1.
Pashtuns
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The Pashtuns /ˈpʌʃˌtʊnz/ or /ˈpæʃˌtuːnz/, historically known by the exonyms Afghans, and Pathan, are an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and North-Western Pakistan. They are generally classified as Eastern Iranian ethno-linguistically, who use Pashto language and follow Pashtunwali, the origin of Pashtuns is unclear but historians have come across references to various ancient peoples called Pakthas between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC, who may be their early ancestors. Their history is mostly spread amongst various countries of South and Central Asia, as the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, Pashtuns have been the dominant ethno-linguistic group for over 300 years. The Barakzai dynasty played a role during the Great Game from the 19th century to the 20th century as they were caught between the imperialist designs of the British and Russian empires. There have been many notable Pashtun people throughout history, Ahmad Shah Durrani is regarded as the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan. Under Amanullah Khan, Afghanistan was able to pursue an independent foreign policy, some others include Malala Yousafzai, Shah Rukh Khan, Hamid Karzai, and Imran Khan. They are an important community in Pakistan, which has the largest Pashtun population, Pashtuns attained presidency there and high rankings in sports. They are the worlds largest segmentary lineage ethnic group, according to Ethnologue, the total population of the group is estimated to be around 50 million but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979. Estimates of the number of Pashtun tribes and clans range from about 350 to over 400, additional Pashtun communities are located in western and northern Afghanistan, the Gilgit–Baltistan and Kashmir regions and northwestern Punjab province of Pakistan. There are also sizeable Muslim communities in India, which are of largely Pashtun ancestry, throughout the Indian subcontinent, they are often referred to as Pathans. Smaller Pashtun communities are found in the countries of the Middle East, such as in the Khorasan Province of Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, important metropolitan centres of Pashtun culture include Peshawar, Quetta, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kunduz, and Lashkar Gah. The cities of Kabul and Ghazni in Afghanistan are home to around 25% Pashtun population while Herat, with as high as 7 million by some estimates, the city of Karachi in Sindh, Pakistan has the largest concentration of urban Pashtuns in the world. In addition, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Lahore also have sizeable Pashtun populations, about 15% of Pakistans nearly 200 million population is Pashtun. In Afghanistan, they are the largest ethnic group and make up between 42-60% of the 32.5 million population. The exact figure remains uncertain in Afghanistan, which is affected by the 1.5 million or more Afghan refugees that remain in Pakistan. Another one million or more Afghans live in Iran, a cumulative population assessment suggests a total of around 49 million individuals all across the world. A prominent institution of the Pashtun people is the system of tribes. Despite this, many people identify themselves with various clans
2.
Hellenization
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In modern times, Hellenization has been associated with the adoption of modern Greek culture and the ethnic and cultural homogenization of Greece. Other tribes that underwent varying degrees of Hellenization included Thracians, Dardanians, Paeonians and Illyrians south of the Jireček Line, Hellenization during the Hellenistic period, however, had its limitations. For example, areas of southern Syria that were affected by Greek culture mostly entailed Seleucid urban centers where Greek was commonly spoken, the countryside, on the other hand, was largely unaffected since most of its inhabitants spoke Syriac and continued to maintain their native traditions. Moreover, Hellenization did not necessarily involve assimilation of ethnic groups since Hellenistic Greeks in regions such as Asia Minor were conscious of their ancestral lineages. Hellenization can also refer to the medieval Byzantine Empire and Constantines founding of Constantinople, moreover, it can refer to the primacy of Greek culture and the Greek language after the reign of Emperor Heraclius in the 7th century AD. Hellenization during the period of Ottoman imperial rule entailed the higher status which Greek culture, in 1909, a commission appointed by the Greek government reported that one third of the villages of Greece should have their names changed, often because of their non-Greek origin. In other instances, names were changed from a name of Greek origin to the ancient Greek toponym. Some village names were formed from a Greek root word with a foreign suffix, the majority of the name changes took place in areas populated by ethnic Greeks, where a strata of foreign, or divergent, toponyms had accumulated over the centuries. However, in parts of northern Greece the population was not Greek-speaking. The process of the change of toponyms in modern Greece has been described as a process of Hellenization and this led to the diminution of the community of Corfiot Italians, resident in Corfu since the Middle Ages, by the 1940s there were only four hundred Corfiot Italians left. The twentieth century witnessed a debate over the extent of Hellenization in the Levant. Rudolf Bultmann thus argued that Christianity arose almost completely within those Hellenistic confines, in his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound influence of Stoic philosophy on Christianity. In particular, Again in the doctrine of the Trinity, the conception of Father, Word
3.
Satrap
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Satraps were the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The word satrap originates ultimately from Old Persian xšaçapāvan, Sanskrit kshatrapam or kshtrapa, from xšaça, in Greek, the word was rendered as satrápēs —which later borrowed into Latin as satrapes—from a Western Iranian cognate xšaθrapā. In modern Persian the descendant of xšaθrapāvan is shahrbān, but the components have undergone semantic shift so the word now means town keeper. The first large use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the conception of the First Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. However, provincial organization originated during the Median era from at least 648 BCE, up to the time of the conquest of Media by Cyrus the Great, emperors ruled the conquered lands, through client kings and governors. The chief difference was that in Persian culture the concept of kingship was indivisible from divinity and he was responsible for the safety of the roads, and had to put down brigands and rebels. But the satrap was allowed to have troops in his own service, the great satrapies were often divided into smaller districts, the governors of which were also called satraps and also hyparchs. The distribution of the great satrapies was changed repeatedly, and often two of them were given to the same man, as the provinces were the result of consecutive conquests, both primary and sub-satrapies were often defined by former states and/or ethno-religious identity. When his office became hereditary, the threat to the authority could not be ignored. Rebellions of satraps became frequent from the middle of the 5th century BCE, darius I struggled with widespread rebellions in the satrapies, and under Artaxerxes II occasionally the greater part of Asia Minor and Syria was in open rebellion. The last great rebellions were put down by Artaxerxes III and they would ultimately be replaced by conquering empires, especially the Parthians. In the Parthian Empire, the power rested on the support of noble families who ruled large estates. City-states within the empire enjoyed a degree of self-government, and paid tribute to the king, shahrabs ruled both the city and the surrounding rural districts. Exceptionally, the East Roman Empire also adopted the title satrap for the princes that governed one of its Armenian provinces. The Western Satraps or Kshatrapas were Saka rulers in the western and central part of the Sindh region of Pakistan, and it is also used in modern times to refer to the loyal subservient lieutenants or clients of some powerful figure, in politics or business. In Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, the word not only carries the aforementioned ancient historical meaning. It can refer as well to living in luxurious and ostentatious conditions or to individuals who act astutely. The College of Pataphysics used the title Transcendent Satrap for certain of its members, including Marcel Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard, in the Serbian language, satrap is used to mock a person who displays servile tendencies to an authority figure
4.
Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
5.
Seleucid Empire
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Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexanders near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and what is now Kuwait, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan. The Seleucid Empire was a center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece, Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands, contemporary sources, such as a loyalist degree from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire and as a kingdom. Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia and he refers to either Alexander Balas or Alexander II Zabinas as a ruler. Alexander, who conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC. Alexanders generals jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire, Ptolemy, a former general and the satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system, this led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemys revolt led to a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC, Seleucus, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry and appointed first or court chiliarch received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly. Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC, the used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants. Following his and Lysimachus victory over Antigonus Monophthalmus at the decisive Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia, in the latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes, a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris, north of Babylon, Seleucuss empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachuss lands in Europe – primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, nevertheless, even before Seleucus death, it was difficult to assert control over the vast eastern domains of the Seleucids. Seleucus invaded the Punjab region of India in 305 BC, confronting Chandragupta Maurya and it is said that Chandragupta fielded an army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and it is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucuss daughter, or a Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants, an asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandraguptas reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus
6.
Parthian Empire
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The Parthian Empire, also known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran and Iraq. Mithridates I of Parthia greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids, at its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, the court did appoint a small number of satraps, largely outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of government shifted from Nisa to Ctesiphon along the Tigris. The earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Seleucids in the west, however, as Parthia expanded westward, they came into conflict with the Kingdom of Armenia, and eventually the late Roman Republic. Rome and Parthia competed with other to establish the kings of Armenia as their subordinate clients. The Parthians soundly defeated Marcus Licinius Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, however, Mark Antony led a counterattack against Parthia, although his successes were generally achieved in his absence, under the leadership of his lieutenant Ventidius. Also, various Roman emperors or their appointed generals invaded Mesopotamia in the course of the several Roman-Parthian Wars which ensued during the few centuries. The Romans captured the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon on multiple occasions during these conflicts, native Parthian sources, written in Parthian, Greek and other languages, are scarce when compared to Sassanid and even earlier Achaemenid sources. These include mainly Greek and Roman histories, but also Chinese histories, Parthian artwork is viewed by historians as a valid source for understanding aspects of society and culture that are otherwise absent in textual sources. The Parni most likely spoke an eastern Iranian language, in contrast to the northwestern Iranian language spoken at the time in Parthia, the latter was a northeastern province, first under the Achaemenid, and then the Seleucid empires. Why the Arsacid court retroactively chose 247 BC as the first year of the Arsacid era is uncertain, Bivar concludes that this was the year the Seleucids lost control of Parthia to Andragoras, the appointed satrap who rebelled against them. Hence, Arsaces I backdated his regnal years to the moment when Seleucid control over Parthia ceased, however, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis asserts that this was simply the year Arsaces was made chief of the Parni tribe. It is unclear who immediately succeeded Arsaces I, Bivar and Katouzian affirm that it was his brother Tiridates I of Parthia, who in turn was succeeded by his son Arsaces II of Parthia in 211 BC. Yet Curtis and Brosius state that Arsaces II was the successor of Arsaces I, with Curtis claiming the succession took place in 211 BC. Bivar insists that 138 BC, the last regnal year of Mithridates I, is the first precisely established regnal date of Parthian history, due to these and other discrepancies, Bivar outlines two distinct royal chronologies accepted by historians
7.
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 AD. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC, the preserved ancient sources are somewhat contradictory, and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire. Diodotus, the governor of the cities of Bactria, defected and proclaimed himself king, all the other people of the Orient followed his example. Their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others, among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. In 247 BC, the Ptolemaic empire captured the Seleucid capital, in the resulting power vacuum, the satrap of Parthia proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, declaring himself king. A decade later, he was defeated and killed by Arsaces of Parthia and this cut Bactria off from contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew the dynasty of Diodotus I around 230-220 BC, and the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads. Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC, although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat. Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded, in the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested, designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han dynasty bronze mirrors. The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in iron, for trade is attested around that period
8.
Indo-Scythians
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Indo-Scythians is a term used to refer to Scythians, who migrated into parts of central, northern and western South Asia from the middle of the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. The first Saka king in south Asia was Maues who established Saka power in Gandhara, Indo-Scythian rule in northwestern India ended with the last Western Satrap Rudrasimha III in 395 CE who was defeated by the Indian Emperor Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire. The power of the Saka rulers started to decline in the 2nd century CE after the Indo-Scythians were defeated by the south Indian Emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana dynasty, later the Saka kingdom was completely destroyed by Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire in the 4th century. The invasion of India by Scythian tribes from Central Asia, often referred to as the Indo-Scythian invasion, ancient Roman historians including Arrian and Claudius Ptolemy have mentioned that the ancient Sakas were basically nomads. However, Italo Ronca, in his study of Ptolemys chapter vi, marks the statement, The land of the Sakai belongs to nomads, they have no towns but dwell in forests. The ancestors of the Indo-Scythians are thought to be Sakas tribes, one group of Indo-European speakers that makes an early appearance on the Xinjiang stage is the Saka. According to these ancient sources Modu Shanyu of the Xiongnu tribe of Mongolia attacked the Yuezhi, leaving behind a remnant of their number, most of the population moved westwards. Around 175 BC, the Yuezhi tribes, were defeated by the Xiongnu tribes, there, they displaced the Sakas, who migrated south into Ferghana and Sogdiana. According to the Chinese historical chronicles, The Yuezhi attacked the king of the Sai who moved a distance to the south. The Sakas seem to have entered the territory of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom around 145 BC, the Sakas called home, an area of Southern Afghanistan, called after them Sistan. From there, they expanded into present day Iran as well as northern India, where they established various kingdoms. The region is known as Seistan. The presence of the Sakas in Sakastan in the 1st century BC is mentioned by Isidore of Charax in his Parthian stations, the first Indo-Scythian kingdom in south western Asia was located in Pakistan in the areas from Abiria to Surastrene, from around 110 to 80 BC. They progressively further moved north into Indo-Greek territory until the conquests of Maues, before it there lies a small island, and inland behind it is the metropolis of Scythia, Minnagara. The Indo-Scythians ultimately established a kingdom in the northwest, based in Taxila, in the southeast, the Indo-Scythians invaded the area of Ujjain, but were subsequently repelled in 57 BC by the Malwa king Vikramaditya. To commemorate the event Vikramaditya established the Vikrama era, a specific Indian calendar starting in 57 BC, more than a century later, in AD78 the Sakas would again invade Ujjain and establish the Saka era, marking the beginning of the long-lived Saka Western Satraps kingdom. Maues first conquered Gandhara and Taxila around 80 BCE, but his kingdom disintegrated after his death, in the east, the Indian king Vikrama retook Ujjain from the Indo-Scythians, celebrating his victory by the creation of the Vikrama Era. Indo-Greek kings again ruled after Maues, and prospered, as indicated by the profusion of coins from Kings Apollodotus II, not until Azes I, in 55 BC, did the Indo-Scythians take final control of northwestern India, with his victory over Hippostratos
9.
Arghandab River
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Arghandab is a river in Afghanistan, about 400 km in length. It rises in the Hazarajat country north-west of Ghazni, and flows south-west falls into the Helmand 30 km below Girishk. It is doubtful whether the ancient Arachotus is to be identified with the Arghandab or with its chief confluent the Tarnak, the Tarnak, which flows south of Kandahar, is much shorter and less copious. The Tarnak is dammed for irrigation at intervals, and in the hot season almost dries up, there is a good deal of cultivation along the river, but few villages. The Kabul-Kandahar Highway passes this way, and the people live off the road to avoid the onerous duties of hospitality, in 2008 a project was initiated to rehabilitate the Dahla Dam and associated irrigation system
10.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
11.
Indus River
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The Indus River, also called Sindhū or Abāsīn, is a major south-flowing river in South Asia. The total length of the river is 3,180 km which makes it one of the longest rivers in Asia and it is the longest river and national river of Pakistan. The river has a drainage area exceeding 1,165,000 km2. Its estimated annual flow stands at around 207 km3, making it the twenty-first largest river in the world in terms of annual flow, the Zanskar is its left bank tributary in Ladakh. In the plains, its left tributary is the Chenab which itself has four major tributaries, namely, the Jhelum, the Ravi, the Beas. Its principal right tributaries are the Shyok, the Gilgit, the Kabul, the Gomal. Beginning in a spring and fed with glaciers and rivers in the Himalayas. The Indus forms the delta of present-day Pakistan mentioned in the Vedic Rigveda as Sapta Sindhu, the river has been a source of wonder since the Classical Period, with King Darius of Persia sending his Greek subject Scylax of Caryanda to explore the river as early as 510 BC. In Pali, Síndhu means river, stream and refers to the Indus River in particular, the word Indus is the romanised form of the ancient Greek word Indós, borrowed from the old Persian word Hinduš which is in turn borrowed from the Sanskrit word Sindhu. Megastheness book Indica derives its name from the rivers Greek name, Indós, the ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indói, literally meaning the people of the Indus. The country of India and the Pakistani province of Sindh owe their names to the river, Rigveda also describes several mythical rivers, including one named Sindhu. The Rigvedic Sindhu is thought to be the present-day Indus river and is attested 176 times in its text –95 times in the plural, more often used in the generic meaning. In the Rigveda, notably in the hymns, the meaning of the word is narrowed to refer to the Indus river in particular. The Rigvedic hymns apply a feminine gender to all the rivers mentioned therein, Sindhu is seen as a strong warrior amongst other rivers which are seen as goddesses and compared to cows and mares yielding milk and butter. The Indus River provides key resources for Pakistans economy – especially the breadbasket of Punjab province, which accounts for most of the nations agricultural production. The word Punjab means land of five rivers and the five rivers are Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, the Indus also supports many heavy industries and provides the main supply of potable water in Pakistan. The ultimate source of the Indus is in Tibet, the river begins at the confluence of the Sengge Zangbo and Gar Tsangpo rivers that drain the Nganglong Kangri, the Indus then flows northwest through Ladakh and Baltistan into Gilgit, just south of the Karakoram range. The Shyok, Shigar and Gilgit rivers carry glacial waters into the main river and it gradually bends to the south, coming out of the hills between Peshawar and Rawalpindi
12.
Helmand River
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The Helmand River is the longest river in Afghanistan and the primary watershed for the endorheic Sistan Basin. The name comes from Avestan Haētumant, literally dammed, having a dam, which referred to the Helmand River, the name was borrowed into Greek and Latin as a compound with Eastern Iranian *raha, river. Helmand Province is named after the river, the Helmand River stretches for 1,150 km. It rises in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 80 km west of Kabul, passing north of the Unai Pass, in the proximities of Hazarajat, in Behsud, flows west to Daykundi. It crosses south-west through the desert of Dashti Margo, to the Seistan marshes, the river remains relatively salt-free for much of its length, unlike most rivers with no outlet to the sea. This river, managed by the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority is used extensively for irrigation and its waters are essential for farmers in Afghanistan, but it feeds into Lake Hamun and is also important to farmers in Irans southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province. A number of dams have created artificial reservoirs on some of the Afghanistans rivers including the Kajakai on the Helmand River. The chief tributary of the Helmand river is the Arghandab River which also has a major dam north of Kandahar, the boundaries of the province of Helmand were once known as kingdom of Sakastan. The Helmand valley region is mentioned by name in the Avesta as the Aryan land of Haetumant, but owing to the preponderance of Hindus and Buddhists, the Helmand and Kabul regions were also known as White India in those days. The Hindu Zunbils were also located here, some Vedic scholars also believe the Helmand valley corresponds to the Sarasvati area mentioned in the Rig Veda as the homeland for the Indo-Aryan migrations into India, ca.1500 BC. Six major discoveries by Italian Archaeologist in Swat District of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan regarding the river have been discussed in the book The History of Communication, list of rivers of Afghanistan Kajaki Dam Various authors. Vogelsang, W. Early historical Arachosia in South-east Afghanistan, Meeting-place between East and West, from Wetland to Wasteland, The Destruction of the Hamoun Oasis
13.
Ariana
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At various times, various parts of the region were governed by the Persians, the Macedonians, Iranian peoples from Persia and Central Asia, the Xionites and Indian empires. The Greek term Arianē is based upon an Iranian word found in Avestan Airiiana-, the Greeks also referred to Haroyum/Haraiva as Aria, which is one of the many provinces found in Ariana. The exact limits of Ariana are laid down with little accuracy in classical sources and it seems to have been often confused with the small province of Aria. As a geographical term, Ariana was introduced by the Greek geographer, Eratosthenes, a detailed description of that region is to be found in Strabos Geographica, Book XV – Persia, Ariana, the Indian subcontinent, chapter 2, sections 1–9. By Herodotus Ariana is not mentioned, nor is it included in the description of Stephanus of Byzantium and Ptolemy. The tribes by whom Ariana was inhabited, as enumerated by Strabo were, Arachoti, Arii, Bactrians, Drangae, Gedrosii, Paropamisadae, Parthians, Persians Sogdians. Pliny specifies the following tribes, Angutturi, Arii, the inhabitants of Daritis, Dorisci, Drangae, Evergetae, Gedrussi, Ichthyophagi, Methorici, Pasires, Urbi, Zarangae. Pliny says that some add to India four satrapies to the west of the river, – the Gedrosii, Arachosii, Arii, pliny therefore agrees on the whole with Strabo. Dionysius Periegetes agrees with Strabo in extending the boundary of the Ariani to the Paropamisus. Rüdiger Schmitt, the German scholar of Iranian Studies, also believes that Ariana should have included other Iranian people, G. Gnoli, Postilla ad Ariyō šayana, RSO41,1966, pp. 329–34. P. Calmeyer, AMI15,1982, pp. 135ff, encyclopaedia Iranica Aria region in the eastern part of the Persian empire Ărĭāna, Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Perseus Digital Library. Ariana, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, William Smith,1870 Stabo GeographyY, Book XV, pliny the Elder, The Natural History, Chap. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, Chap,25. —The Ariani and the adjoining nations, Perseus Digital Library
14.
Helmand Province
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Helmand or Hillmand The ancient names of of Helmand were is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, in the south of the country. It is the largest province by area, covering 58,584 square kilometres area, the province contains 13 districts, encompassing over 1,000 villages, and roughly 879,500 settled people. Lashkar Gah serves as the provincial capital, Helmand was part of the Greater Kandahar region until made into a separate province by the Afghan government in the 20th century. The province has an airport, in the city of Lashkar Gah. The British Camp Bastion and U. S, Camp Leatherneck are a short distance southwest of Lashkar Gah. The Helmand River flows through the desert region of the province. The Kajaki Dam, which is one of Afghanistans major reservoirs, is located in the Kajaki district, Helmand is believed to be one of the worlds largest opium-producing regions, responsible for around 42% of the worlds total production. This is believed to be more than the whole of Burma, which is the second largest producing nation after Afghanistan. The region also produces tobacco, sugar beets, cotton, sesame, wheat, mung beans, maize, nuts, sunflowers, onions, potato, tomato, cauliflower, peanut, apricot, grape, and melon. Helmand culture of western Afghanistan was a Bronze Age culture of the 3rd millennium BC and it is exemplified by such major sites as Shahr-i Sokhta, Mundigak, and Bampur. The term Helmand civilization was proposed by M. Tosi and this civilization flourished between 2500 BC and 1900 BC, and may have coincided with the great flourishing of the Indus Valley Civilisation. This was also the phase of Periods III and IV of Shahr-i Sokhta. Jiroft culture is related to Helmand culture. Jiroft culture flourished in the eastern Iran, and the Helmand culture in western Afghanistan at the same time, in fact, they may represent the same cultural area. Mehrgarh culture, on the hand, is far earlier. Some Vedic scholars also believe the Helmand valley corresponds to the Sarasvati area mentioned in the Rig Veda as the homeland for the Indo-Aryan migrations into India, helmland was inhabited by ancient peoples and governed by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids. Later, the area was part of the ancient Arachosia polity, and a frequent target for conquest because of its location in Asia. The Helmand river valley is mentioned by name in the Avesta as Haetumant, one of the centers of the Zoroastrian faith
15.
Alexandria Arachosia
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Alexandria in Arachosia was a city in ancient times that is now called Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was one of more than seventy cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great, Arachosia is the Greek name of an ancient province of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The province of Arachosia corresponds to todays southeastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, as far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians. The remains of Alexandria in Arachosia are today found in the tell of Old Kandahar citadel in the portion of the modern city. The citadel tell was excavated by the British Society for South Asian Studies through the 1970s and these excavations indicate that the Islamic walls were based on those from classical times indicating what might be a square shaped town, but one highly modified by the unusual topography. A triangular shaped portion of the adjoining the Greek town is from the Buddhist era. Alexander appears to have founded his town on the site of 6th century BC Persian garrison point, the pass, river and junction of three long distance trade routes made the location of strategic importance. To date, no Greek buildings have found, but numerous coins, inscriptions. Further discoveries are anticipated as excavation reaches deeper strata of the tell, the citadel walls have been shown to have contained circular towers similar to those at Farah, Balkh and Nadi Ali Sorkh Gdagh, although these could be Islamic in age. Kandahar Old Kandahar Alexander the Great, his towns Arachosia Alexandria in Arachosia ARACHOSIA, province 2012 Encyclopædia Iranica
16.
Kandahar
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Kandahar or Qandahar is the second-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 491,500 as of 2012. Formerly called Alexandria Arachosia, the city is named after Alexander the Great, Kandahar is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along the west of the city, the city of Kandahar has a population of 557,118. It has 15 districts and a land area of 27,337 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Kandahar is 61,902, Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than 200 years. It is a trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit, the area is believed to be the birthplace of cannabis indica. The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements, Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its location along the trade routes of southern, central. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom, in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire, made it the capital of modern Afghanistan. A temple to the deified Alexander as well as an inscription in Greek and Aramaic by Emperor Ashoka, Ibn Batutta mentions Kandahar in the 14th century by describing it as a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazni. It has been then mentioned extensively by Mughal Emperor Babur and others, an alternative story describes Khandahar as Gandhara in Mahabharata ruled by Suvala and later by Shakuni. The princess of Hastinapur, Gandhari was born in Gandhara, a folk etymology offered is that the word kand or qand in Persian and Pashto means candy. The name Candahar or Kandahar in this form probably translates to candy area and this probably has to do with the location being fertile and historically known for producing fine grapes, pomegranates, apricots, melons and other sweet fruits. Ernst Herzfeld claimed Kandahar perpetuated the name of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares, excavations of prehistoric sites by archaeologists such as Louis Dupree and others suggest that the region around Kandahar is one of the oldest human settlements known so far. Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan ca.5000 B. C. or 7000 years ago, deh Morasi Ghundai, the first prehistoric site to be excavated in Afghanistan, lies 27 km southwest of Kandahar. Another Bronze Age village mound site with multiroomed mud-brick buildings dating from the same period sits nearby at Said Qala, Bronze Age pottery, copper and bronze horse trappings and stone seals were found in the lowermost levels in the nearby cave called Shamshir Ghar. In the Seistan, southwest of these Kandahar sites, two teams of American archaeologists discovered sites relating to the 2nd millennium B. C, while the Diadochi were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent
17.
Avestan
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The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta. Avestans status as a language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language, Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian. The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group, Iranian languages are traditionally classified as eastern or western, and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and also in some extent close in nature to Vedic Sanskrit. It is believed that it might be close to a dialect of Pashto as well. The Avestan language is attested in two forms, known as Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan, the two not only in time, but are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order, The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for centuries. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood, the script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh religion writing. It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left and these symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, a few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language, Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was considered necessary for the prayers to be effective, the Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in Gujarati script, some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraϑuštra is written with j with a dot below
18.
Vendidad
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The Vendidad or Videvdat is a collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta. However, unlike the other texts of the Avesta, the Vendidad is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual. According to the divisions of the Avesta as described in the Denkard, a 9th-century text, the Vendidad includes all of the 19th nask, the Vendidads different parts vary widely in character and in age. Although some portions are relatively recent in origin, the matter of the greater part is very old. In 1877, Karl Friedrich Geldner identified the texts as being distinct from both the Old Avestan language texts as well as from the Yashts of the younger Avesta. Today, there is controversy over development of the Vendidad. The Vendidad is classified by some as an artificial, young Avestan text, the Vendidad is thought to be a Magi composition. It has also suggested that the Vendidad belongs to a particular school. The Vendidad consists of 22 fargards containing fragments of discussions between Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster, the arrangement does not suggest it was composed by the prophets contemporaries. However, some consider the Vendidad a link to ancient early oral traditions, the writing of the Vendidad began - perhaps substantially - before the formation of the Median and Persian Empires, before the 8th century B. C. E. In addition, as with the Yashts, the date of composition of the version does not exclude the possibility that some parts of the Vendidad may consist of very old material. Even in this age, Zoroastrians are continually rewriting old spiritual material. The first chapter is dualistic creation myth, followed by the description of a destructive winter comparable with the floods of various other mythologies. The second chapter recounts the legend of Yima, chapter 19 relates the temptation of Zoroaster, who, when urged by Angra Mainyu to turn from the good religion, turns instead towards Ahura Mazda. The remaining chapters cover diverse rules and regulations, through the adherence of which evil spirits may be confounded, there is a degree of moral relativism apparent in the Vendidad, and the diverse rules and regulations are not always expressed as being mystical, absolute, universal or mandatory. The Vendidad is mainly about social laws, mores, customs, in some instances, the description of prescribed behaviour is accompanied by a description of the penances that have to be made to atone for violations thereof. Such penances include, payment in cash or kind to the aggrieved, corporal punishment such as whipping and they argue that it has origins on early oral tradition, being only later written. They argue that it was written nearly 700 years after the death of Zarathustra, an article by Hannah M. G. Shapero sums up the refomist perspective, How do Zoroastrians view the Vendidad today
19.
Vedic Sanskrit
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Vedic Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, more specifically one branch of the Indo-Iranian group. It is the ancient language of the Vedas of Hinduism, texts compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE and it was orally preserved, predating the advent of Brahmi script by several centuries. Vedic Sanskrit is a language, whose consensus translation has been challenging. Extensive ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit language has survived into the era. Quite early in the era, Sanskrit separated from the Avestan language. The exact century of separation is unknown but this separation of Sanskrit, Avestan language developed in ancient Persia, was the language of Zoroastrianism, but was a dead language in the Sasanian period. The separation of language into Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit is estimated, on linguistic grounds. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda is vague at best, both Asko Parpola and J. P. Mallory place the locus of the division of Indo-Aryan from Iranian in the Bronze Age culture of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex. Parpola elaborates the model and has Proto-Rigvedic Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE and he assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and Proto-Rigvedic intrusion to the Punjab as corresponding to the Gandhara grave culture from about 1700 BCE. According to this model, Rigvedic within the larger Indo-Aryan group is the ancestor of the Dardic languages. The Rigveda must have been complete by around the 12th century BCE. The pre-1200 BCE layers mark a change in Vedic Sanskrit. Mantra language This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda, the Rigveda Khilani, the Samaveda Samhita, and these texts are largely derived from the Rigveda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. For example, the more ancient injunctive verb system is no longer in use, Samhita prose An important linguistic change is the disappearance of the injunctive, subjunctive, optative, imperative. New innovation in Vedic Sanskrit appear such as the development of periphrastic aorist forms and this must have occurred before the time of Pāṇini because Panini makes a list of those from northwestern region of India who knew these older rules of Vedic Sanskrit. Brahmana prose In this layer of Vedic literature, the archaic Vedic Sanskrit verb system has been abandoned, the Yajñagāthās texts provide a probable link between Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit and languages of the Epics. Complex meters such as Anuṣṭubh and rules of Sanskrit prosody had been or were being innovated by this time, sutra language This is the last stratum of Vedic literature, comprising the bulk of the Śrautasūtras and Gṛhyasūtras and some Upanishads such as the Katha Upanishad and Maitrayaniya Upanishad. Grammar of the Vedic language Vedic meter Vedic period A Vedic Word Concordance Delbrück, Berthold, Windisch, die Altindische Wortfolge Aus Dem Catapathabrâhmaòa, Dargestellt Von B
20.
Sarasvati River
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The Sarasvati River is one of the main Rigvedic rivers mentioned in the scripture Rig Veda and later Vedic and post-Vedic texts. The goddess Sarasvati was originally a personification of river. The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, later Vedic texts like the Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas, as well as the Mahabharata, mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert. The Sarasvati is also considered by Hindus to exist in a form, in which it formed a confluence with the sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna. The name Sarasvati was also given to a formation in the Milky Way, since the late 19th-century, scholars have conjectured that the Vedic Saraswati river is the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through northwestern India and Eastern Pakistan. Satellite images have pointed to a significant river once following the course of the present day Ghaggar River. Another theory suggests that the Helmand River of southern Afghanistan corresponds to the Sarasvati River. This suggests that the Yamuna itself, or a channel of the Yamuna, sarasvatī is the devi feminine of an adjective sarasvant-, derived from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sáras-vat-ī, meaning ‘marshy, full of pools’, or ‘she with many lakes’. The other term -vatī is the Sanskrit grammatical feminine possessor suffix, Sanskrit sáras means ‘pool, pond or lake’, the feminine sarasī́ means ‘stagnant pool, swamp’. In the Manusmriti, Brahmavarta is portrayed as the centre of Vedic culture. The Bharatiya Janata Party Government had therefore ordered archaeologists to search for the river, the Sarasvati River is mentioned in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda. The most important hymns related to Sarasvati are RV6.61, RV7.95, even though we are not worthy, please grant us distinction Other verses of praise include RV6.61. 8-13, RV7.96 and RV10.17. In some hymns, the Indus river seems to be more important than the Sarasavati, in RV8.26.18, the white flowing Sindhu with golden wheels is the most conveying or attractive of the rivers. RV7.95.2. and other verses speak of the Sarasvati pouring milk and ghee. Rivers are often likened to cows in the Rigveda, for example in RV3.33.1, strong attention has been given to the Sarasvati River in the Rigveda along with several suktas dedicated to it. As such it seems there are a number of Sarasvatis with the earliest Sarasvati not identifiable with the Hakra, the Sarasvati River is perceived to be a great river with perennial water. The Hakra and Ghaggar cannot be compared to it, the earliest Sararvati is said to be similar to the Helmand in Afghanistan which is called the Harakhwati in the Āvestā. The phrase sárasvatī saptáthī síndhumātā of RV7.36.6 has been rendered as Sarasvati the Seventh, while this takes a tatpurusha interpretation of síndhumātā, the word is actually a bahuvrihi
21.
Anahita
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Aredvi Sura Anahita is Ardwisur Anahid or Nahid in Middle- and Modern Persian, Anahit or Anaheed in Armenian. The Greek and Roman historians of classical antiquity refer to her either as Anaïtis or identified her with one of the divinities from their own pantheons,270 Anahita, a silicaceous S-type asteroid is named after her. Only Arədevī is specific to the divinity and it might have been derived from Arya devi The words sūra and anāhīta are generic Avestan language adjectives, and respectively mean mighty and pure. Both adjectives also appear as epithets of other divinities or divine concepts such as Haoma, both adjectives are also attested in Vedic Sanskrit. In its old Iranian form *Harahvatī, her name was given to the region, rich in rivers and it might have been derived from the Goddess Sarasvati. In the Persian texts of the Sassanid and later eras, Arədvī Sūra Anāhīta appears as Ardwisur Anāhīd, the evidence suggest a western Iranian origin of Anāhīta. She shares characteristics with Mat Zemlya in Slavic mythology and it was moreover the association with the planet Venus, it seems, which led Herodotus to record that the learnt to sacrifice to the heavenly goddess from the Assyrians and Arabians. Ishtar also apparently gave Aredvi Sura Anahita the epithet Banu, the Lady and it is completely unknown in the texts of the Avesta, but evident in Sassanid-era middle Persian inscriptions and in a middle Persian Zend translation of Yasna 68.13. Also in Zoroastrian texts from the post-conquest epoch, the divinity is referred to as Anahid the Lady, Ardwisur the Lady, according to Boyce, it is probable that there was once a Perso–Elamite divinity by the name of *Anahiti. It is then likely that it was this divinity that was an analogue of Ishtar, and that it is this divinity with which Aredvi Sura Anahita was conflated. The cosmological qualities of the river are alluded to in Yasht 5, but properly developed only in the Bundahishn. In both texts, Aredvi Sura Anahita is not only a divinity, but also the source of the world river and the world river itself. This source is at the top of the world mountain Hara Berezaiti, High Hara, around which the sky revolves and that is at the center of Airyanem Vaejah, the first of the lands created by Mazda. The water, warm and clear, flows through a hundred thousand golden channels towards Mount Hugar, on the summit of that mountain is Lake Urvis, the Turmoil, into which the waters flow, becoming quite purified and exiting through another golden channel. Another portion runs down to Vourukasha, the sea upon which the earth rests. In yet other chapters, the text equates the two, as in Ardwisur who is Anahid, the father and mother of the Waters and this legend of the river that descends from Mount Hara appears to have remained a part of living observance for many generations. A Greek inscription from Roman times found in Asia Minor reads the great goddess Anaïtis of high Hara, on Greek coins of the imperial epoch, she is spoken of as Anaïtis of the sacred water. Aredvi Sura Anahita is principally addressed in Yasht 5, also known as the Aban Yasht, Yasna 65 is the third of the hymns recited at the Ab-Zohr, the offering to the waters that accompanies the culminating rites of the Yasna service
22.
Nicolaus Germanus
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Nicolaus Germanus was a German cartographer who published an edition of Jacopo dAngelos Latin translation of Ptolemys Geography. He also created two globes depicting earth and sky in 1477, predating Martin Behaims Erdapfel, Nicolaus Germanus is the Latin form of the name Nicholas the German. His exact name is unknown, although it is given with Donis, Donnus, Donmus. These are not, however, names but abbreviated forms of the Latin title Lord, the exact dates of his birth and death are not known. He is sometimes referred to as a Humanist monk of the Benedictine order possibly from Reichenbach Priory and his manuscript edition of Ptolemy was ready by around 1468, but not published until 1482. In 1477, two years after the opening of the Vatican Library, Nicolaus Germanus created a globe each for earth and sky, for which he was paid 200 ducats on 11 December 1477 according to a receipt. An additional three ducats were paid the day for the adding of the papal coat of arms. The globes are listed in an inventory of 1481, the marchesa of Mantua, Isabella, asked for copies in 1505. The globes were kept in Salle Pontifica until they were lost in the 1527 Sack of Rome, the earth globe of Nicolaus Germanus is considered the first modern to be documented. Germanus, Nicolaus, ed. Claudii Ptolomei Viri Alexandrini Cosmographie Octavus et Ultimus Liber Explicit Opus, Ulm and it was reprinted the same year and again in 1486, with more gold. The 1486 edition is notable as the first atlas to be colored by its publisher prior to sale, the Known World, Shedding the Veil, Mapping the European Discovery of America and the New World, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing, p.24. 1478, nach ihrer Inkunabeledition, Eystat 1491, während der letzten Hälfte des 15. Fügt der deutsche Mönch Nicolaus Germanus die ersten modernen und korrigierten Landkarten zur Geographie des Ptolemäus hinzu
23.
Ptolemy
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Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek writer, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Koine Greek, beyond that, few reliable details of his life are known. His birthplace has been given as Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid in a statement by the 14th-century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes. This is a very late attestation, however, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever lived elsewhere than Alexandria. Ptolemy wrote several treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest, although it was entitled the Mathematical Treatise. The second is the Geography, which is a discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the Apotelesmatika but more known as the Tetrabiblos from the Greek meaning Four Books or by the Latin Quadripartitum. The name Claudius is a Roman nomen, the fact that Ptolemy bore it indicates he lived under the Roman rule of Egypt with the privileges and political rights of Roman citizenship. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemys family to become a citizen took the nomen from a Roman called Claudius who was responsible for granting citizenship, if, as was common, this was the emperor, citizenship would have been granted between AD41 and 68. The astronomer would also have had a praenomen, which remains unknown and it occurs once in Greek mythology, and is of Homeric form. All the kings after him, until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC, were also Ptolemies, abu Mashar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy. The correct answer is not known”, Ptolemy wrote in Greek and can be shown to have utilized Babylonian astronomical data. He was a Roman citizen, but most scholars conclude that Ptolemy was ethnically Greek and he was often known in later Arabic sources as the Upper Egyptian, suggesting he may have had origins in southern Egypt. Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him by his name in Arabic, Ptolemys Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Ptolemy presented his models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets. The Almagest also contains a catalogue, which is a version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus
24.
Drangiana
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Drangiana or Zarangiana (Greek, Δραγγιανή, Drangianē, also attested in Old Western Iranian as Zranka was a historical region and administrative division of the Achaemenid Empire. In ancient times Drangiana was inhabited by an Iranian tribe which the ancient Greeks called Sarangians or Drangians, Drangiana was possibly subdued by another Iranian people, the Medes, and later, certainly, by the expanding Persian Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great. According to Herodotus, during the reign of Darius I, the Drangians were placed in the district as the Utians, Thamanaeans, Mycians, Drangians. The capital of Drangiana, called Zarin or Zranka, is identified with great probability with the extensive Achaemenid site of Dahan-e Gholaman southeast of Zabol in Iran, another significant center was the city of Prophthasia, possibly located at modern Farah in Afghanistan. On occasion Drangiana was governed by the satrap as neighboring Arachosia. In 330-329 BC, the region was conquered by Alexander the Great, Drangiana continued to constitute an administrative district under Alexander and his successors. At Alexanders death in 323 BC, it was governed by Stasanor of Soloi, and later, in 321 BC, it was allotted to another Cypriot, Stasandros. By the end of the 4th century BC, Drangiana was part of the Seleucid Empire, in 206-205 BC Antiochos III seems to have recovered Drangiana for the Seleucids during his Anabasis. The history of Drangiana during the weakening of Seleucid rule is unclear, but by the mid-2nd century BC the area was conquered by the expanding Parthian Empire of the Arsacids
25.
Paropamisadae
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The Paropamisadae, also known by other names, were a people who lived in the area of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan during classical antiquity. The name was used to refer to the lands these people inhabited. Paropamisadae is the form of the Greek name Paropamisádai, used to refer to the inhabitants of the land of Paropamisus in the Hindu Kush. They also appeared frequently as Parapamisadae and Parapamīsus, Paropamīsii. The name was applied to a nearby river, probably the Obi. In the ancient Buddhist texts, the Mahajanapada kingdom of Kamboja compassed the territories of Paropamisus, the region came under Achaemenid Persian control in the late 6th century BC, either during the reign of Cyrus the Great or Darius I. In the 320s BC, Alexander the Great conquered the entire Persian Empire, after Alexanders death in 323 BC, the area came under control of the Seleucid Empire, which gave the region to the Mauryan Dynasty of India in 305 BC. The Eucratidians seized the area soon after the death of Menander I, Paropamisus was located north of Arachosia and Drangiana, east of Aria, south of Bactria, and west of Kashmir. There were two rivers flowing through the land, the Coas or Cophen and the Dorgamanes or Orgomanes farther north. The major cities of the land were the city of Ortospana or Carura, probably identifiable with Kabul, Gauzaca, probably modern Ghazni, Capissa in the northeast, and Parsia, indo-Greek kingdom Greco-Bactrian kingdom The Greeks in Bactria and India by W. W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press Ptolemys section on the Paropanisadae in English translation John Watson McCrindles Ancient India as Described in Ptolemy
26.
Gandahara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda. It is mentioned in the Zend Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth and it was known as the crown jewel of Bactria and also held sway over Takṣaśilā. Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda and formed part of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, after it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul, during Mughal times, it was an independent district which included the Kabul province. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics and it is recorded in Avestan as Vaēkərəta. The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, one proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning perfume and referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they traded and with which they anointed themselves. Some authors have connected the modern name Kandahar to Gandhara, Herodotus records that those Iranic tribes, which were adjacent to the city of Caspatyrus and the district of Pactyïce, had customs similar to the Bactrians, and are the most warlike amongst them. These are also the people who obtain gold from the ant-hills of the adjoining desert, on the identity of Caspatyrus, there have been two opinions, one equating it with Kabul, the other with the name of Kashmir. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history, sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara, sometimes the Swat Valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always the Peshawar Valley, the kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisa, Pushkalavati, Taxila, Puruṣapura and in its final days from Udabhandapura on the River Indus. Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools, the artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present, the region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze Age with the Gandhara grave culture, and the nucleus of Vedic civilisation. This culture flourished from 1500 to 500 BC and its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at Taxila. The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and in ancient inscriptions dating back to Achaemenid Persia, the Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King Darius I includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia. In the book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius, the Gandhāris, along with the Balhika, Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are also mentioned in the Atharvaveda, as distant people
27.
Gedrosia
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Gedrosia is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Baluchistan that roughly corresponds to todays Makran. The area which is named Gedrosia, in books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the native name of Gedrosia might have been Gwadar as there are two towns by that name and a bay in central Makran. The Gedrosians are known to have prevented the Indian Mauryans from capturing the western-most parts of their state. Upon reaching the Ocean, Alexander the Great divided his forces in half, the other half of his army was to accompany him on a march through the Gedrosian desert, inland from the ocean. Throughout the 60-day march through the desert, Alexander lost at least 12,000 soldiers, in addition to livestock, camp followers. Some historians say he lost three-quarters of his army to the desert conditions along the way. However, this figure was based on exaggerated numbers in his forces prior to the march. There are two competing theories for the purpose of Alexanders decision to march through the rather than along the more hospitable coast. The first argues that this was an attempt to punish his men for their refusal to continue eastward at the Hyphasis River, the other argues that Alexander was attempting to imitate and succeed in the actions of Cyrus the Great, who had failed to cross the desert. The decision to cross the Gedrosian Desert, whatever his intentions, is regarded as the largest blunder in Alexanders Asiatic campaign
28.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
29.
Indian campaign of Alexander the Great
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The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great began in 326 BC. After conquering the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the Macedonian king Alexander launched a campaign into India. The Battle of the Jhelum river against a regional Indian King, Porus is considered by historians, Peter Connolly being one of them. The rationale for this campaign is said to be Alexanders desire to conquer the entire known world. While considering the conquests of Carthage and Rome, Alexander died in Babylon on June 10 or 11,323 BC, in 321 BC, two years after Alexanders death, Chandragupta Maurya of Magadha, founded the Maurya Empire in India. After the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana to cement his relations with his new Central Asian satrapies, Alexander invited all the Chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara, to come to him and submit to his authority. Ambhi, ruler of Taxila, whose kingdom extended from the Indus to the Jhelum, complied. At the end of the spring of 327 BC, Alexander started on his Indian expedition leaving Amyntas behind with 3,500 horse and 10,000 foot soldiers to hold the land of the Bactrians. The leaders of some peoples, particularly known in Hellenic sources as the Aspasioi and Assakenoi. These peoples are now believed to be sections of the Kambojas, after dealing with the Aspasioi and Assakenoi, Alexander crossed the Indus to engage a ruler known to the Greeks as Πῶρος Pôros, whose name suggested that he was a member of the Paurava dynasty. The battle of the Hydaspes river, against forces led by Porus, was not only Alexanders last battle, writes one modern historian, They were brave people and it was hard work for Alexander to take their strongholds, of which Massaga and Aornus need special mention. A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart, the Assakenoi faced Alexander with an army of 30,000 cavalry,38,000 infantry and 30 elephants. They had fought bravely and offered resistance to the invader in many of their strongholds like cities of Ora, Bazira. The fort of Massaga could only be reduced after several days of fighting in which Alexander himself was wounded seriously in the ankle. When the Chieftain of Massaga fell in the battle, the command of the army went to his old mother Cleophis who also stood determined to defend her motherland to the last extremity. The example of Cleophis assuming the command of the military also brought the entire women of the locality into the fighting. Alexander could only reduce Massaga by resorting to political strategem and actions of betrayal, according to Curtius, Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubbles. A similar slaughter followed at Ora, another stronghold of the Assakenoi
30.
Strabo
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Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus, Strabos life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus. He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, in 29 BC, on his way to Corinth, he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae and it is not known precisely when Strabos Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around 17 or 18 AD, the latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia, who is said to have died just recently. He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, on the presumption that recently means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next, when he died. The first of Strabos major works, Historical Sketches, written while he was in Rome, is completely lost. Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his life at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, Strabo was an admirer of Homers poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, despite Xenarchuss Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus. Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, the final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items, his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts, moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which he would not otherwise have known. Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica, which presented a history of people. Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its antiquity, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469, the first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice
31.
Pliny the Elder
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In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
32.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
33.
Stephanus of Byzantium
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Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus, was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica. Of the dictionary itself only meagre fragments survive, but we possess an epitome compiled by one Hermolaus, not otherwise identified. Nothing is known about the life of Stephanus, except that he was a grammarian at Constantinople, and lived after the time of Arcadius and Honorius, even as an epitome, the Ethnica is of enormous value for geographical, mythological, and religious information about ancient Greece. Nearly every article in the epitome contains a reference to some ancient writer, Stephanus cites Artemidorus, Polybius, Aelius Herodianus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Strabo and other writers. The chief fragments remaining of the work are preserved by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, ch.23 and De thematibus. 10, the latter includes a passage from the comic poet Alexis on the Seven Largest Islands, another respectable fragment, from the article Δύμη to the end of Δ, exists in a manuscript of the Fonds Coislin, the library formed by Pierre Séguier. The first modern printed edition of the work was published by the Aldine Press in Venice,1502. The complete standard edition is still that of Augustus Meineke, and by convention, a new completely revised edition in German is in preparation, however, edited by B. Zubler, M. Billerbeck, J. F. Gaertner,2006 onwards, google Books Guilielmus Xylander,1568, Στέφανος. Google Books Claudius Salmasius and Abraham van Berkel,1688, Στεφάνου Βυζαντίου Ἐθνικὰ κατ ἐπιτομήν Περὶ πόλεων = Stephani Byzantini Gentilia per epitomen, google Books Lucas Holstenius,1692, Notae & castigationes in Stephanum Byzantium De urbibus. Google Books Thomas de Pinedo,1725, Stephanus de urbibus, google Books Karl Wilhelm Dindorf,1825, Stephanus Byzantinus. Incorporating notes by L. Holsteinius, A. Berkelius, and T. de Pinedo, google Books Anton Westermann,1839, Stephani Byzantii ethnikon quae supersunt. Google Books Augustus Meineke,1849, Stephani Byzantii ethnicorum quae supersunt, google Books Margarethe Billerbeck et al. Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter, This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Smith, W. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, diller, Aubrey 1938, The tradition of Stephanus Byzantius, Transactions of the American Philological Association 69, 333-48. Bunbury,1883, History of Ancient Geography, vol. i, Holstenius, L.1684, Lucae Holstenii Notae et castigationes postumae in Stephani Byzantii Ethnika, quae vulgo Peri poleōn inscribuntur. 1873, De Stephani Byzantii auctoribus Johannes Geffcken,1886, De Stephano Byzantio Whitehead, D.1994, From political architecture to Stephanus Byzantius, sources for the ancient Greek polis
34.
Xuanzang
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602–664, was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang dynasty. Born in what is now Henan province around 602, from boyhood he took to reading books, including the Chinese classics. While residing in the city of Luoyang, Xuanzang was ordained as a śrāmaṇera at the age of thirteen. Due to the political and social unrest caused by the fall of the Sui dynasty, he went to Chengdu in Sichuan and he later travelled throughout China in search of sacred books of Buddhism. At length, he came to Changan, then under the rule of Emperor Taizong of Tang. He knew about Faxians visit to India and, like him, was concerned about the incomplete, hsüan, Hüan, Huan and Chuang are also found. Another form of his style was Yuanzang, written 元奘. Tang Monk is also transliterated /Thang Seng/, another of Xuanzangs standard aliases is Sanzang Fashi, 法 being a Chinese translation for Sanskrit Dharma or Pali/Pakrit Dhamma, the implied meaning being Buddhism. Sanzang is the Chinese term for the Buddhist canon, or Tripiṭaka, in some sources Xuanzangs is said to have been born Chen Hui or Chen Yig. Xuanzang was born Chen Hui around 602 in Chenhe Village, Goushi Town, Luozhou and his family was noted for its erudition for generations, and Xuanzang was the youngest of four children. His ancestor was Chen Shi, a minister of the Eastern Han dynasty and his great-grandfather Chen Qin served as the prefect of Shangdang during the Eastern Wei, his grandfather Chen Kang was a professor in the Taixue during the Northern Qi. According to traditional biographies, Xuanzang displayed a superb intelligence and earnestness, although his household was essentially Confucian, at a young age, Xuanzang expressed interest in becoming a Buddhist monk like one of his elder brothers. After the death of his father in 611, he lived with his older brother Chén Sù for five years at Jingtu Monastery in Luoyang, during this time he studied Mahayana as well as various early Buddhist schools, preferring the former. In 618, the Sui Dynasty collapsed and Xuanzang and his brother fled to Changan, which had proclaimed as the capital of the Tang dynasty. Here the two spent two or three years in further study in the monastery of Kong Hui, including the Abhidharma-kośa Śāstra. When Xuanzang requested to take Buddhist orders at the age of thirteen, Xuanzang was fully ordained as a monk in 622, at the age of twenty. The myriad contradictions and discrepancies in the texts at that time prompted Xuanzang to decide to go to India and he subsequently left his brother and returned to Changan to study foreign languages and to continue his study of Buddhism. He began his mastery of Sanskrit in 626, and probably also studied Tocharian, during this time, Xuanzang also became interested in the metaphysical Yogacara school of Buddhism
35.
Iranian peoples
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The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages. Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia in the mid 2nd millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement was reduced as a result of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic and Mongol expansions and many being subjected to Slavicisation. The Iranian peoples include Balochs, Kurds, Gilaks, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Ossetians, Pashtuns, Pamiris, Persians, Tajiks, Talysh people, the term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān and Parthian Aryān. The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- and ary-, there have been many attempts to qualify the verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya-. The following are according to 1957 and later linguists, Emmanuel Laroche, Old Iranian arya- being descended from Proto-Indo-European ar-yo-, meaning assembler. Harold Walter Bailey, ar- to beget, unlike the Sanskrit ā́rya-, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, in the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta. The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun describes itself to have composed in Arya. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, in royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts, As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius I in the Bistun Inscription. As the ethnic background of Darius the Great in inscriptions at Rustam Relief and Susa, as the definition of the God of Iranians, Ohrmazd, in the Elamite version of the Bistun Inscription. In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, although Darius the Great called his language arya-, modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language. The trilingual inscription erected by the command of Shapur I gives a clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek, tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi, which translates to I am the king of the kingdom of the Iranians. In Middle Persian, Shapur says ērānšahr xwadāy hēm and in Parthian he says aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm, the Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name, where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō, airyō šayanəm, and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi. In the late part of the Avesta, one of the homelands was referred to as Airyanəm Vaējah which approximately means expanse of the Iranians. The homeland varied in its range, the area around Herat
36.
Pashtun tribes
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The Pashtun tribes or Afghan tribes are the large family units of the Eastern Iranian ethnic groups who use the Pashto language and follow Pashtunwali code of conduct. They are found primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan and form the worlds largest tribal society, comprising over 49 million people and they are traditionally divided into four tribal confederacies, the Sarbani, the Bettani, the Gharghashti, and the Karlani. There are several levels of organisation of Pashtun tribes, the tribe is subdivided into kinship groups, each of which is a khel and zai. A khel or Zai is further divided into Plarina each of which consists of extended families. Tarbur refers to a split into two or more clans and Tarbur mean cousin in Pashto so Tarbur could be enemy as well in the Pashtun culture that they can occupy your land or property. Every Pashtun tribe is then divide into subtribes, also called khel or zai, in Avestan it is similar to Pashto Zoi meaning son or offspring. William Crooke has said that khel is from an Arabic word meaning association or company, a khel is often based in a single village, but it may also be based on a larger area including several villages, or part of a town. Plarina is related to the Bactrian term plār, which derives from Old Iranian piðar, the plural form of plār is plārina. A plārina is considered only when the 7th generation is born, usually, the 7th forefather is assumed to take from one-and-a-half century to two centuries. Kul is the smallest unit in Pashtun tribal system, named after an ancestor of 1, once the fourth generation is born, it would be labelled a family or kūl. The Bettani speak various Pashto dialects, the Ghilji or of the central region around Paktika speak Central Pashto, a dialect with unique phonetic features, transitional between the southern and the northern dialects of Pashto. The Sheerani tribe of the Bettani confederacy speaks another southern dialect, the northern Bettani clans speak the northern or hard Pashto variety. Some of the Bettani lineages, including clans of the Niazi, Tanoli. Today they speak other languages, like Hindko, Saraiki, Punjabi, the Gharghashti Kakar and Musakhel and other minor settled in the region around Quetta speak dialect, which is a soft Pashto dialect very similar to Kandahari Pashto. The Safi, some of the Jaduns, and some other minor northern Gharghashti tribes speak the northern or hard Pashto variety, the Jaduns, living on the Mahabun mountain slopes around Swabi speak Pashto, while those living in Hazara speak Pashto and Hindko. Some clans of the Safi tribe speak the Pashayi languages but are mostly bilingual in Pashto, the Karlani speak some of the most distinctive Pashto dialects which are lexically different from standard Pashto varieties, and phonetically very varied. Furthermore, the Karlani dialects have a tendency towards a change in the pronunciation of vowels, depending on the particular dialect, the standard Pashto, may change into, respectively. In the Karlani dialects of Waziristan, Bannu, and Tani, which follow the vowel shift to the greatest extent, these four vowels normally change into, respectively
37.
Mahabharata
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The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. The Mahābhārata is a narrative of the Kurukṣetra War and the fates of the Kaurava. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life or puruṣārtha, traditionally, the authorship of the Mahābhārata is attributed to Vyāsa. There have been attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought to be not much older than around 400 BCE, the text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period. The title may be translated as the tale of the Bhārata dynasty. According to the Mahābhārata itself, the tale is extended from a version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhārata. The Mahābhārata is the longest known epic poem and has described as the longest poem ever written. Its longest version consists of over 100,000 śloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines, and long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa. W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahābhārata in the context of civilization to that of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare. The epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyāsa, who is also a character in the epic. Vyāsa described it as being itihāsa and he also describes the Guru-shishya parampara, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times. The first section of the Mahābhārata states that it was Gaṇeśa who wrote down the text to Vyasas dictation, the epic employs the story within a story structure, otherwise known as frametales, popular in many Indian religious and non-religious works. It is recited by the sage Vaiśampāyana, a disciple of Vyāsa, the text has been described by some early 20th-century western Indologists as unstructured and chaotic. Hermann Oldenberg supposed that the poem must once have carried an immense tragic force. Moritz Winternitz considered that only unpoetical theologists and clumsy scribes could have lumped the parts of disparate origin into an unordered whole, Research on the Mahābhārata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating layers within the text. Some elements of the present Mahābhārata can be traced back to Vedic times, the background to the Mahābhārata suggests the origin of the epic occurs after the very early Vedic period and before the first Indian empire was to rise in the third century B. C
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Arora
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In post-independence India, Aroras mainly reside in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Gujarat. Denzil Ibbetson, who wrote the Report for the Indian census of 1881, according to Ibbetson, the belief of the Punjabi community is that in fleeing the persecution there was at some point a bifurcation, with some members moving north and others moving south. From this arose the two major divisions within the Arora, respectively known as Uttradhi and Dakhna, which in turn had subdivisions. That town was subsequently cursed and its inhabitants fled in different directions through its north, south, for the purposes of his report on the census, Ibbetson treats the Arora as a separate community from that of the Khatri, although similarly one of the great mercantile castes. He notes that the Arora claimed to be of Khatri origin, evidenced by their claims to have denied their true origin to avoid persecution, jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, writing in 1896, goes further and states that only the Arora believe this connection to be true. However, a more recent commentator, Scott Cameron Levi, believes that they are a sub-caste of the Khatris, the Aroras settled in Amritsar during the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh or even earlier. It is presumed that they migrated from Sindh or Multan to Lahore and this is inferred from the fact that, after a very long stay in the central Punjab, they ceased to speak their Lahnda dialect. The Arora Sikhs are mostly found in big towns, especially in Amritsar and they were living there even before independence. Their Hindu counterparts, the majority of whom migrated from Pakistan, Aroras not only have survived but have prospered. The Amritsar Gazetteer claims Aroras are very energetic and intelligent and they are mostly engaged in trade and industry. They are superior in business acumen to their counterparts settled in the district, a good number of them have also joined public and private services. The Hoshiarpur Gazetteer says Before independence, the Aroras did not constitute a population in the district. With the migration of the population from Pakistan to India in 1947, they settled here. The Aroras were generally settled in West Punjab and in the Firozepur District and their representation in the eastern districts of the Punjab was not notable. According to Ibbetson, the Aroras are the Khatris of Ror, whatever be their origin, the fact is that they resemble Khatirs in certain traits. In certain respects, they are superior to them. They are also divided into groups and castes, Uchanda, Nichanda, etc. but in social life. They intermarry in their groups like others, in the All-India meeting in 1936, held by the Khatris at Lahore, it was decided that the Aroras, Soods and Bhatias were Khatri for all intents and purposes
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Partition of India
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The Partition of India was the division of British India in 1947 which accompanied the creation of two independent dominions, India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India and Dominion of Pakistan, the partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, the two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947. The violent nature of the created an atmosphere of hostility. The term partition of India does not cover the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, nor the earlier separations of Burma and Ceylon from the administration of British India. It does not cover the incorporation of the enclaves of French India into India during the period 1947–1954, nor the annexation of Goa, other contemporaneous political entities in the region in 1947, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and The Maldives were unaffected by the partition. The Hindu elite of Bengal, among many who owned land in East Bengal that was leased out to Muslim peasants. The pervasive protests against Curzons decision took the form predominantly of the Swadeshi campaign led by two-time Congress president, Surendranath Banerjee, sporadically—but flagrantly—the protesters also took to political violence that involved attacks on civilians. The violence, however, was not effective, as most planned attacks were either preempted by the British or failed, the unrest spread from Calcutta to the surrounding regions of Bengal when Calcuttas English-educated students returned home to their villages and towns. Since Calcutta was the capital, both the outrage and the slogan soon became nationally known. In conjunction, they demanded proportional legislative representation reflecting both their status as rulers and their record of cooperating with the British. This led, in December 1906, to the founding of the All-India Muslim League in Dacca, although Curzon, by now, had resigned his position over a dispute with his military chief Lord Kitchener and returned to England, the League was in favour of his partition plan. In the three decades since that census, Muslim leaders across northern India, had intermittently experienced public animosity from some of the new Hindu political and social groups. In 1905, when Tilak and Lajpat Rai attempted to rise to positions in the Congress. It was not lost on many Muslims, for example, that the rallying cry, World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. Indias international profile would thereby rise and would continue to rise during the 1920s, back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians. Secretary of State for India, Montagu and Viceroy Lord Chelmsford presented a report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter
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History of Afghanistan
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The Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up to large parts of Afghanistan in the north, with several sites being known. Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived at what is now Afghanistan in 330 BCE after conquering Persia during the Battle of Gaugamela, Afghanistan has been a strategically important location throughout history. The land served as a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranians before their split into separate language groups is generally seen as the Andronovo culture to the north of present-day Afghanistan. The Iranian languages were developed by one branch of these people, elena E. Kuzmina argues that the tents of Iranian-speaking nomads of Afghanistan developed from the light surface houses of the Eurasian steppe belt in the Bronze Age. The Arab invasions influenced the culture of Afghanistan, and its period of Zoroastrian, Macedonian, Buddhist. Turkic empire-builders such as the Ghaznavids and Timurids made the now called Afghanistan of major importance. Mirwais Hotak followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani unified Afghan tribes and founded the last Afghan Empire in the early 18th century CE, a cave called Kara Kamar contained Upper Paleolithic blades Carbon-14 dated at 34,000 years old. Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world, archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation in Afghanistan from as far back as 50,000 BC. The artifacts indicate that the people were small farmers and herdsmen, very probably grouped into tribes. Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE, Zoroastrianism predominated as the religion in the area, even the modern Afghan solar calendar shows the influence of Zoroastrianism in the names of the months. Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism flourished later, leaving a mark in the region. Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE were likely to have been connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE and it is possible that the city of Mundigak was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE to 1500 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization extending from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. Apart from Shortughai is Mundigak another notable site, there are several other smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well. The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent in the southwest region between 2200 and 1700 BCE, the city of Balkh was founded about this time. It is possible that the BMAC may have been an Indo-European culture, but the standard model holds the arrival of Indo-Aryans to have been in the Late Harappan which gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age
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Elamite
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Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was a used in present-day south-western Iran from 2800 to 550 BC. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great, Elamite has no demonstrable relatives and is usually considered a language isolate. The lack of established relatives is one reason that interpretation of the language is difficult, Elamite cuneiform, adapted from Akkadian cuneiform, was used from ca.2500 to 331 BC. Elamite cuneiform was largely a syllabary of some 130 glyphs at any one time and retained only a few logograms from Akkadian, but over time, the complete corpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of c.20 thousand tablets and fragments. The majority belong to the Achaemenid era, and contain primarily economic records, two earlier scripts of the area remain undeciphered but plausibly have encoded Elamite, Proto-Elamite is the oldest known writing system from Iran. It was used during a period of time, clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran. It is thought to have developed from early cuneiform and consists of more than 1,000 signs and it is thought to be largely logographic. Linear Elamite is attested in a few monumental inscriptions and it is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from Proto-Elamite, but it cannot be proven. Linear Elamite was used for a brief period of time during the last quarter of the third millennium BC. Elamite was a language, and Elamite grammar was characterized by a well-developed. Animate nouns had separate markers for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person, documents from the Old Elamite and early Neo-Elamite stages are rather scarce. Neo-Elamite can be regarded as a transition between Middle and Achaemenid Elamite, with respect to language structure, because of the limitations of the languages scripts, phonology is not well understood. As for the vowels, Elamite had at least /a/, /i/, and /u/ and may also have had an /e/, roots are generally of the forms CV, VC, VCV and, more rarely, CVCCV. Elamite is agglutinative, and predominantly suffixing, the inanimate 3rd singular -me forms abstracts. In noun phrases and pronoun phrases, the suffixes referring to the head are appended to the modifier, sometimes the suffix is preserved on the head as well. g. The suffix -na, which originated from the inanimate agreement suffix -n followed by the nominalizing particle -a. The personal pronouns distinguish nominative and accusative case forms and they are as follows, In general, no special possessive pronouns are needed in view of the construction with the noun class suffixes
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Old Persian
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The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages. Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets. This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a language in use for practical recording. As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions and it is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts, the oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. Their language, Old Persian, became the language of the Achaemenid kings. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family which is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, the common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The former are the languages in that group which have left written original texts while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian. Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and is differentiated by dialectical features, Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the shows great simplification in grammar. However, New Persian is a descendent of Middle and Old Persian. Old Persian presumably has a Median language substrate, the Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms are only in personal or geographical names and some are typically from religious vocabulary
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Akkadian
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Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the writing system, which was originally used to write the unrelated Ancient Sumerian. The language was named after the city of Akkad, a centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire. The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund, Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC, texts written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively, for centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, by the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD, Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family native to East Africa, which then spread to West, Northwest and Northeast Africa. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup and this novel word order is due to the influence of the Sumerian substratum, which has an SOV order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana, other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə. The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown, in contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative, ḫ. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages, until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated. Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.2500 BC and it was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the cuneiform script could represent either Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum, additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities, nor is there any coordination in the other direction, the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are used for the same syllable in the same text
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Aramaic
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Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open
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Darius I
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Darius I was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing Gaumata, the alleged magus usurper of Bardiya with the assistance of six other Persian noble families, the new king met with rebellions throughout his kingdom and quelled them each time. A major event in Dariuss life was his expedition to punish Athens and Eretria for their aid in the Ionian Revolt, Darius organized the empire by dividing it into provinces and placing satraps to govern it. He organized a new monetary system, along with making Aramaic the official language of the empire. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weights, through these changes the empire was centralized and unified. Darius also worked on projects throughout the empire, focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon. He had the cliff-face Behistun Inscription carved to record his conquests, Darius is mentioned in the Biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra–Nehemiah. The Achaemenid Empire during Darius reign controlled the largest fraction of the population of any empire in history. Based on historical estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people. Dārīus and Dārēus are the Latin forms of the Greek Dareîos, itself from Old Persian Dārayavauš, the longer form is also seen to have been reflected in the Elamite Da-ri-a-ma-u-iš, Babylonian Da-ri-ia-muš, Aramaic drywhwš, and possibly the longer Greek form Dareiaîos. The name is a nominative form meaning he who holds firm the good, which can be seen by the first part dāraya, meaning holder, and the adverb vau, meaning goodness. At some time between his coronation and his death, Darius left a tri-lingual monumental relief on Mount Behistun, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography including his ancestry and lineage. To aid the presentation of his ancestry, Darius wrote down the sequence of events occurred after the death of Cyrus the Great. Darius mentions several times that he is the king by the grace of Ahura Mazda. Herodotus, a Greek historian and author of The Histories, provided an account of many Persian kings and he wrote extensively on Darius, spanning half of Book 3 along with Books 4,5 and 6. It begins with the removal of the alleged usurper Gaumata and continues to the end of Dariuss reign, in the book of Daniel the kings name changes from king of the Chaldeans = Babylonians to king of the Persians which also occurred between the kingships of Darius I and Xerxes. Additionally the 120 satraps mentioned in Daniel 6,1 can be translated as 20 tribute owing satraps, the Book of Ezra describes the decree to continue reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, specifying financial support and supplies for the temple services. This decree is dated approximately 519 BCE, between Cyrus and Darius, an exchange of letters with King Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes is described, the grandson of Darius I, during whose reign Ezra and Nehemiah came to Jerusalem
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Xerxes I
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Xerxes I, called Xerxes the Great, was the fourth king of kings of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. He ruled from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC at the hands of Artabanus, Xerxes I is most likely the Persian king identified as Ahasuerus in the biblical Book of Esther. He is also notable in Western history for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Like his predecessor Darius I, he ruled the empire at its territorial apex and his forces temporarily overran mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until the losses at Salamis and Plataea a year later reversed these gains and ended the second invasion decisively. Xerxes was born to Darius I and Atossa, Darius and Atossa were both Achaemenids as they were both descendants of Achaemenes. While Darius was preparing for war against Greece, a revolt spurred in Egypt in 486 BC due to heavy taxes. Under Persian law, the king was required to choose a successor before setting out on dangerous expeditions, when Darius decided to leave, Darius prepared his tomb at Naqsh-e Rustam and appointed Xerxes, his eldest son by Atossa, as his successor. However, Darius could not lead the campaign due to his failing health, Xerxes was crowned and succeeded his father in October–December 486 BC when he was about 36 years old. Almost immediately, Xerxes crushed revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as satrap over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down the statue of Bel. This comes from the Daiva Inscriptions of Xerxes, lines 6-13, although Herodotus report in the Histories has created debate concerning Xerxess religious beliefs, modern scholars consider him a Zoroastrian. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxess first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax, in retaliation, Xerxes ordered the Hellespont whipped three hundred times, and had fetters thrown into the water. Xerxess second attempt to bridge the Hellespont was successful, many smaller Greek states, moreover, took the side of the Persians, especially Thessaly, Thebes and Argos. Xerxes was victorious during the initial battles, Xerxes set out in the spring of 480 BC from Sardis with a fleet and army which Herodotus estimated was roughly one million strong along with 10,000 elite warriors named the Persian Immortals. More recent estimates place the Persian force at around 60,000 combatants, at the Battle of Thermopylae, a small force of Greek warriors led by King Leonidas of Sparta resisted the much larger Persian forces, but were ultimately defeated. According to Herodotus, the Persians broke the Spartan phalanx after a Greek man called Ephialtes betrayed his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. At Artemisium, large storms had destroyed ships from the Greek side and so the battle stopped prematurely as the Greeks received news of the defeat at Thermopylae, most of the Athenians had abandoned the city and fled to the island of Salamis before Xerxes arrived. A small group attempted to defend the Athenian Acropolis, but they were defeated, Xerxes burnt the city, leaving an archaeologically attested destruction layer, known as the Perserschutt
