Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
HISTORY OF IRAN
The Elamites, Medians, and Achaemenids
The early history of Iran may be divided into three phases: (1) the
prehistoric period, beginning with the earliest evidence of
humans on the Iranian plateau (c. 100,000 BC) and ending roughly
at the start of the 1st millennium BC, (2) the protohistoric period,
covering approximately the first half of the 1st millenniumBC,
and (3) the period of the Achaemenian dynasty (6th to 4th century
BC), when Iran entered the full light of written history. The
civilization of Elam, centred off the plateau in lowland Khūzestān,
is an exception, for written history began there as early as it did in
neighbouring Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BC).
The sources for the prehistoric period are entirely archaeological.
Early excavation in Iran was limited to a few sites. In the 1930s
archaeological exploration increased, but work was abruptly
halted by the outbreak of World War II. After the war ended,
interest in Iranian archeology revived quickly, and, from 1950
until archaeological study was dramatically curtailed after 1979,
numerous excavations revolutionized the study of prehistoric
Iran.
For the protohistoric period the historian is still forced to rely
primarily on archaeological evidence, but much information
comes from written sources as well. None of these sources,
however, is both local and contemporary in relation to the events
described. Some sources are contemporary but belong to
neighbouring civilizations that were only tangentially involved in
events in the Iranian plateau—for example, the Assyrian and
Babylonian cuneiform records from lowland Mesopotamia. Some
are local but not contemporary, such as the traditional Iranian
legends and tales that supposedly speak of events in the early 1st
millennium BC. And some are neither contemporary nor local but
are nevertheless valuable in reconstructing events in the
protohistoric period (e.g., the 5th-century-BC Greek historian
Herodotus).
For the study of the centuries of the Achaemenian dynasty, there
is sufficient documentary material so that this period is the
earliest for which archaeology is not the primary source of data.
Contributing to the understanding of the period are, among other
sources, economic texts from Mesopotamia, Elam, and Iran;
historical inscriptions such as that of Darius I (the Great) at
Behistun (modern Bīsotūn); contemporary and later classical
authors; and later Iranian legends and literature.
The prehistoric period
The Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)
Enigmatic evidence of human presence on the Iranian plateau as
early as Lower Paleolithic times comes from a surface find in the
Bākhtarān valley. The first well-documented evidence of human
habitation is in deposits from several excavated cave and rockshelter
sites, located mainly in the Zagros Mountains of western
Iran and dated to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c.
100,000 BC). There is every reason to assume, however, that future
excavations will reveal Lower Paleolithic habitation in Iran. The
Mousterian flint tool industry found there is generally
characterized by an absence of the Levalloisian technique of
chipping flint and thus differs from the well-defined Middle
Paleolithic industries known elsewhere in the Middle East. The
economic and social level associated with this industry is that of
fairly small, peripatetic hunting and gathering groups spread out
over a thinly settled landscape.
Locally, the Mousterian is followed by an Upper Paleolithic flint
industry called the Baradostian. Radiocarbon dates suggest that
this is one of the earliest Upper Paleolithic complexes; it may have
begun as early as 36,000 BC. Its relationship to neighboring
industries, however, remains unclear. Possibly, after some
cultural and typological discontinuity, perhaps caused by the
maximum cold of the last phase of the Würm glaciation, the
Baradostian was replaced by a local Upper Paleolithic industry
called the Zarzian. This tool tradition, probably dating to the
period 12,000 to 10,000 BC, marks the end of the Iranian
Paleolithic sequence.
The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
Evidence indicates that the Middle East in general was one of the
earliest areas in the Old World to experience what the Australian
archaeologist V. Gordon Childe called the Neolithic revolution.
That revolution witnessed the development of settled village
agricultural life based firmly on the domestication of plants and
animals. Iran has yielded much evidence on the history of these
important developments. From the early Neolithic Period
(sometimes called the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age) comes
evidence of significant shifts in tool manufacture, settlement
patterns, and subsistence methods, including the fumbling
beginnings of domestication of both plants and animals, at such
western Iranian sites as Āsīāb, Gūrān, Ganj Dareh (Ganj Darreh),
and Ali Kosh. Similar developments in the Zagros Mountains, on
the Iraqi side of the modern border, are also traceable at sites such
as Karīm Shahīr and Zawi Chemi–Shanidar. This phase of early
experimentation with sedentary life and domestication was soon
followed by a period of fully developed village farming as
defined at important Zagros sites such as Jarmo, Sarāb, upper Ali
Kosh, and upper Gūrān. All these sites date wholly or in part to
the 8th and 7th millennia BC.
By approximately 6000 BC these patterns of village farming were
widely spread over much of the Iranian plateau and in lowland
Khūzestān. Tepe Sabz in Khūzestān, Hajji Firuz in Azerbaijan,
Godin Tepe VII in northeastern Lorestān, Tepe Sialk I on the rim
of the central salt desert, and Tepe Yahya VI C–E in the southeast
are all sites that have yielded evidence of fairly sophisticated
patterns of agricultural life (Roman numerals identify the level of
excavation). Though distinctly different, all show general cultural
connections with the beginnings of settled village life in
neighbouring areas such as Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Central
Asia, and Mesopotamia.
The 5th to mid 3rd millennia
Rather less is known of the cultures in this time range in Iran than
of contemporary cultures elsewhere in the ancient Middle East.
Research has tended to concentrate on the Neolithic and
protohistoric periods, and the scattered evidence for important
cultural and artistic developments in the Chalcolithic Period
(Copper Age) and Early Bronze Age resists coherent summary. It
is clear that trends that began in the late Neolithic Period
continued in the millennia that followed and that the rugged,
broken landscape of the Iranian plateau forced people into a
variety of relatively isolated cultures. In no instance, with the
important exception of Elam (see The Elamites, below), did Iran
participate in the developments that led to fully urban civilization
in lowland Mesopotamia to the west or in the Indus valley to the
east. Throughout prehistory the Iranian plateau remained at the
economic and cultural level of village life achieved in the
Neolithic Period. The separate cultural areas on the plateau are as
yet barely understood by the modern archaeologist in any terms
other than through the painted pottery assemblages found at
several sites throughout Iran. Though they developed in
comparative isolation, each of these areas does yield some
evidence of cultural contact with its immediate neighbours and, in
some striking cases, with developments in the centres of higher
civilization in Mesopotamia. Trade would appear to be the
principal mechanism by which such contacts were maintained,
and often Elam appears to have acted as an intermediary between
Sumer and Babylon on the one hand and the plateau cultures on
the other. Trade across the northern part of the plateau, through
the sites of Tepe Hissar and Sialk, most probably involved
transshipping semiprecious stones such as lapis lazuli from
Afghanistan to Mesopotamia. The appearance of proto-Elamite
tablets in Sialk IV may bear witness to such trade. So also may the
appearance of similar proto-Elamitetablets at Tepe Yahya south of
Kermān and in the great central desert provide evidence of trade
connections between Mesopotamia and the east—in this case a
trade that may have centred on specific items such as steatite and
copper. Parsa perhaps also participated in such trade networks, as
is suggested by the appearance there, alongside strictly local
ceramics, of wares that have clear Mesopotamian affinities. In the
west-central Zagros, outside influences from both the north and
the west can be traced in the ceramic record; such is also the case
for local cultures in Azerbaijan to the northwest. In general,
however, these millennia represent a major dark age in Iranian
prehistory and warrant considerably more attention than they
have received.
The late 3rd and 2nd millennia
The beginning of this period is generally characterized by an even
more marked isolation of the plateau than earlier, while the latter
halfof the period is one of major new disruptions, heretofore
unique in Iranian history, that laid the groundwork for
developments in the protohistoric period. In northwestern and
central western Iran, local cultures, as yet barely defined beyond
their ceramic parameters, developed in relative isolation from
events elsewhere. All occupation had ceased at Tepe Sialk, but the
painted pottery cultures characteristic of earlier Hissar and of the
sites in the Gorgān lowland in the northeast continued. Little
Mesopotamian influence is evident, though some contacts
between Elam and the plateau remained. Beginning perhaps as
early as 2400 BC but more probably somewhat later, a radical
transformation occurred in the culture of the northeast: earlier
painted potteries were entirely replaced by a distinctive gray or
gray-black ceramic associated with a variety of other artifacts,
primarily weapons and ornaments in copper or bronze, which
were also unique. Whether this cultural change represents a
strictly local development or testifies to an important intrusion of
new peoples into the area is still under debate. In any case, none
of these developments can be traced to Mesopotamia or toother
areas to the west, regions which had previously been the sources
of outside influences on the Iranian plateau. Somewhat later the
local cultures of central and northwestern Iran were apparently
influenced by developments in northern Mesopotamia and
Assyria, along patterns of contact that had been well established
in earlier periods. Yet this contact, as it is observed at Godin III,
Hasanlu VI, and Dinkha Tepe, did not cause any major
dislocation of local cultural patterns. In the second half of the 2nd
millennium, however, western Iran—at first perhaps gradually
and then with striking suddenness—came under the influence of
the gray and gray-black ware cultures that had developed earlier
in the northeast. There the impact of these influences was such as
to definitely suggest a major cultural dislocation and the
introduction of a whole new culture—and probably a new people
—into the Zagros. It was this development that marked the end of
the Bronze Age in western Iran and ushered in the early
protohistoric period.
The Elamites
Whereas the Iranian plateau did not experience the rise of urban,
literate civilization in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia on the
Mesopotamian pattern, lowland Khūzestān did. There Elamite
civilization was centred. Geographically, Elam included more
than Khūzestān; it was a combination of the lowlands and the
immediate highland areas to the north and east. Elamite strength
was based on an ability to hold these various areas together under
a coordinated government that permitted the maximum
interchange of the natural resources unique to each region.
Traditionally this was done through a federated governmental
structure.
Closely related to that form of government was the Elamite
system of inheritance and power distribution. The normal pattern
of government was that of an overlord ruling over vassal princes.
In earliest times the overlord lived in Susa, which functioned as a
federal capital. With him ruled his brother closest in age, the
viceroy, who usually had his seat of government in the native city
of the currently ruling dynasty. This viceroy was heir
presumptive to the overlord. Yet a third official, the regent or
prince of Susa (the district),shared power with the overlord and
the viceroy. He was usually the overlord's son or, if no son was
available, his nephew. On the death of the overlord, the viceroy
became overlord. The prince of Susa remained in office, and the
brother of the old viceroy nearest to him in age became the new
viceroy. Only if all brothers were dead was the prince of Susa
promoted to viceroy, thus enabling the overlord to name his own
son (or nephew) as the new prince of Susa. Such a complicated
system of governmental checks, balances, and power inheritance
often broke down, despite bilateral descent and levirate marriage
(the compulsory marriage of a widow to her deceased husband's
brother). What is remarkable is how often the system did work; it
was only in the Middle and Neo-Elamite periods that sons more
often succeeded fathers to power.
Elamite history can be divided into three main phases: the Old,
Middle, and Late, or Neo-Elamite, periods. In all periods Elam
was closely involved with Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria,
sometimes through peaceful trade but more often through war. In
like manner, Elam was often a participant in events on the Iranian
plateau. Both involvements were related to the combined need of
all the lowland civilizations to control the warlike peoples to the
east and to exploit the economic resources of the plateau.
The early history of Iran may be divided into three phases: (1) the
prehistoric period, beginning with the earliest evidence of
humans on the Iranian plateau (c. 100,000 BC) and ending roughly
at the start of the 1st millennium BC, (2) the protohistoric period,
covering approximately the first half of the 1st millenniumBC,
and (3) the period of the Achaemenian dynasty (6th to 4th century
BC), when Iran entered the full light of written history. The
civilization of Elam, centred off the plateau in lowland Khūzestān,
is an exception, for written history began there as early as it did in
neighbouring Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BC).
The sources for the prehistoric period are entirely archaeological.
Early excavation in Iran was limited to a few sites. In the 1930s
archaeological exploration increased, but work was abruptly
halted by the outbreak of World War II. After the war ended,
interest in Iranian archeology revived quickly, and, from 1950
until archaeological study was dramatically curtailed after 1979,
numerous excavations revolutionized the study of prehistoric
Iran.
For the protohistoric period the historian is still forced to rely
primarily on archaeological evidence, but much information
comes from written sources as well. None of these sources,
however, is both local and contemporary in relation to the events
described. Some sources are contemporary but belong to
neighbouring civilizations that were only tangentially involved in
events in the Iranian plateau—for example, the Assyrian and
Babylonian cuneiform records from lowland Mesopotamia. Some
are local but not contemporary, such as the traditional Iranian
legends and tales that supposedly speak of events in the early 1st
millennium BC. And some are neither contemporary nor local but
are nevertheless valuable in reconstructing events in the
protohistoric period (e.g., the 5th-century-BC Greek historian
Herodotus).
For the study of the centuries of the Achaemenian dynasty, there
is sufficient documentary material so that this period is the
earliest for which archaeology is not the primary source of data.
Contributing to the understanding of the period are, among other
sources, economic texts from Mesopotamia, Elam, and Iran;
historical inscriptions such as that of Darius I (the Great) at
Behistun (modern Bīsotūn); contemporary and later classical
authors; and later Iranian legends and literature.
The prehistoric period
The Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)
Enigmatic evidence of human presence on the Iranian plateau as
early as Lower Paleolithic times comes from a surface find in the
Bākhtarān valley. The first well-documented evidence of human
habitation is in deposits from several excavated cave and rockshelter
sites, located mainly in the Zagros Mountains of western
Iran and dated to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c.
100,000 BC). There is every reason to assume, however, that future
excavations will reveal Lower Paleolithic habitation in Iran. The
Mousterian flint tool industry found there is generally
characterized by an absence of the Levalloisian technique of
chipping flint and thus differs from the well-defined Middle
Paleolithic industries known elsewhere in the Middle East. The
economic and social level associated with this industry is that of
fairly small, peripatetic hunting and gathering groups spread out
over a thinly settled landscape.
Locally, the Mousterian is followed by an Upper Paleolithic flint
industry called the Baradostian. Radiocarbon dates suggest that
this is one of the earliest Upper Paleolithic complexes; it may have
begun as early as 36,000 BC. Its relationship to neighboring
industries, however, remains unclear. Possibly, after some
cultural and typological discontinuity, perhaps caused by the
maximum cold of the last phase of the Würm glaciation, the
Baradostian was replaced by a local Upper Paleolithic industry
called the Zarzian. This tool tradition, probably dating to the
period 12,000 to 10,000 BC, marks the end of the Iranian
Paleolithic sequence.
The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
Evidence indicates that the Middle East in general was one of the
earliest areas in the Old World to experience what the Australian
archaeologist V. Gordon Childe called the Neolithic revolution.
That revolution witnessed the development of settled village
agricultural life based firmly on the domestication of plants and
animals. Iran has yielded much evidence on the history of these
important developments. From the early Neolithic Period
(sometimes called the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age) comes
evidence of significant shifts in tool manufacture, settlement
patterns, and subsistence methods, including the fumbling
beginnings of domestication of both plants and animals, at such
western Iranian sites as Āsīāb, Gūrān, Ganj Dareh (Ganj Darreh),
and Ali Kosh. Similar developments in the Zagros Mountains, on
the Iraqi side of the modern border, are also traceable at sites such
as Karīm Shahīr and Zawi Chemi–Shanidar. This phase of early
experimentation with sedentary life and domestication was soon
followed by a period of fully developed village farming as
defined at important Zagros sites such as Jarmo, Sarāb, upper Ali
Kosh, and upper Gūrān. All these sites date wholly or in part to
the 8th and 7th millennia BC.
By approximately 6000 BC these patterns of village farming were
widely spread over much of the Iranian plateau and in lowland
Khūzestān. Tepe Sabz in Khūzestān, Hajji Firuz in Azerbaijan,
Godin Tepe VII in northeastern Lorestān, Tepe Sialk I on the rim
of the central salt desert, and Tepe Yahya VI C–E in the southeast
are all sites that have yielded evidence of fairly sophisticated
patterns of agricultural life (Roman numerals identify the level of
excavation). Though distinctly different, all show general cultural
connections with the beginnings of settled village life in
neighbouring areas such as Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Central
Asia, and Mesopotamia.
The 5th to mid 3rd millennia
Rather less is known of the cultures in this time range in Iran than
of contemporary cultures elsewhere in the ancient Middle East.
Research has tended to concentrate on the Neolithic and
protohistoric periods, and the scattered evidence for important
cultural and artistic developments in the Chalcolithic Period
(Copper Age) and Early Bronze Age resists coherent summary. It
is clear that trends that began in the late Neolithic Period
continued in the millennia that followed and that the rugged,
broken landscape of the Iranian plateau forced people into a
variety of relatively isolated cultures. In no instance, with the
important exception of Elam (see The Elamites, below), did Iran
participate in the developments that led to fully urban civilization
in lowland Mesopotamia to the west or in the Indus valley to the
east. Throughout prehistory the Iranian plateau remained at the
economic and cultural level of village life achieved in the
Neolithic Period. The separate cultural areas on the plateau are as
yet barely understood by the modern archaeologist in any terms
other than through the painted pottery assemblages found at
several sites throughout Iran. Though they developed in
comparative isolation, each of these areas does yield some
evidence of cultural contact with its immediate neighbours and, in
some striking cases, with developments in the centres of higher
civilization in Mesopotamia. Trade would appear to be the
principal mechanism by which such contacts were maintained,
and often Elam appears to have acted as an intermediary between
Sumer and Babylon on the one hand and the plateau cultures on
the other. Trade across the northern part of the plateau, through
the sites of Tepe Hissar and Sialk, most probably involved
transshipping semiprecious stones such as lapis lazuli from
Afghanistan to Mesopotamia. The appearance of proto-Elamite
tablets in Sialk IV may bear witness to such trade. So also may the
appearance of similar proto-Elamitetablets at Tepe Yahya south of
Kermān and in the great central desert provide evidence of trade
connections between Mesopotamia and the east—in this case a
trade that may have centred on specific items such as steatite and
copper. Parsa perhaps also participated in such trade networks, as
is suggested by the appearance there, alongside strictly local
ceramics, of wares that have clear Mesopotamian affinities. In the
west-central Zagros, outside influences from both the north and
the west can be traced in the ceramic record; such is also the case
for local cultures in Azerbaijan to the northwest. In general,
however, these millennia represent a major dark age in Iranian
prehistory and warrant considerably more attention than they
have received.
The late 3rd and 2nd millennia
The beginning of this period is generally characterized by an even
more marked isolation of the plateau than earlier, while the latter
halfof the period is one of major new disruptions, heretofore
unique in Iranian history, that laid the groundwork for
developments in the protohistoric period. In northwestern and
central western Iran, local cultures, as yet barely defined beyond
their ceramic parameters, developed in relative isolation from
events elsewhere. All occupation had ceased at Tepe Sialk, but the
painted pottery cultures characteristic of earlier Hissar and of the
sites in the Gorgān lowland in the northeast continued. Little
Mesopotamian influence is evident, though some contacts
between Elam and the plateau remained. Beginning perhaps as
early as 2400 BC but more probably somewhat later, a radical
transformation occurred in the culture of the northeast: earlier
painted potteries were entirely replaced by a distinctive gray or
gray-black ceramic associated with a variety of other artifacts,
primarily weapons and ornaments in copper or bronze, which
were also unique. Whether this cultural change represents a
strictly local development or testifies to an important intrusion of
new peoples into the area is still under debate. In any case, none
of these developments can be traced to Mesopotamia or toother
areas to the west, regions which had previously been the sources
of outside influences on the Iranian plateau. Somewhat later the
local cultures of central and northwestern Iran were apparently
influenced by developments in northern Mesopotamia and
Assyria, along patterns of contact that had been well established
in earlier periods. Yet this contact, as it is observed at Godin III,
Hasanlu VI, and Dinkha Tepe, did not cause any major
dislocation of local cultural patterns. In the second half of the 2nd
millennium, however, western Iran—at first perhaps gradually
and then with striking suddenness—came under the influence of
the gray and gray-black ware cultures that had developed earlier
in the northeast. There the impact of these influences was such as
to definitely suggest a major cultural dislocation and the
introduction of a whole new culture—and probably a new people
—into the Zagros. It was this development that marked the end of
the Bronze Age in western Iran and ushered in the early
protohistoric period.
The Elamites
Whereas the Iranian plateau did not experience the rise of urban,
literate civilization in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia on the
Mesopotamian pattern, lowland Khūzestān did. There Elamite
civilization was centred. Geographically, Elam included more
than Khūzestān; it was a combination of the lowlands and the
immediate highland areas to the north and east. Elamite strength
was based on an ability to hold these various areas together under
a coordinated government that permitted the maximum
interchange of the natural resources unique to each region.
Traditionally this was done through a federated governmental
structure.
Closely related to that form of government was the Elamite
system of inheritance and power distribution. The normal pattern
of government was that of an overlord ruling over vassal princes.
In earliest times the overlord lived in Susa, which functioned as a
federal capital. With him ruled his brother closest in age, the
viceroy, who usually had his seat of government in the native city
of the currently ruling dynasty. This viceroy was heir
presumptive to the overlord. Yet a third official, the regent or
prince of Susa (the district),shared power with the overlord and
the viceroy. He was usually the overlord's son or, if no son was
available, his nephew. On the death of the overlord, the viceroy
became overlord. The prince of Susa remained in office, and the
brother of the old viceroy nearest to him in age became the new
viceroy. Only if all brothers were dead was the prince of Susa
promoted to viceroy, thus enabling the overlord to name his own
son (or nephew) as the new prince of Susa. Such a complicated
system of governmental checks, balances, and power inheritance
often broke down, despite bilateral descent and levirate marriage
(the compulsory marriage of a widow to her deceased husband's
brother). What is remarkable is how often the system did work; it
was only in the Middle and Neo-Elamite periods that sons more
often succeeded fathers to power.
Elamite history can be divided into three main phases: the Old,
Middle, and Late, or Neo-Elamite, periods. In all periods Elam
was closely involved with Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria,
sometimes through peaceful trade but more often through war. In
like manner, Elam was often a participant in events on the Iranian
plateau. Both involvements were related to the combined need of
all the lowland civilizations to control the warlike peoples to the
east and to exploit the economic resources of the plateau.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
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