Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest
R. Ghirshman
Pelican Books
The Iranian Plateau is a triangle set between two depressions, the Persian Gulf to the south and the Caspian Sea to the north (Fig. I). Further, as a bridge between Central and Western Asia, it forms a promontory which links the steppes of inner Asia to the plateau of Asia Minor and beyond to Europe. Geography can thus account for the historic part which the Plateau was called on to play in the course of thousands of years of human history. The triangle is bounded by mountains rising ...
Professor R. Ghirshman, archaeologist, explorer, and historian, was born in 1895, and educated at the Sorbonne, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, and the Ecole du Louvre. His first experience of archaeology in the field was in 1930, when he accompanied the French Mission to Tello, in Iraq. The following year he was appointed head of an expedition to Iran, and made excavations at Giyan, Luristan, Assadabad, and Siyalk. In 1935 he began work on the site of Shapur, a Sassanid town founded in the 3rd century A.D., and in 1936 took part in the first archaeological expedition to Afghanistan. In 1941 he was appointed head of the French Delegation Archeologique in Afghanistan, and after the war he was put in charge of the two French archaeological expeditions to Iran by the French government. In 1949 he made a trip by caravan into the mountains of Bakhtiari, where he explored, for the first time in Iran, a cave which was inhabited in neolithic times. Professor Ghirshman has published many works on the archaeology, history, inscriptions, and coins of Iran and Afghanistan. He is a member of a number of learned societies, both French and foreign; has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Teheran and is an honorary Professor at the University of Aix-en-Provence; and is a Corresponding Member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Professor Ghirshman is a Commander of the Legion d'Honneur.
Contents
List of Plates / 10 List of Text Figures / 14 Editorial Foreword / 17 Introduction. The Physical Aspect of Iran / 21
1. Prehistory / 27 Cave Man / 27 The First Settlers on the Plain / 28 The Prehistoric Civilization of Iran in the Fourth Millennium B.C. 32 Iran at the Beginning of the Third Millennium B.C. / 45 Iran in the Third Millennium B.C. / 5° Iran in the Second Millennium B.C. / 60 Elam / 63 The Kassites / 64
2. The Coming of the Iranians / 73 The Immigration of the Medes and Persians / 73 The Formation of Median Unity / 9° Cimmerians and Scythians / 96 The Median Kingdom / 98 The Luristan Bronzes / 99 Cyaxares / 106 The Treasure of Sakiz / 106 The Median Kingdom / 112. Elam and the Persians - The Rise of the Achaemenians / 118
3·East against West / 127 The Achaemenian Empire / 127 Cyrus (559-530) / 128 The Fall of Babylon / 131 Pasargadae / 134 Cambyses (530-522.) / 136 Darius (522-486) / 139 Administration / 142 The Campaigns of Darius / 146 The Political and Administrative Achievement of Darius / 152 Religion / 155 Language and Writing / 163 Art / 164 Economic and Social Life / 181
4. The Later Achaemenians / 189 The Successors of Darius / 189 Xerxes / 190 Artaxerxes I / 194 Darius II / 196 Artaxerxes II / 197 Artaxerxes III / 201
5. West against East and the Reaction of the Orient / 206 End of the Achaemenian Empire. Alexander the Great / 206 The Seleucids / 219 Art / 232 Economic and Social Life / 237
6. The Parthians / 243 The Parthians and the East / 260 Organization and Administration / 262 Parthians and Greeks / 266 Religion / 268 Urban Development, Architecture and Art / 272 Economic and Social Life / 282
7. The Expansion of Iranian Civilization / 289 The Sassanians / 289 Organization, Administration, Army / 309 The Sassanians Religion / 314 Arts, Letters, Sciences / 318 Economic and Social Life / 341
Conclusion / 350 Selected Bibliography / 358 Index / 360
EDITORIAL FOREWORD
By M. E. L. Mallowan Professor of Westem Asiatic Archaeology, University of London
Much of R. Ghirshman's book on Iran was conceived and written in Susa, the Achaemenian royal city at which for many years the author has been directing excavations. That is why aswe read on we begin to feel the breath ofIrao, for to turn over the soil is to become a part of the land. The author has also enjoyed the unique experience of digging at Siyalk, one of the oldest prehistoric towns, as well as at centres of the Sassanian culture which brings his story to a close, c. A.D. 650. Thus on the most modest estimate this survey must embrace a period of not less than four and a half thousand years.
No one living could hope or pretend to give a final and authoritative verdict on the scores of complex problems that arise in the course of this study; but no one has a better title than the author to express his views in a direct narrative which must inevitably at times leave aside the more difficult and controversial aspects of the evidence. This television of antiquity must often hold our fascinated attention: the prehistoric potpainters of Bakun; the arrival on the Plateau of the first horsemen bedecked with trappings which inevitably give rise to the problem of Aryan origins; the windowed palaces of Persepolis; Darius III fleeing before Alexander; the Roman Emperor biting the dust in front of the Sassanian, and a hundred other scenes. We learn also about that inviting front door to Iran at the south-east end of the Caspian Sea through which time and again irresistible tribes of invaders forced their way from the steppes of Central Asia and renewed the life-blood of the country. Then there is the intriguing variety of religions, Zoroastrian, Christian, Mazdakite; it is enthralling to read of the Mazdakite creed, a kind of Platonic communism, born of despair under the Sassanian Empire, of its extinction and its consequences. It is not difficult to see that the Iranian problems of to-day are but a projection from its past, a past brightly illuminated by the work of archaeology. It is hoped that readers who wish to go into these matters more deeply will be tempted by the short bibliography annexed to find further enjoyment in the rich heritage of Iran.
The translation proved to be no easy task, and is mainly the work of Miss Margaret 11unn-Rankin, Lecturer in Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. Miss Diana Kirkbride revised the first version and checked many passages. The Editor is much indebted to these two colleagues for the care and thought which they have devoted to this work, and must himself take responsibility for inevitable defects. We have attempted to turn the French into reasonably Huent English without losing the Havour of the original language. On the other hand there are times when the English is a paraphrase rather than an exact translation; a few sentences have been expanded, and occasionally a footnote or a slight addition has been made where the original sense seemed to be compressed; a few passages have for various reasons been omitted. For any inadequate rendering we must ask for indulgence, more especially from the author himself, whose French edition, L'Imn des origines a I'Isla!1J (Payot, 195 I), but with fewer illustrations, must be regarded as the authoritative version.
Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest
Introduction
The Physical Aspect of Iran
The Iranian Plateau is a triangle set between two depressions, the Persian Gulf to the south and the Caspian Sea to the north (Fig. I). Further, as a bridge between Central and Western Asia, it forms a promontory which links the steppes of inner Asia to the plateau of Asia Minor and beyond to Europe. Geography can thus account for the historic part which the Plateau was called on to play in the course of thousands of years of human history. The triangle is bounded by mountains rising round a central depression, a desert region formed by the bed of a dried-up sea. The western mountains, or Zagros range, run from north-west to south-east, and are over 620 miles in length and 120 in width. The chain rises to between 3280 and 5570 feet and consists of numerous parallel folds, enclosing valleys 30 to 60 miles long and 6 to 12 miles wide (Fig. 2). Below the pastures on the higher slopes of these mountains stretch the remains of what were once dense forests of oak, walnut, evergreen oak, wild almond and pistachio. Lower down in the high valleys grow vines, figs, and pomegranates, and there is wide cultivation of wheat, …
R. Ghirshman
Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest
Pelican Books
Pelican Books Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest By R. Ghirshman
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books, 645 lVladison Avenue, New York, New York 10044, U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 4801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 184 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 184-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand First published as L'Iran des origines Ii l'Islam by Payot, Paris, 1951 This edition first published 1954 Reprinted 1961, 1978
All rights reserved
Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Except in the United States of America this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
