλότερου επιπέδου της πρόσοψης του τάφου από την κορυφή του βραχώδους λόφου είναι σχεδόν 26 μ.
Η υπεράνω του κεντρικού τμήματος της σταυρόσχημης πρόσοψης πλευρά έχει ύψος περίπου 8.50 μ. Η υποκάτω του κεντρικού τμήματος της σταυρόσχημης πρόσοψης πλευρά έχει ύψος περίπου 6.80 μ. Το πλάτος των πλευρών αυτών είναι το ίδιο, περίπου 10.90 μ. Η λαξευτή αίθουσα του τάφου έχει μήκος (: βάθος μέσα στον βράχο) 18.70 μ, πλάτος 2.10 μ, και ύψος 3.70 μ. Περίπου 350 μ3 βράχου ανεσκάφησαν για να δημιουργηθεί η κοιλότητα η οποία διαμορφώθηκε ως ταφική αίθουσα, χωρισμένη σε τρία τμήματα.
Το Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ είχε κατοικηθεί ως χώρος για τουλάχιστον μια χιλιετία πριν φθάσουν οι Πέρσες στην περιοχή αυτή του Ιράν. Οι πρώτοι κάτοικοι δεν είχαν καμμιά σχέση με Ιρανούς: ήταν Ελαμίτες.
Το Αρχαίο Ελάμ ήταν ένα αρχαίο έθνος και βασίλειο – τμήμα της Ιστορίας της Αρχαίας Μεσοποταμίας και όχι της Ιστορίας του Ιράν.
Οι Ελαμίτες ήταν τόσο αρχαίοι όσο και οι Σουμέριοι και ο πολιτισμός τους τεκμηριώνεται από τα αποκρυπτογραφημένα αρχαία ελαμικά που διακρίνονται σε δύο μεγάλες ιστορικές περιόδους και καλύπτουν την περίοδο από τα τέλη της 4ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας μέχρι το 640 μ.Χ., όταν ο Ασσουρμπανιπάλ της Ασσυρίας εξόντωσε το Ελάμ κι εξολόθρευσε το σύνολο του ελαμικού πληθυσμού.
Κέντρο του Ελάμ ήταν τα Σούσα στην Νότια Υπερτιγριανή, τα οποία οι Αχαιμενιδείς βρήκαν σε ερειπία, ανοικοδόμησαν και κατοίκησαν.
Ήδη στα χρόνια των Αχαιμενιδών τα ελαμικά ήταν μια νεκρή γλώσσα (αντίθετα με τα βαβυλωνιακά) την οποία έμαθαν οι Ιρανοί ιερείς και γραφείς από φιλομάθεια, χάρη στους Βαβυλώνιους δασκάλους τους.
Έτσι, πολλές αχαιμενιδικές αυτοκρατορικές επιγραφές υπήρξαν τρίγλωσσες, σε αρχαία αχαιμενιδικά περσικά (Old Achaemenid), βαβυλωνιακά και ελαμικά (Elamite) – όλα σφηνοειδή.
Στο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ υπάρχουν και ελαμικά ανάγλυφα ήσσονος ωστόσο σημασίας σε σχέση με τα ιρανικά μνημεία.
Σύχρονοι γλωσσολόγοι θεωρούν τους Δραβίδες που κατοικούν το Ντεκάν, δηλαδή το νότιο μισό της ψευτο-χώρας ‘Ινδία’, ως απογόνους των Αρχαίων Ελαμιτών, δεδομένου ότι υπάρχουν εμφανείς γλωσσολογικές ομοιότητες και συνάφεια ανάμεσα στα αρχαία ελαμικά και στις δραβιδικές γλώσσες.
Τέσσερις λαξευτοί τάφοι των Αχαιμενιδών βρίσκονται στο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ με την εξής σειρά από τα αριστερά προς τα δεξιά: ο τάφος του Δαρείου Β’ (423-404 π.Χ.), ο τάφος του Αρταξέρξη Α’ (465-424 π.Χ.), ο τάφος του Δαρείου Α’ του Μεγάλου (522-486 π.Χ.), και του Ξέρξη Α’ (486-465 π.Χ.). Ένας πέμπτος ημιτελής λαξευτός τάφος πιθανολογείται ότι ετοιμαζόταν για τον Δαρείο Γ’ (336-330 π.Χ.).
Δυο σημαντικές επιγραφές σε αρχαία αχαιμενιδικά έχουν αναγραφεί στην πρόσοψη του λαξευτού τάφου του Δαρείου Α’, η πρώτη, περισσότερου ιστορικού, αυτο-βιογραφικού χαρακτήρα, στο άνω τμήμα της πρόσοψης του τάφου (γνωστή ως DNa) και η άλλη, περισσότερο θρησκευτικού και ηθικού χαρακτήρα, στο κάτω τμήμα της πρόσοψης (γνωστή ως DNb).
Επίσης, έχουν φιλοτεχνηθεί ανάγλυφες αναπαραστάσεις στρατιωτών των εθνών που συμπεριλαμβάνονταν στην αχαιμενιδική αυτοκρατορία και φέρουν σύντομες τρίγλωσσες αναφορές που δηλώνουν την ταυτότητα του κάθε αναπαριστώμενου στρατιώτη.
Επίσης στα αχαιμενιδικά χρόνια ανάγεται ένα κυβικού σχήματος κτήριο που ονομάζεται Κααμπά-γιε Ζαρντόστ, δηλαδή το Ιερό του Ζωροάστρη, σε αντιδιαστολή με τον Κααμπά της Μέκκας. Η ονομασία αυτή έχει δοθεί στο κτήριο κατά τα πρώιμα ισλαμικά χρόνια, όταν οι κατακτημένοι από τις ισλαμικές στρατιές Ιρανοί προσπαθούσαν να διατηρήσουν την ιστορική, θρησκευτική και πολιτισμική ταυτότητά τους.
Ωστόσο, μια σασανιδικών χρόνων επιγραφή πάνω στους τοίχους του κτηρίου διασώζει την μέση περσική ονομασία: Μπουν Χανάκ, δηλ. Θεμέλιος Οίκος. Η θρησκευτική λειτουργικότητα του κτηρίου είναι εμφανής, αν και υπήρξαν σύγχρονες επιστημονικές προσπάθειες να το δουν ως χώρο της αυτοκρατορικής στέψης.
Τέσσερις συνολικά επιγραφές σασανιδικών χρόνων έχουν αναγραφεί πάνω στους εξωτερικούς τοίχους του κτηρίου αλλά η πιο σημαντική ιστορικά είναι η περίφημη Επιγραφή του Καρτίρ, κορυφαίου αρχιερέα, ιδρυτή του Μαζδεϊσμού (ως ζωροαστρικής ορθοδοξίας), θεωρητικού της αυτοκρατορικής ιδεολογίας των Σασανιδών, και αυτοκρατορικού κήρυκα του σασανιδικού οικουμενισμού.
Κααμπά-γε Ζαρντόστ – το Ιερό του Ζωροάστρη
Τα μνημεία σασανιδικών χρόνων που σώζονται στο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ είναι κυρίως τεραστίων διαστάσεων ανάγλυφα.
Διακρίνονται κυρίως τα εξής:
Α. Ενθρονισμός και Στέψη του Αρντασίρ Α’ (226-242), ιδρυτή της σασανιδικής δυναστείας
Β. Θρίαμβος του Σαπούρ Α’ (241-272), όπου αναπαρίστανται δύο ηττημένοι Ρωμαίοι αυτοκράτορες, ο Φίλιππος Άραψ (244-249), ο οποίος δεν είχε στρατιωτικά νικηθεί αλλά συνάψει μια ειρήνη με πολύ ταπεινωτικούς για την Ρώμη όρους, και ο Βαλεριανός (253-260), ο οποίος ηττήθηκε κι αιχμαλωτίσθηκε στην Μάχη της Έδεσσας της Οσροηνής (Ουρχόη, σήμερα Ούρφα στην νοτιοανατολική Τουρκία) το 260, είχε επακολούθως ταπεινωτική ζωή κι αργότερα οικτρό θάνατο στο Ιράν.
Γ. Ο Μπαχράμ Β’ (276-293) με τον Καρτίρ και Σασανίδες ευγενείς
Δ. Δύο ανάλυφα του Μπαχράμ Β’ έφιππου
Ε. Ενθρονισμός και Στέψη του Ναρσή (293-303)
ΣΤ. Ανάγλυφο του Χορμούζντ Β’ (303-309) έφιππου
Σχετικά με την ήττα του Βαλεριανού από το Σαπούρ Α’ και σχετικά με την παγκοσμίως κορυφαία μορφή του Καρτίρ θα επανέλθω.
Στην συνέχεια, μπορείτε να περιηγηθείτε στο Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ χάρη σε ένα βίντεο, να διαβάσετε επιλεγμένα άρθρα, και να βρείτε συνδέσμους για περισσότερη έρευνα αναφορικά με την προαναφερμένη θεματολογία.
Ο ηττημένος Βαλεριανός γονατιστός προ του Σαπούρ Α’
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Накше-Ростам: римский император Валериан, стоящий на коленях перед Шапуром I (после поражения у Эдессы в Осрене) 260 г. н.э.
https://www.ok.ru/video/1511021677165
Περισσότερα:
Недалеко от Персеполя находится огромный каменистый холм, который в настоящее время укрывает значительную часть 1200-летнего доисламского исторического и культурного наследия Ирана. Крестообразные и высеченные глубоко в скале императорские гробницы Дария I, Ксеркса I и других ахеменидских шахов. Рядом с ними можно полюбоваться великолепными барельефами Сасанидов, на которых изображены два римских императора, униженных перед Сасанидским шахом Шапуром I. Также можно увидеть другие снимки двора Сасанидов.
00:56 гробница Ксеркса I
01:40 Расследование Нарсеха
01:50 гробница Дария I Великого
02:26 Два барельефа Баграма II верхом на лошади
02:46 Триумф Шапура I с двумя униженными римскими императорами, Филиппом Арабским и (стоящим на коленях) Валерианом
03:02 гробница Артаксеркса I
03:31 Хормузд II верхом на лошади
03:41 гробница Дария IΙ
04:26 Баграм II верхом на лошади
04:43 Кааба-Зардошт (Храм Зороастра)
05:44 Расследование Ардашира I
06:10 Баграм II с дворянами Картиром и Сасанидами
Династии Ахеменидов принадлежат четыре гробницы со скальными рельефами. Они расположены в скалах на существенной высоте над землёй. Одна из гробниц принадлежит царю Дарию I, что установлено по надписям (522—486 до н. э.). Про остальные гробницы предполагают, что в них похоронены цари Ксеркс I (486—465 до н. э.), Артаксеркс I (465—424 до н. э.), и Дарий II (423—404 до н. э.).
Пятая неоконченная гробница, по предположениям, предназначалась царю Артаксерксу III, но более вероятно — царю Дарию III (336—330 до н. э.). Гробницы были заброшены после покорения Персии Александром Македонским.
На территории некрополя расположено квадратное в сечении здание высотой двенадцать метров (большая часть из которых находится ниже современного уровня земли) с единственным внутренним помещением. Народное название этого сооружения — «Куб Заратустры» (Кааб-е Зартошт).
Из научных версий наиболее распространена версия о том, что здание служило зороастрийским святилищем огня. По другой, реже упоминаемой версии, под сооружением может находиться могила Кира Великого. Однако ни одна версия не подтверждена документально.
На «Кубе Заратустры» имеются клинописные надписи, сделанные от лица Картира (одного из первых зороастрийских священников), портрет которого можно увидеть неподалеку в археологической зоне Накше-Раджаб.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Накше-Рустам
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Naqsh-e Rostam: Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in front of Shapur I (after the defeat at Edessa of Osrhoene) 260 CE
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240307
Περισσότερα:
Not far from Persepolis, there is an enormous rocky hill which shelters today a significant part of 1200 years of Pre-Islamic Iranian Historical and Cultural Heritage. Cruciform and hewn deep in the rock are the imperial tombs of Darius I, Xerxes I, and other Achaemenid shahs.
Next to them, one can admire the magnificent Sassanid bas-reliefs that depict two Roman emperor humiliated in front of the Sassanid Shah Shapur I and other snapshots of the Sassanid court.
00:56 Tomb of Xerxes I
01:40 Investigation of Narseh
01:50 Tomb of Darius I the Great
02:26 Two bas reliefs of Bagram II riding his horse
02:46 Triumph of Shapur I with two humiliated Roman emperors, Philip the Arab and (kneeling) Valerian
03:02 Tomb of Artaxerxes I
03:31 Hormuzd II riding his horse
03:41 Tomb of Darius IΙ
04:26 Bagram II riding his horse
04:43 Kaaba-ye Zardosht (the Shrine of Zoroaster)
05:44 Investigation of Ardashir I
06:10 Bagram II with Kartir and Sassanid noblemen
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ: Ανάγλυφο του Βαλεριανού γονατιστού προ του Σαπούρ Α’ & Σταυρόσχημοι Τάφοι Αχαιμενιδών
Περισσότερα:
Όχι μακριά από την Περσέπολη ένας τεράστιος βράχος αποτελεί σήμερα την παρακαταθήκη 1200 χρόνων προϊσλαμικής πολιτισμικής κληρονομιάς. Οι σταυρόσχημοι λαξευτοί τάφοι του Δαρείου Α’, του Ξέρξη και άλλων Αχαιμενιδών βρίσκονται δίπλα σε μεταγενέστερα σασανιδικά ανάγλυφα που απεικονίζουν την ταπείνωση δυο Ρωμαίων αυτοκρατόρων προ του Σάχη Σαπούρ Α’ και άλλα στιγμιότυπα της σασανιδικής αυλής.
00:56 Τάφος του Ξέρξη Α’
01:40 Ενθρονισμός και Στέψη του Ναρσή (293-303)
01:50 Τάφος του Δαρείου Α’
02:26 Δύο ανάλυφα του Μπαχράμ Β’ έφιππου
02:46 Θρίαμβος του Σαπούρ Α’ με δύο Ρωμαίους αυτοκράτορες, τον Φίλιππο Άραβα και τον Βαλεριανό γονατιστό
03:02 Τάφος του Αρταξέρξη Α’
03:31 Χορμούζντ Β’ έφιππος
03:41 Τάφος του Δαρείου Β’
04:26 Μπαχράμ Β’ έφιππος
04:43 Κααμπά-γιε Ζαρντόστ (το Ιερό του Ζωροάστρη)
05:44 Ενθρονισμός και Στέψη του Αρντασίρ Α’
06:10 Μπαχράμ Β’ με τον Καρτίρ και Σασανίδες ευγενείς
Naqsh-e Rostam (Persian: نقش رستم) is an ancient necropolis located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars Province, Iran, with a group of ancient Iranian rock reliefs cut into the cliff, from both the Achaemenid and Sassanid periods. It lies a few hundred meters from Naqsh-e Rajab, with a further four Sassanid rock reliefs, three celebrating kings and one a high priest.
Naqsh-e Rostam is the necropolis of the Achaemenid dynasty (c. 550–330 BC), with four large tombs cut high into the cliff face. These have mainly architectural decoration, but the facades include large panels over the doorways, each very similar in content, with figures of the king being invested by a god, above a zone with rows of smaller figures bearing tribute, with soldiers and officials. The three classes of figures are sharply differentiated in size. The entrance to each tomb is at the center of each cross, which opens onto a small chamber, where the king lay in a sarcophagus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqsh-e_Rostam
The Ka’ba-ye Zartosht is 46 metres (151 ft) from the mountain, situated exactly opposite Darius II’s mausoleum. It is rectangular and has only one entrance door. The material of the structure is white limestone. It is about 12 metres (39 ft) high, or 14.12 metres (46.3 ft) if including the triple stairs, and each side of its base is about 7.30 metres (24.0 ft) long. Its entrance door leads to the chamber inside via a thirty-stair stone stairway. The stone pieces are rectangular and are simply placed on top of each other, without the use of mortar; the sizes of the stones varies from 0.48 by 2.10 by 2.90 metres (1 ft 7 in by 6 ft 11 in by 9 ft 6 in) to 0.56 by 1.08 by 1.10 metres (1 ft 10 in by 3 ft 7 in by 3 ft 7 in), and they are connected to each other by dovetail joints.
The structure was built in the Achaemenid era and there is no information of the name of the structure in that era. It was called Bon-Khanak in the Sassanian era; the local name of the structure was Kornaykhaneh or Naggarekhaneh; and the phrase Ka’ba-ye Zartosht has been used for the structure since the fourteenth century, into the contemporary era.
Various views and interpretations have been proposed about the application of the chamber, but none of them could be accepted with certainty: some consider the tower a fire temple and a fireplace, and believe that it was used for igniting and worshiping the holy fire, while another group rejects this view and considers it the mausoleum of one of the Achaemenid shahs or grandees, due to its similarity to the Tomb of Cyrus and some mausoleums of Lycia and Caria.
Some other Iranian scholars believe the stone chamber to be a structure for the safekeeping of royal documents and holy or religious books; however, the chamber of Ka’ba-ye Zartosht is too small for this purpose. Other less noticed theories, such as its being a temple for the goddess Anahita or a solar calendar, have also been mentioned. Three inscriptions have been written in the three languages Sassanian Middle Persian, Arsacid Middle Persian and Greek on the Northern, Southern and Eastern walls of the tower, in the Sassanian era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%27ba-ye_Zartosht
================
Διαβάστε:
Naghshe Rustam
Eras
Naghshe Rustam complex is within a 6-kilometer distance to Persepolis and is located in Haji Abad Mountains. This complex encompasses three eras:
Elamite relics belong to 2000-600 B.C.
Achaemenid relics belong to 330-600 B.C.
Sasanian relics belong to 224-651 A.D.
Mausoleum of Achaemenid Kings
Some of the greatest kings of Achaemenid’s tombs are in Naghshe Rustam. Xerxes (Khashayar Shah) (486 to 445 B.C.), Darius I (522 to 486 B.C.), Ardashir I (465 to 424 B.C.), and Darius II (424 to 405 B.C.) tombs are located in Naghshe Rostam.
The Tombs
The width of each tomb is 19 meters and the length is about 93 meters. The tombs are about 26 meters above the ground level.
Symbolism of the outer space of the tombs
The carving of the king with an arc in the hand is visible on top of the platform. This arc is a symbol of strength. In front of the king, the carving of Ahuramazda is visible. In this carving, two places are visible in which sacred fire is burning. In the right top of the picture, the carving of the moon is visible which shows the world instability.
In the bottom of the platform, the representatives of different nations are holding the kingdom throne. There are also columns; on top of each column, you can see a two-headed cow. Some roaring lions are visible in the bottom of the motifs. The lions are decorated with some lotus. Lotus is a symbol of sincerity and being free of any sin.
Mausoleum Structures
The entrance of each mausoleum is square shaped. These doors were being locked in ancient times. Additionally, Darius Mausoleum has some cuneiform writing. In this writing, Darius is praising Ahuramazda and he mentions his victories. He also speaks of his thoughts. The corridor in Darius Mausoleum has a length of 18.72 meters and a width of 3.70 meters. In this mausoleum, there are nine stone coffins which are dug in a stone row. They belong to the Great Darius, the Queen, and other relatives. Their dimensions are 2.1*1.5*1.5. Each tomb is covered with a big stone.
Kabaye Zartosht (Cube of Zoroaster)
In front of the Naghshe Rustam, in a whole, there is a beautiful cube that they call it the Cube of Zoroaster –who is an Iranian Prophet-. This building is made of big stones. The proficiency and precision used in cuttings and carvings in the black and white stones show the capability of the architectures in Achaemenid Dynasty. On top of the cube, there is a 2.5*2.5 square meters room. There are different beliefs about this room.
Some believe that Avesta (the religious texts of Zoroastrianism) which was written on 12000 cowhides has been stored in this room. Some others believe that this room is the tomb of Bardiya the son of Cyrus who was killed by his brother Cambyses.
Some of the historians believe that the sacred fire was stored in this room. Recently it is said that this room was an observatory. During the Sasanian Empire, some of the important governmental documents were kept. A Sasanian inscription is in three languages. This inscription mainly talks about the historical events in Shapour I in Iran and Rome battles in which the Valerian (Rome Emperor) was defeated and prisoned in Bishapur.
The Excavation of Naghshe Rustam
For the first time, it was excavated by Ernst Herzfeld (German archaeologist and Iranologist) in 1923. Herzfeld excavated the last vestiges of Sasanian towers. After that, this place was analyzed several times from 1936 to 1939. Some important heritage like Persian Inscriptions and some buried stone belonging to Sassanid Era were found. In central Excavations, they reach a building. And in the western parts, the last vestiges of two buildings with muddy bricks were found.
https://apochi.com/attractions/shiraz/naghshe-rustam/
Ο ηττημένος Βαλεριανός γονατιστός προ του Σαπούρ Α’
Naqš-e Rostam
Naqš-e Rostam, a perpendicular cliff wall on the southern nose of the Ḥosayn Kuh in Fārs, about 6 km northwest of Persepolis; the site is unusually rich in Achaemenid and Sasanian monuments, built or hewn out from the rock. The Persian name “Pictures of Rostam” refers to the Sasanian reliefs on the cliff, believed to represent the deeds of Rostam.
Achaemenid Period. The most important architectural remains are the tower called Kaʿba-ye Zardošt (Kaʿba of Zoroaster, Ar. kaʿba “cube, sanctuary”) and four royal tombs with rock cut façades and sepulchral chambers.
(1) The Kaʿba-ye Zardošt is a massive, built square tower, resting on three steps (7.30 x 7.30 x14.12 m) and covered by a flat pyramidal roof (Stronach, 1967, pp. 282-84; 1978, pp. 130-36; Camb. Hist. Iran II, pp. 838-48; Schmidt, pp. 34-49). The only opening is a door. But on all four sides there is a system of blind windows in dark grey limestone, set off by the yellow color of the general structure, between the reinforced corners, and the walls are covered with staggered rectangular depressions. Both systems have no other purpose than to relieve the monotony of the structure. A frieze of dentils forms the upper cornice. A staircase of 30 steps, eight of which are preserved, led to the door (0.87 x 1.75 m) in the upper part of the north wall. Originally, the two leaves of a door opened into an almost square room (3.72 x 3.74 x 5.54 m) without any architectural decoration and no provisions for lighting (Schmidt, p. 37).
There is an analogous, though much more decayed, structure, called Zendān-e Soleymān (lit. prison of Solomon), in Pasargadae (Stronach, 1978, pp. 117-37; 1983, pp. 848-52). Its stone technique does not yet show traces of the toothed chisel (Stronach, 1978, p. 132), and the building can thus be dated to the last years of Cyrus II the Great (r. ca. 558-530 BCE), whereas due to chisel marks the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt can be dated to the early years of Darius I (r. 522-486), around 500 BCE. The Achaemenid structures do not have exact prototypes, but their plan is comparable with those of the earlier Urartian tower temples (Stronach, 1967, pp. 278-88; 1978, pp. 132-34).
On the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt, three exterior sides bear the famous inscription of Shapur I. (r. 241-72 C.E.). The Res gestae divi Saporis (ŠKZ) was added in Greek on the south wall, in Sasanian Pahlawi (Parsik) on the east, and in Parthian (Pahlawik) on the west (Back, pp. 284-371), while the north wall with the entrance has remained empty. Beneath the Parsik version on the east wall, the high priest Kirdīr had his own inscription incised (Sprengling, pp. 37-54; Chaumont, pp. 339-80; Gignoux, pp. 45-48).
Evidently, in Sasanian times the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt—like the tower at Paikuli with the inscription of Narseh (r. 293–302; cf. Humbach and Skjaervø)—served, in addition to other functions, as memorial. Perhaps the two towers in Naqš-e Rostam and Pasargadae already had a similar significance in Achaemenid times, albeit this cannot have been their main function.
In Kirdīr’s inscription the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt is called “bun-xānak.” W. B. Henning proposed the translation “foundation house,” and concluded that the tower was of central religious significance. He suggested that the empty high room was destined “for the safe keeping of the records of the church and even more for the principal copy of the Avesta” (Henning).
Though other translations of “bun-xānak” have been discussed (Gignoux, pp. 28-29 n. 61), it seems the most convincing interpretation that these two towers served as depositories. The lack of any provision for the ventilation of a fire excludes the towers’ use as fire temples (Stronach, 1978, pp. 134-35).
Their staircases were designed “for the solemn ascent and descent of persons who in some manner attended the sacred structure” (Schmidt, p. 41). They indicate that the towers did not serve as royal tombs (Stronach, Camb. Hist. Iran II, p. 849 n. 2), because those have entrance walls that are smoothed beyond their facades, down to the original ground, to make them inaccessible.
N. Frye (1974, p. 386) first expressed the opinion that “the intention was . . . to build a safety box for the paraphernalia of rule in the vicinity of Persepolis as had been done at Pasargadae,” though E. F. Schmidt (p. 44) had dismissed the interpretation of the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt as depository. But Plutarch (46-after 119 C.E.) mentions in Artoxerxes 3 that at Pasargadae one temple belonged “to a warlike goddess, whom one might conjecture to be Athena” (Sancisi-Weerdenburg, p. 148).
At this sanctuary the Achaemenid kings were crowned. During the coronation ceremony the new monarch took a very frugal meal, and was dressed in the robes which Cyrus the Elder wore before assuming kingship. H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg was the first to identify the Zendān-e Soleymān as Plutarch’s temple (Gk. hieron).
Consequently, she interpreted this building, as well as the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt, as “coronation tower.” Her view that these towers had dynastic functions, rather than a purely religious significance and definitely no funeral purposes, has become widely accepted, though her suggestion that a sacred fire was also kindled in these towers can no longer be upheld.
(2) The Royal Tombs. In the cliff wall four monumental tombs are cut out from the native rock (Schmidt, pp. 80-107). The oldest tomb (Tomb I) has inscriptions that assign it to Darius I.
The other three (Tomb II-IV) can only tentatively be attributed to Xerxes (east-northeast of Darius I), Artaxerxes I (west-southwest of the tomb of Darius I) and Darius II (westernmost).
The four monuments follow the same pattern. But it is completely different from that of the older tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, which is a built structure consisting of a stepped platform and a tomb with a gabled roof. The model was first used for Darius I and has no exact prototypes in the Near East, Egypt or Greece, though the stone technique is Urartian in origin (Calmeyer, 1975, pp. 101-7; Gropp, pp. 115-21; Huff, 1990, pp. 90-91).
The rock tomb is characterized by the contrast between a cruciform composition in relief on the exterior wall and a very simple interior of chambers and grave cists. The center of the relief ensemble is a facade that represents the front of a palace with four engaged columns. On this architectural component rests a throne bench (Gk. klinē, OPers. gathu in inscription DNa) that is supported by 30 representatives of the empire’s peoples. The throne bench in turn serves as the platform of a religious scene with king, fire altar, and divine symbols.
The architectural register recalls the palace of the living monarch because the portico’s dimensions on the tomb of Darius I. are almost identical to those of his palace on the terrace of Persepolis (Schmidt, p. 81). A significant feature is the use of engaged columns, which appear on his tomb for the first time in rock architecture.
The so-called Median rock tombs, which are imitations of the Achaemenid monuments, do always show free standing columns (von Gall, 1966, pp. 19-43; 1973, pp. 139-154; 1988, pp. 557-82; “Dokkān”); the exception is the tomb of Qizqapan, where half columns have been placed on the rear of the antechamber (von Gall, 1988, pl. 23).
But at many tombs in the Median province, the originally freestanding columns have collapsed under the pressure of the superimposed rock. Consequently, there was not only the esthetic reason of creating the illusion that the antechamber’s front side and back wall were on the same level. More important were statical considerations. The architects and sculptors of the royal tombs used engaged columns because they could withstand the rock pressure despite their high slender shape.
In the middle register, the mighty throne bench with its 30 armed carriers does not show a realistic scene, and is not considered pictorial evidence for the supposition of real processions on the roofs of Achaemenid palaces (Schmidt, p. 80). It rather is a simile of the Achaemenid empire, the throne bench of which is supported by its peoples, dressed in their distinctive costumes and headgears (Schmidt, pp. 108-118).
On the tombs of Darius I in Naqš-e Rostam and that of Artaxerxes II (r. 404-359 BCE) in Persepolis, inscriptions describe the peoples’ order, and this order seems to correspond with the official geographical records of the empire’s extension (Calmeyer, 1982, pp. 109-123). According to P. Goukowsky (p. 223; cf. Calmeyer, 1982, p. 113 fig. 3) the empire was divided in three concentric zones: Persians, Medians and Elamites live in the inner circle.
An axis is leading from the center to the east, listing Parthians, Arians, Bactrians, Sogdians, and Chorasmians. Then the enumeration turns southeast, naming Drangians, Arachosians, Sattagydians (Thataguš), Gandharans, and Indians and reaches Central Asia, where the haoma-venerating Scythians and pointed-hat Scythians already inhabit the periphery.
On a second axis leading to the south the Babylonians, Syrians, Arabians, and Egyptians (Mudraya) are aligned, whereas on a third axis to the northwest the Armenians, Cappadocians, Lydians (Sparda), and Ionians are represented. Finally in the western periphery there live the Scythians beyond the Sea, the Thracians (Skudra), and the Petasos bearing Ionians.
The Libyans (Putaya) and the Ethiopians (Kušiya) roam the empire’s southernmost countries. Two men stand outside the throne bench, and their hands help lifting the platform which is slightly elevated above the ground.
They are a Makan (Maka, i.e., Oman and probably also the region on the Persian side of the Gulf) and a Carian (Karka). P. Calmeyer (p. 120) has convincingly argued that their exceptional corner positions reflects that these two peoples inhabit the south and the west corners of the empire, at the shore of the ōkeanos which in antiquity was believed to flow around the inhabited earth (Gk. oikoumenē).
All men (Schmidt, figs. 39-50), with the exception of the Babylonian (ibid., fig. 50 no. 16), are wearing weapons, mostly daggers and swords, and some also pairs of javelins.
Bearing arms in the presence of the monarch was a sign of honor and trust, so that the unarmed Babylonian represents an act of deliberate humiliation.
Since Xerxes (r. 486-465 BCE) probably supervised the final work on the tomb of his father Darius I (Schmidt, pp. 116-18 part. 117), this humiliation is likely to reflect to repeated rebellions of the Babylonians against him as well as against his father.
The scene in the top register has religious significance. The king is standing on a three-stepped platform, his left resting on a bow, while his slightly lifted right hand points to the winged symbol hovering above the scene. Since the late 19th, early 20th century, the winged ensign with a human figure, emerging from a circle, has been understood as a representation of Ahura Mazdā (Root, pp. 169-79), and recent attempts to interpret this symbol as the royal genius Frawahr have been rejected.
The king faces a blazing fire altar, though he stands at a considerable distance, whilst the ensign of a disc with inscribed crescent is hovering in the upper right corner. In general, scholars agree that this scene shows how the king is worshipping the holy fire. But the gesture of the king’s right hand corresponds in all details with that of the right hand of the Ahura Mazdā symbol.
The representation thus stresses the close connection between the king and Ahura Mazdā, whose will is decisive for the king’s actions. This interpretation is supported by the Achaemenid royal inscriptions, which are directly related to the reliefs.
On tomb I, Darius I wears a headdress (Gk. kidaris) with an upper rim of sculptured stepped crenellations. Reliefs on the jambs of the southern doorway in Darius’s Palace (Tilia, pp. 58-59) indicate that this was the personal crown of Darius, which was also worn by Xerxes as long as he was crown prince (von Gall, 1974, pp. 147-51).
On Tomb II, which is ascribed to Xerxes, in the king’s crown the rest of a sculptured crenellation is visible (von Gall, 1974, pl. 134 no. 2; 1975 fig. 3), suggesting that this monument was completed before he became the absolute monarch (von Gall, 1974, p. 151). The representations of this late time show a straight cylindrical crown without any decoration. All succeeding rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty adopted this shape, allowing only minor deviations (von Gall, 1974, pp. 150-60; 1975, pp. 222-24).
Another invariable detail of the royal tombs is the discoid symbol hovering in the upper right corner. The inscribed crescent indicates its Assyrian origins. While it represents the moon god Sin in Assyrian art, on the Achaemenid tombs its meaning is difficult to comprehend. Opinions differ whether the symbol has to be interpreted as lunar or solar (cf. Root, pp. 177-78), and there are no written sources to corroborate either view. E. F. Schmidt (p. 85) interpreted the sign as a symbol of Mithra.
But the Persian moon god Māh is relatively well documented in the imagery of the Achaemenid seals. In the central panel above the fire altar scene of the rock tomb of Qizqapan, this type of moon god is also represented (von Gall, 1988, pp. 571-72). These images, in connection with other, though scanty, pictorial evidence (von Gall, 1988, p. 572 n. 55), suggest that the moon played a certain role in Achaemenid concepts of death and afterlife.
On the tomb of Darius, the framework of the throne bench shows three superimposed figures on each side. On the left, two dignitaries are inscribed as the lance bearer Gobryas (Gaubaruwa) and the bearer of the royal battle-ax Aspathines (Aspačina), while the lowest man is an unnamed guard (Schmidt, pp. 86-87). On the right, three unarmed men are clad in the long Persian garment. Their gesture of raising a part their upper garment to the mouth has been interpreted as an expression of mourning, comparable to the Greek custom (Schmidt, p. 87).
More recently, scholars have suggested that this gesture captures the imperative of ’do not pollute the holy fire’ (Hinz, p. 63 n. 4; cf. Seidl, p. 168) or shows respect for the king’s majesty (Root, p. 179), but both alternatives seem less convincing. Additional figures are on the side walls of the recesses into which the tomb facade was carved. On the left, there are three superimposed panels with guards holding long lances. On the right, three mourners who need be considered either courtiers or members of the royal family (Schmidt, p. 87) stand above each other.
Two larger cuneiform inscriptions, as well as legends with the names of Darius I, of his two supreme commanders, and of the 30 bearers of the throne bench, are found in the facade of Tomb I. One is in the top register, to the left of the king (DNa), and the other (DNb) stands in the architectural register, on three of the five panels between the half columns of the portico.
Both are written in three languages, but DNa in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (Weissbach, pp. 86-91), and DNb in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian (Hinz, pp. 52-62 including R. Borger’s edition of the Akkadian version). In the Seleucid period, an Aramaic version was added to DNb below the Elamite text (Frye, 1982).
In stark contrast to the rich architectural decoration of the façade, the interior is bare of any architectural and figural elements. The general layout is also best demonstrated with the tomb of Darius I: A long vestibule is running parallel to the facade, and three doors in the back wall of this vestibule are leading to three separate barrel-vaulted tomb chambers. In each tomb chamber, a trough-like cavity was hewn into the solid rock to hold a probably wooden sarcophagus or klinē. These cists were sealed with monolithic lids after the deposition of the corpses, but nothing has remained of the original interments.
The combination of an oblique corridor and burial chambers with cists was preserved in the other three tombs, assigned to Xerxes (Tomb II), Artaxerxes (Tomb III), and Darius II (Tomb IV).
Yet they show inferior craftsmanship, because the chambers are not running axially, but obliquely to the facade. At Persepolis, the interior organization of the two tombs is also identical.
(3) Other architectural remains. In the Center Test of his 1936 and 1939 excavations, E. F. Schmidt found a building (Schmidt, pp. 10 and 64). In the West Test, he discovered remains of two mud-brick buildings, as well as evidence of an enclosure of the royal tombs (ibid., pp. 10, 54-55). In the west of the cliff, a polygonal cistern (diam. 7.20 m) hewn out from the native rock was excavated (ibid., pp. 10, 65).
The Sasanian Period. A fortified enclosure ran around the major part of the sculptured cliff, and its west and east ends were abutting with the rock. Seven semicircular towers strengthened this structure (Schmidt, pp. 55-58, figs. 2, 4; cf. Trümpelmann, p. 41, fig. 68, drawing by G. Wolff). On the slope of the Hosayn Kuh, there are two cut rock structures in the shape of a čahārṭāq. They are generally assumed to be Sasanian fire altars, but D. Huff (1998, p. 80 pl. 10a; “Fārs,” pp. 353-54 pl. 3) identifies them as astōdāns.
Τις βιβλιογραφικές παραπομπές μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/naqs-e-rostam
Η νίκη του Σαπούρ Α’ επί των Ρωμαίων Αυτοκρατόρων Βαλεριανού (γονατιστού) και Φίλιππου του Άραβα
Επιπλέον:
Γενικά για τα μνημεία και τις επιγραφές:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqsh-e_Rostam
ttps://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Накше-Рустам
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Darius_the_Great
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNa_inscription
Τα κείμενα των επιγραφών, φωτοτυπίες, μεταγραμματισμός κι αγγλική μετάφραση:
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/achaemenid-royal-inscriptions/
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/achaemenid-royal-inscriptions/dna/?
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/achaemenid-royal-inscriptions/dnb/
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/achaemenid-royal-inscriptions/dne/
https://www.livius.org/articles/place/naqs-e-rustam/
Το Ιερό του Ζωροάστρη:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%27ba-ye_Zartosht
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartir%27s_inscription_at_Naghsh-e_Rajab
Σχετικά με τον Σαπούρ Α’, τον Φίλιππο Άραβα, τον Βαλεριανό και την Μάχη της Έδεσσας της Οσροηνής (260 μ.Χ.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_(emperor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edessa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_the_Arab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameo_with_Valerian_and_Shapur_I
Η ταπείνωση και αιχμαλωσία του Ρωμαίου Αυτοκράτορα Βαλεριανού από τον Σαπούρ Α’ όπως αναπαριστάθηκε σε πίνακα του 16ου αιώνα από τον Γερμανό ζωγράφο Hans Holbein der Jüngere (Hans Holbein the Younger) – 1521. Ο καλλιτέχνης δεν είχε υπόψει του το σασανιδικό ανάγλυφο του Ναξ-ε Ρουστάμ και κανένας Ευρωπαίος ταξιδιώτης, έμπορος, διπλωμάτης ή ερευνητής δεν είχε φθάσει ακόμη εκεί αλλά οι Ευρωπαίοι διετήρησαν πολύ αρνητικές αναμνήσεις από τον Βαλεριανό, δεδομένου ότι ο Ρωμαίος αυτοκράτορας είχε κηρύξει διωγμούς κατά των Χριστιανών και Χριστιανοί συγγραφείς είχαν δικαιολογημένα χαρεί από το ελεεινό τέλος του Βαλεριανού που μάλιστα περιέγραψαν ως πολύ χειρότερο από το ιστορικά τεκμηριωμένο τέλος του.
Το περίφημο καμέο του Σαπούρ Α’ νικητή στην Έδεσσα της Οσροηνής (Ούρχα, σήμερα Ούρφα στην νοτιοανατολική Τουρκία) επί του Ρωμαίου αυτοκράτορα Βαλεριανού που αιχμαλωτίστηκε.
======================
Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε PDF:
https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/240270
https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/_-_fdcde1b109b965
https://vk.com/doc429864789_619827582
https://www.docdroid.net/tIpNqbY/naks-e-roystam-stauroskhimoi-laksefti-tafoi-ton-akhaimenidwn-anaghlifo-toy-balerianou-aikhmalotoy-romaioy-autokratora-gonatistou-p-pdf