1.
King of Kings
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The first king known to use the title king of kings was Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria. The title was adopted in Biblical Hebrew, as מֶלֶךְ מְלָכִים, the same usage appears in Aramaic portions of the Book of Daniel 2,37, where Nebuchadnezzar is called מֶלֶךְ מַלְכַיָּא. The first written record of consistent use of the dates to the kings of the Achaemenid Empire. The title King of Kings was one of the titles borne by Cyrus the Great, and later all other Achaemenid kings, who were in fact ruling over provincial governors, the Persian usage also appears in Ezra 7,12 in reference to Artaxerxes I. The New Persian word was revived by some Islamic dynasties in Persia with the meaning great king. Alexander the Great had the title, Basileus ton Basileon meaning king of kings and this title was likely given to him to imply that he was a successor of the Persian kings who had the same title. Tigranes II of Armenia used an equivalent to king of kings. The title was used in the Donations of Alexandria ceremony in 34BC, Jesus Christ is called the king of kings once in the First Epistle to Timothy and twice in the Book of Revelation. But king of kings has also used as the title of a monarch in Christian tradition. Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων King of Kings, Ruling over Those who Rule was the motto of the Byzantine Palaiologos dynasty, the Emperors of Ethiopia had the title of king of kings. The title of king of kings is criticized in hadith, Verily, a related phrase is Malik Al-Mulk, one of the 99 names of Allah. The title shahanshah was revived by the Pahlavi dynasty of Persia in the 20th century and it was abolished when the Islamic Revolution toppled the monarchy in Iran. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya claimed to be King of Kings, a title that he subsequently had a gathering of African tribal chiefs endorse in 2008, Gaddafi urged the royals to join his campaign for African unity. Henrik Larsson WWE wrestler Triple H is also dubbed as The King of Kings, in The Simpsons episode A Star Is Burns, an actor starring in Mr. Burns movie A Burns for All Seasons referred to him as being truly The King of Kings. In the movie 300, King Xerxes I referred to himself as King of Kings, in Percy Shelleys sonnet, Ozymandias, Ozymandias refers to himself as King of Kings on line 10. In Family Guy episode Jesus, Mary and Joseph
2.
King of Babylon
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The following is a list of the kings of Babylonia, compiled from the traditional Babylonian king lists and modern archaeological findings. One of the most popular kings known of ruling Babylonia and having an important code of rules. The Babylonian King List is a specific ancient list of supposed Babylonian kings recorded in several ancient locations, and related to its predecessor. As in the latter, contemporaneous dynasties are listed as successive without comment. There are three versions, which are known as King List A, King List B, and King List C, a fourth version was written in Greek by Berossus. The Babylonian King List of the Hellenistic Age is a continuation that mentions all the Seleucid kings from Alexander the Great to Demetrius II Nicator and these rulers may not have ruled Babylonia itself for more than the briefest of periods, but rather the formerly Sumerian regions south of it. Nevertheless, it is traditionally numbered the Second Dynasty of Babylon. This dynasty also did not actually rule Babylon, but their scheme was continued by later Kassite Kings of Babylon. The name of the dynasty, BALA PA. ŠE, is a paronomasia on the term išinnu, “stalk and it is therefore also known as the Second Dynasty of Isin or Isin II. Known as the 2nd Sealand Dynasty, the evidence that this was a Kassite Dynasty is rather tenuous, known as the Bīt-Bazi Dynasty after the region from where this minor Kassite clan drew its ancestry. In 539 BC, Babylon was captured by Cyrus the Great and his son was later crowned formally as King of Babylonia. This list uses the Greek names of the Achaemenid Persian kings, Babylon was captured by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. It was captured by the Parthians in 141 BC, List of Assyrian kings List of Mesopotamian dynasties Sumerian King List
3.
Pharaoh of Egypt
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The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
4.
Cyrus the Great
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Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, under his successors, the empire eventually stretched at its maximum extent from parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, the reign of Cyrus the Great lasted between 29 and 31 years. Cyrus built his empire by conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire, either before or after Babylon, he led an expedition into central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought into subjection every nation without exception. Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, as he died in battle. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered. This became a successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage. In fact, the administration of the empire through satraps and the principle of forming a government at Pasargadae were the works of Cyrus. Cyrus the Great is also recognized for his achievements in human rights, politics. Having originated from Persis, roughly corresponding to the modern Iranian province of Fars and this view has been criticized by some historians as a misunderstanding of the Cylinders generic nature as a traditional statement that new monarchs make at the beginning of their reign. The name Cyrus is a Latinized form derived from the Greek Κῦρος, Kỹros, the name and its meaning has been recorded in ancient inscriptions in different languages. This may also point to a relationship to the mythological first king of Persia, Jamshid. Karl Hoffmann has suggested a translation based on the meaning of an Indo-European-root to humiliate, in the Persian language and especially in Iran, Cyruss name is spelled as کوروش. In the Bible, he is known as Koresh, the Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started by an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier domination possibly from the 9th century BC onward. The eponymous founder of dynasty was Achaemenes. Achaemenids are descendants of Achaemenes as Darius the Great, the king of the dynasty, traces his genealogy to him. Ancient documents mention that Teispes had a son called Cyrus I, Cyrus I had a full brother whose name is recorded as Ariaramnes. In 600 BC, Cyrus I was succeeded by his son, Cambyses I, Cyrus the Great was a son of Cambyses I, who named his son after his father, Cyrus I
5.
Bardiya
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The usurper is named Gaumata in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, named Smerdis in Herodotus Histories, and is named Sphendadates in the surviving fragments of Ctesias. In Darius trilingual Behistun inscription, the prince being impersonated is named Pirtiya in Elamite, Bardiya in Old Persian, in the Histories, the prince and his imposter have the same name. For Ctesias, Sphendadates poses as Tanyoxarces, other Greek sources have various other names for the figure being impersonated, including Tanoxares, Mergis and Mardos. The three oldest surviving sources also agree that Gaumata/Pseudo-Smerdis/Sphendadates is overthrown by Darius and others in a coup détat, most sources have Darius as part of a group of seven conspirators. In Greek and Latin sources, Darius subsequently gains kingship by cheating in a contest, the evaluation of the primary sources has been cause for much disagreement in modern scholarship. The key argument against a fabrication is that there is no evidence for it, the key argument for a fabrication is that Darius had reason to invent the story since he had no particular rights to the throne. Cambyses had Bardiya killed, and succeeded in keeping that a secret from the people, while Cambyses was away in Egypt, rebellions developed in Persia and in Media and in other provinces. A maguish by the name of Gaumata began to proclaim himself as Bardiya, Cambyses, still in Egypt, committed suicide. Out of fear of retribution from Gaumata, the people remained quiet, a section of the Behistun inscription of a later date has another rebel, a certain Vahyazdata, also claiming to be Bardiya. A longer version of the story appears in Book 3 of Herodotus Histories, jealous of his brother Smerdis skill with a particular bow brought from the king of Ethiopia, Cambyses sends Smerdis back to Persis. Cambyses then has a dream in which Smerdis would supplant him, the assassination succeeds and is meant to be kept secret. One of the few that know of Smerdis death is Patizeithes and that steward has a brother who greatly resembles Smerdis in appearance, and whose name is also Smerdis. The steward then puts his brother on the throne, and has him pretend that he is the brother of Cambyses, the false Smerdis succeeds in the deception by not allowing anyone who knew the real Smerdis into his presence. Still in Egypt, Cambyses learns of the false Smerdis, and knowing that the real Smerdis is dead, Cambyses then readies his army to return to Susa, but while mounting his horse accidentally injures his thigh with the point of his sword. Cambyses dies from the wound a few days later, on his death bed, Cambyses perceives Smerdis as favouring a return to Median hegemony. Meanwhile, Otanes, a nobleman of Persis, suspects that the king is not the brother of Cambyses, but rather the Smerdis whose ears Cyrus had commanded be cut off for some grave reason. To confirm his suspicion, Otanes asks his daughter Phaidyme – who is a member of the harem, Phaidyme does as asked, and one night while the king is asleep, confirms that the king does not in fact have ears. His suspicions confirmed, Otanes then gathers six noblemen and plots to get rid of the false Smerdis, a seventh nobleman, Darius, arrives at the capital shortly thereafter, and is then included in the group
6.
Psamtik III
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Psamtik III was the last Pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt from 526 BC to 525 BC. Most of what is known about his reign and life was documented by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC. Herodotus states that Psamtik had ruled Egypt for only six months before he was confronted by a Persian invasion of his led by King Cambyses II of Persia. Psammetichus was subsequently defeated at the Battle of Pelusium, and fled to Memphis where he was captured, the deposed pharaoh was carried off to Susa in chains, and later executed. Psamtik III was the son of the pharaoh Amasis II and one of his wives and he succeeded his father as pharaoh in 526 BC, when Amasis died after a long and prosperous reign of some 44 years. According to Herodotus, he had a son named Amasis and a wife and daughter, Psamtik ruled Egypt for no more than six months. A few days after his coronation, rain fell at Thebes, which was a event that frightened some Egyptians. The young and inexperienced pharaoh was no match for the invading Persians, after the Persians under Cambyses had crossed the Sinai desert with the aid of the Arabians, a bitter battle was fought near Pelusium, a city on Egypts eastern frontier, in the spring of 525 BC. The Egyptians were defeated at Pelusium and Psamtik was betrayed by one of his allies, Phanes of Halicarnassus, consequently, Psamtik and his army were compelled to withdraw to Memphis. The Persians captured the city after a siege, and captured Psamtik after its fall. Shortly thereafter, Cambyses ordered the execution of two thousand of the principal citizens, including a son of the fallen king. Psamtiks captivity and subsequent execution are described in The Histories by Herodotus, Book III, psamtiks daughter and the daughters of all the Egyptian noblemen were enslaved. Psamtiks son and two other sons of noblemen were sentenced to death, in retaliation for the murder of the Persian ambassador. An old man who had once been the friend was reduced to beggary. All these people were brought before Psamtik to test his reaction, psamtiks compassion for the beggar caused him to be spared, but his son had already been executed. The deposed pharaoh was then raised up to live in the entourage of the Persian King, after a while, however, Psamtik attempted to raise a rebellion among the Egyptians. When Cambyses learned of this, Psamtik is reported by Herodotus to have drunk bulls blood and immediately died
7.
Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
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The royal titulary or royal protocol of an Egyptian pharaoh is the standard naming convention taken by the kings of Ancient Egypt. It symbolises worldly power and holy might and also acts as a sort of mission statement for the reign of a monarch. The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom, the Horus name is the oldest form of the pharaohs name, originating in the Predynastic Period. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title, the Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in hieroglyphs inside this representation of a palace, typically an image of the falcon God Horus was perched on top of or beside it. At least one Egyptian ruler, the 2nd dynasty Seth-Peribsen, used an image of the god Seth instead of Horus and he was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Seth and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh, by the time of the New Kingdom the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh. The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh Semerkhet and this particular name was not typically framed by a cartouche or serekh, but always begins with the hieroglyphs of a vulture and cobra resting upon two baskets, the dual noun nebty. Also known as the Golden Horus Name, this form of the name typically featured the image of a Horus falcon perched above or beside the hieroglyph for gold. The meaning of this title has been disputed. One belief is that it represents the triumph of Horus over his uncle Seth, Gold also was strongly associated in the ancient Egyptian mind with eternity, so this may have been intended to convey the pharaohs eternal Horus name. Similar to the Nebty name, this particular name typically was not framed by a cartouche or serekh, the pharaohs throne name, the first of the two names written inside a cartouche, and usually accompanied the title nsw-bity. The term nsw-bity It has been suggested that the Berber term for strong man, the epithet neb tawy, Lord of the Two Lands, referring to valley and delta regions of Egypt, often occurs as well. This was the name given at birth and it was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the kings role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the title was interpreted as daughter also. Modern historians typically refer to the ancient kings of Egypt by this name, Middle Egyptian, An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, London, and New York, The American University in Cairo Press and Thames and Hudson. The Great Name, Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary, Egyptian Grammar, Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs
8.
Ecbatana
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Ecbatana was an ancient city in Media in western Iran. It is believed that Ecbatana is in Tell Hagmatana, near Hamedan, but the history of the city is controversial. Excavations at Kaboutar Ahang have revealed stone age tools and pottery from 1400 to 1200 BC, according to Herodotus, Ecbatana was chosen as the Medes capital in the late 8th century BC by Deioces. Under the Persian kings, Ecbatana, situated at the foot of Mount Alvand, later, it became the capital of the Parthian kings, at which time it became their main mint, producing drachm, tetradrachm, and assorted bronze denominations. It is also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible under the name Achmetha, in 330 BC, Ecbatana was the site of the murder of the Macedonian general Parmenion by order of Alexander the Great. Ecbatana was first excavated in 1913 by Charles Fossey, another excavation was conducted in 1977. The Greeks thought Ecbatana to be the capital of Medes empire and it is alleged that he surrounded his palace in Ecbatana with seven concentric walls of different colours. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus wrote of Ecbatana, The Medes built the city now called Ecbatana, the plan of the place is, that each of the walls should out-top the one beyond it by the battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a hill, favors this arrangements in some degree. The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace, the circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with that of Athens. On this wall the battlements are white, of the black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue. The last two have their battlements coated respectively with silver and gold, all these fortifications Deioces had caused to be raised for himself and his own palace. There is currently no evidence of Median existence in Hagmatana hill prior to the Parthian era afterwards, similarly, Assyrian sources never mention Hagmatana/Ecbatana. The Sagbita mentioned by Assyrian sources was located in the proximity of the cities Kishesim, sir Henry Rawlinson attempted to prove that there was a second and older Ecbatana in Media Atropatene on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman. However, the cuneiform texts imply that there was one city of the name. Ecbatana is the capital of Astyages, which was taken by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the sixth year of Nabonidus. Inscribed Column Bases from Hamadan, Iran, vol,39, pp. 99–117,2001 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
9.
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
10.
Atossa
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Atossa was an Achaemenid empress and daughter of Cyrus the Great and Cassandane. She lived from 550 BC to 475 BC and probably was a sister of the Persian king Cambyses II. Atossa married Darius I during 522 BC after he, with the help of the nobleman Otanes, defeated the followers of a man claiming to be Bardiya, herodotus records in The Histories that Atossa was troubled by a bleeding lump in her breast. She wrapped herself in sheets and sought a self-imposed quarantine, ultimately, a Greek slave, Democedes, persuaded her to allow him to excise the tumor. Xerxes I was the eldest son of Atossa and Darius, Atossa lived to see Xerxes invade Greece. Being a direct descendent of Cyrus the Great, Atossa had an authority within Achamenian imperial house. Atossas special position enabled Xerxes, who was not the eldest son of Darius, aeschylus included her as a central character in his tragedy The Persians. Atossa is also one of the characters in the Gore Vidal novel Creation. In his history of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee imagines Atossa traveling through time, encountering different diagnoses, Atossa becomes emblematic of cancer sufferers through history. Atossa Genetics was named after Queen Atossa by its founder, Dr. Steven Quay, the NASDAQ public company is dedicated to helping women with breast cancer through its development of pharmaceuticals to treat early stage tumors. The companys logo is a rendition of a bust of Atossa held in the National Museum of Iran
11.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
12.
Zoroastrianism
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Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, as its Supreme Being. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633-654, recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and in Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds, the religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, in Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu is an all-good father of Asha, in opposition to Druj and no evil originates from him. He and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas, Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto truth oppose the Spirits opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to be among those who renew the world. to make the progress towards perfection. Its basic maxims include, Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean, Good Thoughts, Good Words, there is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the thing to do. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is, Ahura, The Lord Creator and he proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, Zoroasters teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit, post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu. The name Zoroaster is a Greek rendering of the name Zarathustra and he is known as Zartosht and Zardosht in Persian and Zaratosht in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is Mazdayasna, which combines Mazda- with the Avestan language word yasna, meaning worship, in English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning The best Religion | Beh < Middle Persian Weh + Din < Middle Persian dēn < Avestan Daēnā. In Zoroastrian liturgy the term is used as a title for an individual who has formally inducted into the religion in a Navjote ceremony. The term Mazdaism /ˈmæzdə. ɪzəm/ is a typical 19th century construct, taking Mazda- from the name Ahura Mazda, the March 2001 draft edition of the Oxford English Dictionary also records an alternate form, Mazdeism, perhaps derived from the French Mazdéisme, which first appeared in 1871. In older English sources, the terms Gheber and Gueber were used to refer to Zoroastrians, however, Zoroastrian philosophy is identified as having been known to Italian Renaissance Europe through an image of Zoroaster in Raphaels School of Athens by Giorgio Vasari in 1550. The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the term Zoroastrianism in 1874 in Archibald Sayces Principles of Comparative Philology, Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord
13.
Cambyses I
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Cambyses I or Cambyses the Elder was king of Anshan from c.580 to 559 BC and the father of Cyrus the Great, younger son of Cyrus I, and brother of Arukku. He should not be confused with his better-known grandson Cambyses II, Cambyses was an early member of the Achaemenid dynasty. He was apparently a great-grandson of its founder Achaemenes, grandson of Teispes and his paternal uncle was Ariaramnes and his first cousin was Arsames. According to Herodotus, Cambyses was a man of good family and he reigned under the overlordship of Astyages, King of Media. He was reportedly married to Princess Mandane of Media, a daughter to Astyages and his wife was reportedly a granddaughter to both Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes II of Lydia. The result of their marriage was the birth of his successor Cyrus the Great, according to Nicolas of Damascus his original name was Atradates, and he was wounded and later died in the Battle of the Persian Border which he, with his son, fought against Astyages. It occurred in about 551 BC, and he is reported to have received an honorable burial and this was not the case with Cyrus the Great who would go on to depose his grandfather, and begin the Persian Empire. Though numerous scholars link Cambyses to the Sanskrit tribal name Kamboja there are also few scholars who suggest Elamite origin of the name, jean Przyluski had sought to find an Austric affinity for Kamboja. Friedrich von Spiegel, Sten Konow, Ernst Herzfeld, James Hope Moulton, Wojciech Skalmowski and some other scholars think that Cambyses is adjectival form of the Sanskrit tribal name Kamboja
14.
Anshan (Persia)
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Anshan, modern Tall-i Malyan, was an ancient city in Iran. The site is located 46 km north of Shiraz, in the Beyza/Ramjerd plain, in the province of Fars in the Zagros mountains and it was one of the early capitals of Elam from the late 4th millennium BC. Later, in the 7th century BC, it one of the early capitals of Persia. Before 1973, when it was identified as Tall-i Malyan, Anshan had been assumed by scholars to be somewhere in the central Zagros mountain range, Malyan was occupied from the sixth millennium BC. During the Proto-Elamite period, this one of the main cities of the Elamite region. During the Banesh period, at 50 ha, it was 5 times the size of Susa, the Marv Dasht area, where the highland city of Anshan is located, is a complex of several interconnected valleys and plains. During the mid-late Banesh Period Anshan also had an area of 200 hectares. It also featured a number of villages and campsites. Comprehensive studies of Banesh plant and animal remains show that Banesh people focused on intensive cultivation of wheat, some craft activity, particularly ceramic and some stone vessel manufacture, was concentrated in specialized villages, at least earlier in the period. In the main center, however, other craft activity, specifically copper processing, is attested only as small areas in domestic contexts. At various times, Anshan provided, in its own right, following this, Gudea of Lagash claimed to have subjugated Anshan, and the Neo-Sumerian rulers Shulgi and Shu-Sin of Ur are said to have maintained their own governors over the place. In the Old Babylonian period, king Gungunum of Larsa dated his 5th regnal year after the destruction of Anshan. From the 15th century BC, Elamite rulers at Susa began using the title King of Anshan and Susa, the last king to claim this title was Shutruk-Nahhunte II. Anshan fell under Persis Achaemenid rule in the 7th century BC, having captured by Teispes. The most famous conqueror who rose from Anshan was Cyrus the Great, the site of Anshan covers around 200 hectares. It had been occupied since ca.5500 BC or earlier, the main feature is a low flat-topped mound of about 130 hectares running 4–6 meters in height. On three sides are the remains of a city wall 5 kilometers in length dating from the Late Banesh, finds at Tall-i Malyan included primarily Proto-Elamite and Middle Elamite cuneiform tablets, seals, and a pottery sequence important to dating the chronology of the region. The most notable find was a brick of Elamite king Hatelutus-Insusinak which confirmed that the site was indeed Anshan
15.
Near East
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The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. Despite having varying definitions within different academic circles, the term was applied to the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire. The term has fallen into disuse in English and has replaced by the terms Middle East. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines the region similarly, but also includes Afghanistan while excluding the countries of North Africa and the Palestinian territories. Up until 1912 the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania, Macedonia and Southern Thrace, the Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as the sick man of Europe. The Balkan states, with the exception of Bosnia and Albania, were primarily Christian. Starting in 1894 the Ottomans struck at the Armenians on the grounds that they were a non-Muslim people. The Hamidian Massacres aroused the indignation of the entire Christian world, in the United States the now aging Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, leaped into the war of words and joined the Red Cross. Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as the Eastern Question and it now became relevant to define the east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the 19th century Near East came into use to describe part of the east closest to Europe. The term Far East appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, near East applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant, which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte, or government. Those who used the term had little choice about its meaning and they could not set foot on most of the shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire. Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included, one was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast, de facto independent since the 18th century, formerly part of the empire at its apogee. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through the Ottoman Empire or neighboring Russia, in the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of the man of Europe left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by Near East. It is now used only in historical contexts, to describe the countries of Western Asia from the Mediterranean to Iran. There is, in short, no universally understood fixed inventory of nations and they appear together in the journals of the mid-19th century
16.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
17.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
18.
Late Period of ancient Egypt
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It ran from 664 BC until 332 BC. Libyans and Persians alternated rule with native Egyptians, but traditional conventions continued in the arts and it is often regarded as the last gasp of a once great culture, during which the power of Egypt steadily diminished. The Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, also known as the Saite Dynasty after Sais, reigned from 672 BC to 525 BC, canal construction from the Nile to the Red Sea began. One major contribution from the Late Period of ancient Egypt was the Brooklyn Papyrus and this was a medical papyrus with a collection of medical and magical remedies for victims of snakebites based on snake type or symptoms. Artwork during this time was representative of animal cults and animal mummies and this image shows the god Pataikos wearing a scarab beetle on his head, supporting two human-headed birds on his shoulders, holding a snake in each hand, and standing atop crocodiles. The First Achaemenid Period period saw Egypt conquered by an expansive Achaemenid Empire under Cambyses, a total of eight pharaohs from this dynasty ruled over Egypt. The initial period of Achaemenid Persian occupation when Egypt became a satrapy, the Twenty-Eighth Dynasty consisted of a single king, Amyrtaeus, prince of Sais, who rebelled against the Persians. He left no monuments with his name and this dynasty reigned for six years, from 404 BC to 398 BC. The Twenty-Ninth Dynasty ruled from Mendes, for the period from 398 BC to 380 BC, the Thirtieth Dynasty took their art style from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. A series of three pharaohs ruled from 380 BC until their defeat in 343 BC led to the re-occupation by the Persians. The final ruler of dynasty, and the final native ruler of Egypt until nearly 2,300 years later, was Nectanebo II. There was a Second Achaemenid Period of the Thirty-First Dynasty, and consisted of four pharaohs, Artaxerxes III, Artaxerxes IV, Khababash, gozzoli, The Writing of History in Ancient Egypt During the First Millennium BCE. Trend and Perspectives, London 2006, ISBN 0-9550256-3-X Lloyd, Alan B.2000, the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 71-74 Primary sources Herodotus Fragments of Ctesias Thucydides Diodorus Siculus Fragments of Manetho Flavius Josephus
19.
Battle of Pelusium (525 BC)
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This decisive battle transferred the throne of the Pharaohs to Cambyses II of Persia, king of the Persians. It was fought near Pelusium in 525 BCE, the battle was preceded and followed by sieges at Gaza and Memphis. The best recounting of the leading to the battle of Pelusium is from Greek historians. According to Herodotus the conflict between the Pharaoh Amasis II of Egypt, and Cambyses II of Persia was a process involving multiple personalities mostly Egyptians. According to Herodotus an Egyptian physician was requested by Cambyses II from Amasis II on good terms, Cambyses II complied requesting the hand of the daughter of Amasis in marriage. Amasis, unable to let go of his offspring, and unwilling to start a conflict with the Persians, according to Herodotus, Apries was the previous pharaoh whom Amasis had defeated and killed, and now whose daughter was to be sent in place of Amasiss own offspring. Once greeted by Cambyses II, as the daughter of Amasis, Nitetis explained the trickery employed by Amasis to avoid giving away his own daughter to the king and this infuriated Cambyses II who vowed to avenge the insult. According to Herodotus, another motivation that solidified Cambysess expedition into Egypt, was Phanes of Halicarnassus, the Arabian King, himself an enemy of Amasis II, and glad to facilitate his destruction, granted safe passage to Cambyses II and even supplied him with troops. According to Polybius, even all the precautions taken on entering the border of Egypt, only the city of Gaza resisted the Persians. When the news of the battle reached Egypt, Psamtik III, son and heir of Amasis II, gathered the Egyptian army stationing them along the fork of the Red sea. Amasis himself died six months before Cambyses reached Egypt, polycrates sent 40 triremes to the Persians. Psamtik III in a violent act of revenge, prior to the confrontation with the Persian army would arrest all the sons of Phanes of Halicarnassus and he would then cut them one by one, draining their blood and mixing it with wine. Psamtik III would then drink of it and make every other councilman drink of their blood before the battles The decisive military conflict happened at Pelusium. As Herodotus describes a sea of skulls at the Nile basin, according to Ctesias, fifty thousand Egyptians fell, whereas the entire loss on the Persian side was only seven thousand. After this short struggle, the troops of Psamatik III fled, disoriented, and fleeing, the Egyptians took shelter in Memphis. Egyptians were now in a siege in their stronghold in Memphis, according to Herodotus, Cambyses II in a last attempt to bring an end to the struggle sent a Persian herald in a ship to exhort the Egyptians to give up before further bloodshed. Upon sighting the Persian vessel at the port of Memphis, the Egyptians, ran out, attacking the ship and killing every man in it, Pelusium probably surrendered itself immediately after the battle. The pharaoh was captured after the fall of Memphis, and allowed to live under Persian watch and he would however be later executed after attempting a revolt against the Persians
20.
Kingdom of Kush
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The Kingdom of Kush or Kush was an ancient Nubian kingdom situated on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now Sudan and South Sudan. The Kushite era of rule in Nubia was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, during Classical antiquity, the Kushite imperial capital was at Meroe. In early Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Aethiopia, by the 1st century AD, the Kushite capital had been captured by the Beja Dynasty, who tried to revive the empire. The Kushite kingdom with its capital at Meroe persisted until the 4th century AD, the Kushite capital was eventually captured and burnt to the ground by the Kingdom of Axum. It is also a term for the native population who initiated the kingdom of Kush. The term is also displayed in the names of Kushite persons, geographically, Kush referred to the region south of the first cataract in general. Kush also was the home of the rulers of the 25th dynasty, the name Kush, since at least the time of Josephus, has been connected with the biblical character Cush, in the Hebrew Bible, son of Ham. Ham had four sons named, Cush, Put, Canaan, according to the Bible, Nimrod, a son of Cush, was the founder and king of Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. The Bible also makes reference to someone named Cush who is a Benjamite, some modern scholars, such as Friedrich Delitzsch, have suggested that the biblical Cush might be linked to the Kassites of the Zagros Mountains. Mentuhotep II is recorded to have undertaken campaigns against Kush in the 29th and this is the earliest Egyptian reference to Kush, the Nubian region had gone by other names in the Old Kingdom. During the New Kingdom of Egypt, Nubia was an Egyptian colony, with the disintegration of the New Kingdom around 1070 BC, Kush became an independent kingdom centered at Napata in modern northern Sudan. The Kushites buried their monarchs along with all their courtiers in mass graves, archaeologists refer to these practices as the Pan-grave culture. This was given its due to the way in which the remains are buried. They would dig a pit and put stones around them in a circle, Kushites also built burial mounds and pyramids, and shared some of the same gods worshiped in Egypt, especially Ammon and Isis. With the worshiping of these gods the Kushites began to some of the names of the gods as their throne names. The Kush rulers were regarded as guardians of the religion and were responsible for maintaining the houses of the gods. Some scholars believe the economy in the Kingdom of Kush was a redistributive system, the state would collect taxes in the form of surplus produce and would redistribute to the people. Others believe that most of the society worked on the land and required nothing from the state, northern Kush seemed to be more productive and wealthier than the Southern area
21.
Sudan
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Sudan, also known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and also the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political, cultural and commercial centre of the nation. It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, however, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
22.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
23.
Kambojas
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The Kambojas were a tribe of Iron Age India, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali literature. The ancient Kambojas were probably of Indo-Iranian origin and they are, however, sometimes described as Indo-Aryans and sometimes as having both Indian and Iranian affinities. The Kambojas are also described as a clan of the Sakas. The earliest reference to the Kambojas is in the works of Pāṇini, Some sections of the Kambojas crossed the Hindu Kush and planted Kamboja colonies in Paropamisadae and as far as Rajauri. The Mahabharata locates the Kambojas on the side of the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Daradas. Others locate the Kambojas and the Parama-Kambojas in the areas spanning Balkh, Badakshan, the mountainous region between the Oxus and Jaxartes is also suggested as the location of the ancient Kambojas. The name Kamboja may derive from, referring to the people of a known as Kum or Kam. The mountainous highlands where the Jaxartes and its confluents arise are called the highlands of the Komedes by Ptolemy, ammianus Marcellinus also names these mountains as Komedas. The Kiu-mi-to in the writings of Xuanzang have also identified with the Komudha-dvipa of the Puranic literature. Scholars have identified both the Ptolemian Tambyzoi and Ambautai with Sanskrit Kamboja, Some scholars believe that the Trans-Caucasian hydronyms and toponyms viz. The capital of Kamboja was probably Rajapura, the Kamboja Mahajanapada of Buddhist traditions refers to this branch. Kautiliyas Arthashastra and Ashokas Edict No, XIII attest that the Kambojas followed a republican constitution. One king of Kamboja was King Srindra Varmana Kamboj, the Kambojas were famous in ancient times for their excellent breed of horses and as remarkable horsemen located in the Uttarapatha or north-west. They were constituted into military sanghas and corporations to manage their political, the Kamboja cavalry offered their military services to other nations as well. There are numerous references to Kamboja having been requisitioned as cavalry troopers in ancient wars by outside nations and it was on account of their supreme position in horse culture that the ancient Kambojas were also popularly known as Ashvakas, i. e. horsemen. Their clans in the Kunar and Swat valleys have been referred to as Assakenoi and Aspasioi in classical writings, the Kambojas were famous for their horses and as cavalry-men, Aśvakas, horsemen, was the term popularly applied to them. The Aśvakas inhabited Eastern Afghanistan, and were included within the general term Kambojas. The Kambojas entered into conflict with Alexander the Great as he invaded Central Asia, the Macedonian conqueror made short shrift of the arrangements of Darius and after over-running the Achaemenid Empire he dashed into Afghanistan
24.
Austric languages
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Austric is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. The hypothesis of a relationship between these two language families is not widely accepted among linguists. Related proposals include Sino-Austronesian and Austro-Tai, the Austric superfamily was first proposed by the German missionary Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906. Consequently, the Austric hypothesis has never gained wide acceptance, in 1942, Paul K. Benedict extended the Austric hypothesis to include the Tai–Kadai languages and the Hmong–Mien languages. Despite the tenuous lexical evidence, the relationship of Austronesian with either Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai has many proponents to this day, some believe that recently discovered morphological similarities between Nicobarese and Austronesian constitute solid proof of a genetic relationship. Other researchers are searching for the missing lexical link between Austronesian and Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai. A good summary of the present state of the Austric hypothesis may be found in Reid 2005, an expanded Greater-Austric has been suggested to include the Ainu languages and possibly the Nihali language though this is currently not a mainstream view. In contrast to these older proposals subsumed under the label Austric, echoing part of Benedicts version of the Austric proposal, Kosaka argued specifically for a Miao–Dai family. In 2015 Alexander Vovin recreated parts of proto-Japanese and found similarities with South-East-Asian languages that do not exist in any Altaic or North-East-Asian language. The following classification scheme, proposed by Paul K. Benedict, is the most commonly accepted one, Hmong–Mien languages are occasionally included, but are often rejected from the Austric superfamily. Sergei Starostin, however, splits Austric into two main branches, the Austric branch would be considered to be most closely related to Dené–Caucasian, forming a Dene-Daic super-family, Haplogroup O Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages
25.
Sten Konow
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Sten Konow was a Norwegian Indologist. He was professor of Indic philology at the Christiania University, Oslo, from 1910, moving to Hamburg University in 1914 and he returned to Oslo as professor for Indian languages and history in 1919. He translated Rajasekharas Karpuramanjari, which was published as volume 4 of the Harvard Oriental Series in 1901, obituary, G. Morgenstierne, Sten Konow 1867–1948, Acta Orientalia 21, S. 3–9 obituary, C. S. Stang, Nekrolog over professor dr. Sten Konow”, DNVA Årbok 1950,1951, 29–36 obituary in, Epigraphica India 28, p. XIX Bibliography at Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Sten Konow at Store Norske Lexikon
26.
Ernst Herzfeld
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Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist. Herzfeld was born in Celle, Province of Hanover and he studied architecture in Munich and Berlin, while also taking classes in Assyriology, ancient history and art history. 1903–05 he was assistant to Walter Andrae in the excavations of Assur. He surveyed and documented many historical sites in Turkey, Syria, Persia, at Samarra he carried out the first excavations of an Islamic period site in 1911–13. After military service during World War I he was appointed professor of Landes- und Altertumskunde des Orients in Berlin in 1920. This was the first professorship for Near/Middle Eastern archaeology in the world, 1923–25 he started explorations in Persia and described many of the countries most important ruins for the first time. In 1925 he moved to Tehran and stayed there most of the time until 1934 and he was instrumental in creating a Persian law of antiquities and excavated in the Achaemenid capitals Pasargadae and Persepolis. He left Iran at the end of 1934 for a year in London, in 1935, he was forced to leave his position in Germany because of his Jewish descent, and became a faculty member of the New Jersey Institute for Advanced Study from 1936 to 1944. He died in Basel, Switzerland in 1948, the bulk of the Ernst Herzfeld Papers are housed in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. The archives are open by appointment Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, other Herzfeld research materials, notes, photographs and drawings are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the Departments of Islamic Art and Ancient Near Eastern art. Iranische Felsreliefs,1910 Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet,4 Vols, 1911-1920 (together with Friedrich Sarre Paikuli,2 Vols. 1924 Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra,5 Vols, 1923-1930 Archaeological History of Iran, Altpersische Inschriften,1938 Iran in the ancient East,1940 Zoroaster and his world,2 Vols. 1947 Iranology Herzfeld, Ernst, Iranica Gunter, Ann C, Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies, 1900–1950. The Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, finding Aids for the Herzfeld Archive in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Ernst Herzfeld Papers Collections Search Center, S. I. R. I. S, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Ernst Herzfeld-Gesellschaft. Ernst Herzfeld Papers collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
27.
Tribe
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A tribe is viewed, developmentally or historically, as a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states. A tribe is a group of people, dependent on their land for their livelihood, who are largely self-sufficient. It is perhaps the term most readily understood and used by the general public, stephen Corry defines tribal people as those who. have followed ways of life for many generations that are largely self-sufficient, and are clearly different from the mainstream and dominant society. There are a one hundred and fifty million tribal individuals worldwide. Although nearly all people are indigenous, some are not indigenous to the areas where they now live. The distinction between tribal and indigenous is important because tribal peoples have a special status acknowledged in international law and they often face particular issues in addition to those faced by the wider category of indigenous peoples. Many people used the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of social, especially familial, a customary tribe in these terms is a face-to-face community, relatively bound by kinship relations, reciprocal exchange, and strong ties to place. Tribe is a term due to its roots of being defined by outsiders during the period of colonialism. The word has no shared referent, whether in political form, some argue that it conveys a negative connotation of a timeless unchanging past. To avoid these implications, some have chosen to use the ethnic group. In some places, such as India and North America, tribes are polities that have granted legal recognition. The English word tribe occurs in 12th-century Middle English-literature as referring to one of the tribes of Israel. The Ramnes were named after Romulus, leader of the Latins, Tities after Titus Tatius, leader of the Sabines, according to Livy, the three tribes were squadrons of knights, rather than ethnic divisions. The terms ultimate etymology is uncertain, perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European roots tri-, in 242–240 BC, the Tribal Assembly in the Roman Republic included 35 tribes. The Latin word as used in the Bible translates as Greek phyle, race, tribe, clan, in the historical sense, tribe, race and clan can be used interchangeably. Considerable debate has accompanied efforts to define and characterize tribes, scholars perceive differences between pre-state tribes and contemporary tribes, there is also general controversy over cultural evolution and colonialism. In the popular imagination, tribes reflect a way of life that predates, tribes also privilege primordial social ties, are clearly bounded, homogeneous, parochial, and stable. Tribes are an organization among families, which generates a social and ideological basis for solidarity that is in some way more limited than that of a group or of a nation
28.
Indo-Iranians
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Some scholars now use the term Indo-Iranian to refer to this group, while the term Aryan is used to mean Indo-Iranian by other scholars such as Josef Wiesehofer and Jaakko Häkkinen. Population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, in his 1994 book The History and Geography of Human Genes, historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC, if not earlier, preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. The earliest recorded forms of languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar. The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indo-Aryan groups is complex, two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by and Parpola. The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the Proto-Indo-European invention of the chariot and it is assumed that this expansion spread from the Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the Caspian sea south to the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and Northern India. They also expanded into Mesopotamia and Syria and introduced the horse, sumerian texts from EDIIIb Girsu already mention the chariot and Ur III texts mention the horse. Linguistic remains can be found in a Hittite horse-training manual written by one Kikkuli the Mitannian, other evidence is found in references to the names of Mitanni rulers and the gods they swore by in treaties, these remains are found in the archives of the Mitannis neighbors. The time period for this is about 1500 BC, in a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya are invoked. Kikkulis horse training text includes technical terms such as aika, tera, panza, satta, the numeral aika one is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian or early Iranian in general. The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into South Asia is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the Indus, the earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1500 BC. From the Indus, the Indo-Aryan languages spread from c.1500 BC to c.500 BC, over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The Indo-Aryans in these areas established several kingdoms and principalities in the region. The latter lasted until the 4th century BC, when it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya, in eastern Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan, whatever Indo-Aryan languages were spoken there were eventually pushed out by the Iranian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the Indian subcontinent, today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Fiji and the Maldives. The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave, the first Iranians to reach the Black Sea may have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, although their linguistic affiliation is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians, who are considered a branch of the Central Asian Sakas. The populous Sarmatian tribe of the Massagetae, dwelling near the Caspian Sea, were known to the rulers of Persia in the Achaemenid Period. In the east, the Saka occupied several areas in Xinjiang, the Medes, Parthians and Persians begin to appear on the Iranian plateau from c.800 BC, and the Achaemenids replaced Elamite rule from 559 BC
29.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
30.
Arnold J. Toynbee
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Toynbee in the 1918–1950 period was a leading specialist on international affairs. He is best known for his 12-volume A Study of History, with his prodigious output of papers, articles, speeches and presentations, and numerous books translated into many languages, Toynbee was a widely read and discussed scholar in the 1940s and 1950s. Toynbee was the son of Harry Valpy Toynbee, secretary of the Charity Organization Society, Toynbee was the grandson of Joseph Toynbee, nephew of the 19th-century economist Arnold Toynbee and descendant of prominent British intellectuals for several generations. In 1912 he became a tutor and fellow in ancient history at Balliol College, after serving as a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 he served as professor of Byzantine and modern Greek studies at the University of London. From 1921 to 1922 he was the Manchester Guardian correspondent during the Greco-Turkish War, in 1925 he became research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. His first marriage was to Rosalind Murray, daughter of Gilbert Murray, in 1913 and they divorced in 1946, Toynbee then married his research assistant, Veronica M. Boulter, in the same year. He died on 22 October 1975, age 86, Michael Lang says that for much of the twentieth century, Toynbee was perhaps the world’s most read, translated, and discussed living scholar. His output was enormous, hundreds of books, pamphlets, in his best-known work, A Study of History, published 1934–1961, Toynbee. A Study of History was both a commercial and academic phenomenon, in the U. S. alone, more than seven thousand sets of the ten-volume edition had been sold by 1955. Most people, including scholars, relied on the very clear one-volume abridgement of the first six volumes by Somervell, which appeared in 1947, the press printed innumerable discussions of Toynbees work, not to mention there being countless lectures and seminars. Canadian historians were especially receptive to Toynbees work in the late 1940s, the Canadian economic historian Harold Adams Innis was a notable example. Following Toynbee and others, Innis examined the flourishing of civilizations in terms of administration of empires, Toynbees overall theory was taken up by some scholars, for example, Ernst Robert Curtius, as a sort of paradigm in the post-war period. Curtius wrote as follows in the pages of European Literature. Curtius wrote, How do cultures, and the entities which are their media, arise, grow. Only a comparative morphology with exact procedures can hope to answer these questions and it was Arnold J. Toynbee who undertook the task. After 1960, Toynbees ideas faded both in academia and the media, to the point of seldom being cited today, however, his work continued to be referenced by classical historians, at least, because his training and surest touch is in the world of classical antiquity. His roots in literature are also manifested by similarities between his approach and that of classical historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides. Comparative history, by which his approach is often categorized, has been in the doldrums, Toynbee worked for the Political Intelligence Department of the British Foreign Office during World War I and served as a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919
31.
Eurasian nomads
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The Eurasian nomads were a large group of nomadic peoples from the Eurasian Steppe, who often appear in history as invaders of Europe, the Middle East and China. The generic title encompasses the varied ethnic groups who have at times inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, Mongolia, Early periods in Chinese history involved conflict with the nomadic Rong and Xiongnu peoples to the west of the Wei valley. Iron and bronze was supplied from China, the Roman army hired Sarmatians as elite cavalrymen. The earliest example of an invasion by a people may have been by the Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves. Cimmerian is the first invasion of equestrian steppe nomads that is known from historical sources and their military strength was always based on cavalry, usually marked by prowess as mounted archers. Kurgan is a term for steppe burial mounds, which sometimes contained very elaborate burials. J. R. R. Tolkiens Rohirrim may be seen as an idealised Germanic people influenced by these romantic notions, Tolkiens Wainriders of eastern Rhûn recall ancient steppe peoples like the Scythians. Similarly, George R. R. Martins nomadic Dothraki people are influenced by the lifestyles and cultures of historical horse people. Nomadism persists in the steppelands, though it has generally been disapproved of by modern regimes, chronologically, there have been several waves of invasions of either Europe, the Near East, India and/or China from the steppe. Mongols, Turks, and others, Eurasian nomads and the sedentary world, Early riders, The beginnings of mounted warfare in Asia and Europe. Nomads and their neighbours in the Russian Steppe, Turks, Khazars, warriors of the steppe, A military history of Central Asia,500 B. C. to A. D.1700. New York, Sarpedon Publishers,1997, Cambridge, MA, korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P. K. Vladivostok, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, reprinted in, The Early State, ed. by Leonid Grinin et al. Nomadism, Evolution, and World-Systems, Pastoral Societies in Theories of Historical Development, journal of World-System Research 8, 368–388. In Nomadic Pathways in Social Evolution, kradin, Dmitri Bondarenko, and T. Barfield. Moscow, Center for Civilizational Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nomads of Inner Asia in Transition. Littauer, Mary A. Crouwel, Joost H. Raulwing, selected writings on chariots and other early vehicles, riding and harness. Shippey, Thomas Tom A. Goths and Huns, The rediscovery of Northern culture in the century, in The Medieval legacy
32.
Kuru Kingdom
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However, traditions and legends about the Kurus continued into the post-Vedic period, providing the basis for the Mahabharata epic. The Kurus figure prominently in the later Rigveda, the Kurus here appear as a branch of the early Indo-Aryans, ruling the Ganga-Jamuna Doab and modern Haryana. The focus in the later Vedic period shifted out of Punjab, into the Doab, the increasing number and size of Painted Grey Ware settlements in the Doab area shows this. These developments resulted in the enlargement of certain settlements such as Hastinapur. These settlements slowly began to acquire characteristics of towns, the Kuru tribe was formed, in the Middle Vedic period, as a result of the alliance and merger between the Bharata and Puru tribes. With their center of power in the Kurukshetra region, the Kurus formed the first political center of the Vedic period, the first Kuru capital was at Āsandīvat, identified with modern Assandh in Haryana. Later literature refers to Indraprastha and Hastinapura as the main Kuru cities, the Atharvaveda praises Parikshit, the King of the Kurus, as the great ruler of a thriving, prosperous realm. Other late Vedic texts, such as the Shatapatha Brahmana, commemorate Parikshits son Janamejaya as a conqueror who performed the ashvamedha. The Kurus declined after being defeated by the non-Vedic Salva tribe, in the post Vedic period, the Kuru dynasty evolved into Kuru and Vatsa janapadas, ruling over Upper Doab/Delhi/Haryana and lower Doab, respectively. The Vatsa branch of the Kuru dynasty further divided into branches at Kaushambi, the tribes that consolidated into the Kuru Kingdom or Kuru Pradesh were largely semi-nomadic, pastoral tribes. However, as settlement shifted into the western Ganges Plain, settled farming of rice, Vedic literature of this time period indicates the growth of surplus production and the emergence of specialized artisans and craftsmen. Iron was first mentioned as śyāma ayas in the Atharvaveda, a text of this era, another important development was the fourfold varna system, which replaced the twofold system of arya and dasa from the Rigvedic times. The Brahmin priesthood and Kshatriya aristocracy, who dominated the arya commoners, Kuru kings ruled with the assistance of a rudimentary administration, including purohita, village headman, army chief, food distributor, emissary, herald and spies. They extracted mandatory tribute from their population of commoners as well as from neighboring tribes. They led frequent raids and conquests against their neighbors, especially to the east, to aid in governing, the kings and their Brahmin priests arranged Vedic hymns into collections and developed a new set of rituals to uphold social order and strengthen the class hierarchy. High-ranked nobles could perform very elaborate sacrifices, and many rituals primarily exalted the status of the king over his people, the ashvamedha or horse sacrifice was a way for a powerful king to assert his domination in northern India. The epic poem, the Mahabharata, tells of a conflict between two branches of the reigning Kuru clan possibly around 1000 BCE, however, archaeology has not furnished conclusive proof as to whether the specific events described have any historical basis. The existing text of the Mahabharata went through many layers of development, within the frame story of the Mahabharata, the historical kings Parikshit and Janamejaya are featured significantly as scions of the Kuru clan
33.
Migration Period
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The Migration Period was a time of widespread migrations within or into Europe in the middle of the first millennium AD. It has also been termed the Völkerwanderung and, from the Roman, many of the migrations were movements of Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples into the territory of the then Roman Empire, with or without accompanying invasions or war. Although immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, later invasions, also had significant effects, however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period. Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward, moving into southern Germany up to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC and it is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians, the Barbarian Invasions may be divided into two phases. The first phase, occurring between AD300 and 500, is documented by Greek and Latin historians but difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire, the Tervingi entered Roman territory in 376. Some time thereafter in Marcianopolis, the escort to Fritigern was killed while meeting with Lupicinus, fending off challenges from the Allemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the fifth century, the Burgundians settled in North Western Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the fifth century. The second phase took place between 500 and 700 and saw Slavic tribes settling in central and eastern Europe, gradually making it predominantly Slavic, additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars became involved in this phase. In 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom, the Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgarian, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in the 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of Italy, during the Khazar–Arab Wars, the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus. At the same time, the Moors invaded Europe via Gibraltar and these battles broadly demarcated the frontiers between Christendom and Islam for the next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around 895, and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large movements of the period. Christianity gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into the medieval Christian order, a number of contemporary historical references worldwide refer to an extended period of extreme weather during 535–536. Evidence of this period is also found in dendrochronology and ice cores. The consequences of this period are debated
34.
Cyrus (name)
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Cyrus is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great, Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan, King of Persia the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, and Cyrus the Younger, brother to the Persian King Artaxerxes II of Persia. Cyrus, as a word in English, is the Latinized form of the Greek Κῦρος, Kȳros, according to the inscriptions the name is reflected in Elamite Kuraš, Babylonian Ku-raš/-ra-áš and Imperial Aramaic kwrš. The modern Persian form of the name is Koorosh, the etymology of Cyrus has been and continues to be a topic of discussion amongst historians, linguists, and scholars of Iranology. The name has appeared on many monuments and inscriptions in Old Persian, there is also the record of a small inscription in Morghab on which there is the sentence in Old Persian meaning. This proposal was the result of an interpretation of a passage in paragraph 70 of Behistun inscription by Darius the Great. Based on many arguments, the accepted theory among modern scholars is that the inscription does belong to Cyrus the Great, there are interpretations of name of Cyrus by classical authors identifying with or referring to the Persian word for “sun”. The Historian Plutarch states that the sun, which, in the Persian language, is called Cyrus. Also the Physician Ctesias who served in the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II of Persia writes in his book Persica as summarized by Photios that the name Cyrus is from Persian word Khur and these are, however, not accepted by modern scholars. Regarding the etymology of Old Persian kuruš, linguists have proposed various etymologies based on Iranian languages as well as non-Indo-European ones. According to Tavernier, the name kuraš, attested in Elamite texts, is likely the original form as there is no Elamite or Babylonian spelling ku-ru-uš in the transcriptions of Old Persian ku-u-r-u-š. That is, according to Tavernier, kuraš is an Elamite name, others, such as Schmitt, Hoffmann maintain that the Persian Kuruš, which according to Skalmowsky, may be connected to the IE Kúru- from Old Indic can give an etymology of the Elamite kuraš. Accordingly, the name Kūruš means young, youth, other Iranian etymologies have been proposed. The Indian proposal of Skalmowsky goes down to to do, accomplish, another theory is the suggestion of Karl Hoffmann that kuruš goes down to a -ru derivation from the IE root *kau meaning to humiliate and accordingly kuruš means humiliator. Cyrus Hamlin, Union general during American Civil War, son of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin Cy Hungerford, American editorial cartoonist Cy Kendall, American actor Cyrus B. Poonawalla, Indian businessman Cyrus Sahukar, MTV India VJ C. R. Smith, longtime CEO of American Airlines Cyrus Vance, U. S
35.
Babylon
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Babylon was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in parts along its left and right banks. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c.2300 BC, the town attained independence as part of a small city-state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, the empire quickly dissolved after Hammurabis death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c.1770 to 1670 BC and it was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings, the English Babylon comes from Greek Babylṓn, a transliteration of the Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name in the early 2nd millennium BC had been Babilli or Babilla, by the 1st millennium BC, it had changed to Babili under the influence of the folk etymology which traced it to bāb-ili. The Gate of God or Gate of El being from the Aramaic Hebrew Bab for Gate and El for God and this being similar to the Hebrew word for confusion Balal. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures Book of Genesis to mean confusion, the modern English verb, to babble, or to speak meaningless words, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain, remains of the city include, Kasr—also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali—the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south and it is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera—a reddish colored mound on the west side, most of the Hellenistic remains are here
36.
Cyrus Cylinder
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It dates from the 6th century BCE and was discovered in the ruins of Babylon in Mesopotamia in 1879. It is currently in the possession of the British Museum, which sponsored the expedition discovered the cylinder. It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, the text on the Cylinder praises Cyrus, sets out his genealogy and portrays him as a king from a line of kings. The victorious Cyrus is portrayed as having been chosen by the chief Babylonian god Marduk to restore peace, the text states that Cyrus was welcomed by the people of Babylon as their new ruler and entered the city in peace. It appeals to Marduk to protect and help Cyrus and his son Cambyses and it concludes with a description of how Cyrus repaired the city wall of Babylon and found a similar inscription placed there by an earlier king. This interpretation has been disputed, as the text identifies only Mesopotamian sanctuaries and it was adopted as a national symbol of Iran by the Imperial State which put it on display in Tehran in 1971 to commemorate 2,500 years of the Iranian monarchy. The Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam discovered the Cyrus Cylinder in March 1879 during a programme of excavations in Mesopotamia carried out for the British Museum. It had been placed as a deposit in the foundations of the Ésagila. Rassams expedition followed on from an earlier dig carried out in 1850 by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, in 1877, Layard became Britains ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Mesopotamia at the time. He helped Rassam, who had been his assistant in the 1850 dig, the firman was only valid for a year but a second firman, with much more liberal terms, was issued in 1878. It was granted for two years with the promise of an extension to 1882 if required, the Sultans decree authorised Rassam to pack and dispatch to England any antiquities found … provided, however, there were no duplicates. A representative of the Sultan was instructed to be present at the dig to examine the objects as they were uncovered, with permission secured, Rassam initiated a large-scale excavation at Babylon and other sites on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum. He undertook the excavations in four distinct phases, in between each phase, he returned to England to bring back his finds and raise more funds for further work. The Cyrus Cylinder was found on the second of his four expeditions to Mesopotamia and he arrived in his home town of Mosul on 16 November and travelled down the Tigris to Baghdad, which he reached on 30 January 1879. During February and March, he supervised excavations on a number of Babylonian sites and he soon uncovered a number of important buildings including the Ésagila temple. This was a shrine to the chief Babylonian god Marduk. The excavators found a number of business documents written on clay tablets buried in the temples foundations where they discovered the Cyrus Cylinder. Rassam gave conflicting accounts of where his discoveries were made and he wrote in his memoirs, Asshur and the land of Nimrod, that the Cylinder had been found in a mound at the southern end of Babylon near the village of Jumjuma or Jimjima
37.
Marduk
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Marduk was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila, Marduk is associated with the divine weapon Imhullu. Marduk is the Babylonian form of his name, according to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced Marutuk. The etymology of the name Marduk is conjectured as derived from amar-Utu, the origin of Marduks name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar, dating back to the third millennium BC. In the perfected system of astrology, Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the Hammurabi period, Marduks original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. His consort was the goddess Sarpanit, there are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, father Ea voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and hands over to him the control of humanity. Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BC, and was initially a city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa. The only serious rival to Marduk after ca.1750 BC was the god Aššur which was the dominant power in the region between the 14th to the late 7th century BC, in the south, Marduk reigned supreme. When Babylon became the city of southern Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. In order to explain how Marduk seized power, Enûma Elish was written and this can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk, in Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths, in his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure, Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade, Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, the holy city, the dwelling of their delight
38.
Herodotus
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Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire and lived in the fifth century BC, a contemporary of Socrates. The Histories is the work which he is known to have produced. Despite Herodotus historical significance, little is known of his personal life and his place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact, of these only fragments of Hecataeuss work survive yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus’s work, Genealogies, This points forward to the ‘folksy’ yet ‘international’ outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as “a curious false start to history” since despite his critical spirit. It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a recorded by Eusebius. But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, He argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe. Yet, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his notions of the Danube. His debt to previous authors of prose ‘histories’ might be questionable, however, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. It is on account of the strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him “The Father of Lies”. Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement, similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a “logos-writer”. Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view, the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, modern accounts of his life typically go something like this, Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, the epic poet Panyassis – a relative of Herodotus – is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. Herodotus expresses affection for the island of Samos, and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos, Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, which was a Dorian settlement
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Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
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Apries
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Apries is the name by which Herodotus and Diodorus designate Wahibre Haaibre, a pharaoh of Egypt, the fourth king of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. He was equated with the Waphres of Manetho, who records that he reigned for 19 years. Apries is also called Hophra in Jeremiah 44,30, Apries inherited the throne from his father, pharaoh Psamtik II, in February 589 BC and his reign continued his fathers history of foreign intrigue in Judean affairs. Apries was a builder who constructed additions to the temples at Athribis. In Year 4 of his reign, Apries sister Ankhnesneferibre was adopted as the new Gods Wife of Amun at Thebes, however, Apries reign was also fraught with internal problems. In 588 BC, Apries dispatched a force to Jerusalem to protect it from Babylonian forces sent by Nebuchadnezzar II and his forces were quickly crushed and Jerusalem, following an 18-month-long siege, was destroyed by the Babylonians in either 587 BC or 586 BC. His unsuccessful attempt to intervene in the politics of the Kingdom of Judah was followed by a mutiny of soldiers from the strategically important Aswan garrison, when the defeated army returned home, a civil war broke out in the Egyptian army between the indigenous troops and the foreign mercenaries. The Egyptians threw their support to Amasis II, a general who had led Egyptian forces in a successful invasion of Nubia in 592 BC under Pharaoh Psamtik II. Amasis quickly declared himself pharaoh in 570 BC, and Apries fled Egypt, when Apries marched back to Egypt in 567 BC with the aid of a Babylonian army to reclaim the throne of Egypt, he was likely killed in battle with Amasis forces. Amasis thus secured his kingship over Egypt and was then its unchallenged ruler, Amasis, however, reportedly treated Apries mortal remains with respect and observed the proper funerary rituals by having Apries body carried to Sais and buried there with full military honours. Amasis, the general who had declared himself pharaoh, also married Apries daughter, Chedebnitjerbone II. While Herodotus claimed that the wife of Apries was called Nitetis, eusebius placed the eclipse of Thales in 585 BC, in the eighth or twelfth year of Apries reign. An obelisk which Apries erected at Sais was moved by the 3rd century AD Roman Emperor Diocletian and it is today located in front of the Santa Maria sopra Minerva basilica church in Rome
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Amasis (Persian general)
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In one of his works, philologist Edward Pococke associates the Maraphii with the Berhi-pae of Kartakeyu. He took Barca by stratagem and treachery, and made an attempt upon Cyrene. He was then recalled by Aryandes, on its march back the Persian army suffered severely from the Libyans and a little later it is claimed they appointed the soon to be Egyptian king Amasis II as their leader. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
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Apis (deity)
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In Egyptian mythology, Apis or Hapis is a sacred bull worshipped in the Memphis region. Identified as the son of Hathor, a deity in the pantheon of Ancient Egypt. Initially, he was assigned a significant role in her worship, being sacrificed, later, Apis also served as an intermediary between humans and other powerful deities. Apis was very important among all of the animals in Egypt, and, as with the others. Auguste Mariettes excavation of the Serapeum of Saqqara revealed the tombs of more than sixty animals, at first, each animal was buried in a separate tomb with a chapel built above it. The current available historical documentary and archaeological evidence suggests the Apis was the first god of Egypt, worship of an Apis bull began during the First Dynasty, which is after the year 2686 BCE. The Apis as a bull experienced by ancient Egyptians as holy, was worshipped at Memphis, worship of the Apis as a god seems to belong to ancient culture of Egypt during the Second Dynasty. According to Manetho, worship of the Apis was instituted by Kaiechos of the Second Dynasty, Apis is named on very early monuments, but little is known of the divine animal before the New Kingdom. This Osorapis was identified with Serapis of the late Hellenistic period, creating parallels to their own religious beliefs, ancient Greek writers identified Apis as an incarnation of Osiris, ignoring the connection with Ptah. During the start of the Hellenistic period, Ptolemy Soter, who ruled for the period 323-283 BCE, Apis was the most popular of three great bull cults of ancient Egypt, the others being the cults of Mnevis and Buchis. All are related to the worship of Hathor or Bat, similar primary goddesses separated by region until unification that eventually merged as Hathor, the worship of Apis was continued by the Greeks and after them by the Romans, and lasted until almost 400 CE. This animal was chosen because it symbolized the heart, great strength. Apis came to being considered a manifestation of the king, as bulls were symbols of strength and fertility, strong bull of his mother Hathor was a common title for Egyptian gods and male kings, being unused for women serving as king, such as Hatshepsut. As early as the time of the Narmer Palette, the king is depicted with a tail on one side. Occasionally, Apis was pictured with the symbol of his mother, Hathor. When the disk was depicted on his head with his horns below and the marking on his forehead. That symbol always was associated with Hathor. Early on, Apis was the herald of Ptah, the deity in the area around Memphis
Meyer, Eduard (1911). "Cambyses". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
