1.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Confederation
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A confederation is a union of sovereign states, united for purposes of common action often in relation to other states. Confederalism represents a form of inter-governmentalism, this being defined as ‘any form of interaction between states which takes place on the basis of sovereign independence. The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably, likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government, and the distribution of powers among them is highly variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organisations, other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems. Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have a right of secession. … The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member’, under a confederal arrangement, in contrast with a federal one, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states. They are therefore not laws acting directly upon the individual, also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus and not by majority, which makes for a slow and inefficient government. For example, C. E. some aspects of a confederation in Le Soir, also in Le Soir, Professor Michel Quévit of the Catholic University of Leuven wrote that the Belgian political system is already in dynamics of a Confederation. Nevertheless, the Belgian regions lack the necessary autonomy to leave the Belgian state, as such, federal aspects still dominate. Also, for policy and public finances, the federal state dominates the other levels of government. The increasingly confederal aspects of the Belgian Federal State appear to be a reflection of the profound cultural, sociological. Parties that strongly advocate Belgian unity and appeal to voters of both communities play usually only a role in nationwide general elections. This makes Belgium fundamentally different from countries like Switzerland, Canada, Germany. In those countries, national parties regularly receive over 90% of voter support, in Canada, the word confederation has an additional, unrelated meaning. Confederation refers to the process of establishing or joining the Canadian federal state, in modern terminology, Canada is a federation and not a confederation. However, at the time of the Constitution Act,1867, confederation was the normal British, therefore, on July 1,1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire with a federal structure under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald. The provinces involved were the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, later participants were Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and finally Newfoundland in 1949
5.
Turkmenistan
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Turkmenistan has been at the crossroads of civilizations for centuries. In medieval times, Merv was one of the cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured prominently in the movement in Central Asia. In 1924, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmenistan possesses the worlds fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert, since 1993, citizens have received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president in 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, after suspending the death penalty, the use of capital punishment was formally abolished in the 2008 constitution. Historically inhabited by the Indo-Iranians, the history of Turkmenistan begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. In the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia, part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name Turkmen was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam, There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Turkmen soldiers in the service of the played a important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan. In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire, in the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, by the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period, in the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that groups dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. According to Paul R. Spickard, Prior to the Russian conquest, Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk, the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates, in 1916 the Russian Empires participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia, by the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, during the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events
6.
Parthia
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Parthia is a historical region located in north-eastern Iran. It was the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, the name Parthia is a continuation from Latin Parthia, from Old Persian Parthava, which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying of the Parthians who were an Iranian people. In context to its Hellenistic period, Parthia also appears as Parthyaea, Parthia roughly corresponds to a region in northeastern Iran. It was bordered by the Karakum desert in the north, included Kopet Dag mountain range and it bordered Media on the west, Hyrcania on the north west, Margiana on the north east, and Aria on the south east. During Arsacid times, Parthia was united with Hyrcania as one unit. As the region inhabited by Parthians, Parthia first appears as an entity in Achaemenid lists of governorates under their dominion. Prior to this, the people of the region seem to have been subjects of the Medes, according to Greek sources, following the seizure of the Achaemenid throne by Darius I, the Parthians united with the Median king Phraortes to revolt against him. Hystaspes, the Achaemenid governor of the province, managed to suppress the revolt, the first indigenous Iranian mention of Parthia is in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, where Parthia is listed among the governorates in the vicinity of Drangiana. The inscription dates to c.520 BC, the center of the administration may have been at Hecatompylus. This has rightly caused disquiet to modern scholars, following the defeat of Darius III, Phrataphernes surrendered his governorate to Alexander when the Macedonian arrived there in the summer of 330 BC. Phrataphernes was reappointed governor by Alexander, following the death of Alexander, in the Partition of Babylon in 323 BC, Parthia became a Seleucid governorate under Nicanor. Phrataphernes, the governor, became governor of Hyrcania. In 320 BC, at the Partition of Triparadisus, Parthia was reassigned to Philip, a few years later, the province was invaded by Peithon, governor of Media Magna, who then attempted to make his brother Eudamus governor. Peithon and Eudamus were driven back, and Parthia remained a governorate in its own right, in 316 BC, Stasander, a vassal of Seleucus I Nicator and governor of Bactria was appointed governor of Parthia. For the next 60 years, various Seleucids would be appointed governors of the province. In 247 BC, following the death of Antiochus II, Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, taking advantage of the uncertain political situation, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor of Parthia, proclaimed his independence and began minting his own coins. Meanwhile, a man called Arsaces, of Scythian or Bactrian origin, elected leader of the Parni, a short while later the Parni seized the rest of Parthia from Andragoras, killing him in the process. Arsaces II sued for peace and accepted vassal status, and it was not until Arsaces IIs grandson Phraates I, from their base in Parthia, the Arsacid dynasts eventually extended their dominion to include most of Greater Iran
7.
Parthian Empire
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The Parthian Empire, also known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran and Iraq. Mithridates I of Parthia greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids, at its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, the court did appoint a small number of satraps, largely outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of government shifted from Nisa to Ctesiphon along the Tigris. The earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Seleucids in the west, however, as Parthia expanded westward, they came into conflict with the Kingdom of Armenia, and eventually the late Roman Republic. Rome and Parthia competed with other to establish the kings of Armenia as their subordinate clients. The Parthians soundly defeated Marcus Licinius Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, however, Mark Antony led a counterattack against Parthia, although his successes were generally achieved in his absence, under the leadership of his lieutenant Ventidius. Also, various Roman emperors or their appointed generals invaded Mesopotamia in the course of the several Roman-Parthian Wars which ensued during the few centuries. The Romans captured the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon on multiple occasions during these conflicts, native Parthian sources, written in Parthian, Greek and other languages, are scarce when compared to Sassanid and even earlier Achaemenid sources. These include mainly Greek and Roman histories, but also Chinese histories, Parthian artwork is viewed by historians as a valid source for understanding aspects of society and culture that are otherwise absent in textual sources. The Parni most likely spoke an eastern Iranian language, in contrast to the northwestern Iranian language spoken at the time in Parthia, the latter was a northeastern province, first under the Achaemenid, and then the Seleucid empires. Why the Arsacid court retroactively chose 247 BC as the first year of the Arsacid era is uncertain, Bivar concludes that this was the year the Seleucids lost control of Parthia to Andragoras, the appointed satrap who rebelled against them. Hence, Arsaces I backdated his regnal years to the moment when Seleucid control over Parthia ceased, however, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis asserts that this was simply the year Arsaces was made chief of the Parni tribe. It is unclear who immediately succeeded Arsaces I, Bivar and Katouzian affirm that it was his brother Tiridates I of Parthia, who in turn was succeeded by his son Arsaces II of Parthia in 211 BC. Yet Curtis and Brosius state that Arsaces II was the successor of Arsaces I, with Curtis claiming the succession took place in 211 BC. Bivar insists that 138 BC, the last regnal year of Mithridates I, is the first precisely established regnal date of Parthian history, due to these and other discrepancies, Bivar outlines two distinct royal chronologies accepted by historians
8.
Rigveda
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The Rigveda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The text is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, a good deal of the language is still obscure and many hymns as a consequence seem unintelligible. The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities, for each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones, and the number of hymns per book increases. In the eight books that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology, Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. 1700–1100 BC has also been given, some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu rites of passage celebrations such as weddings and religious prayers, making it probably the worlds oldest religious text in continued use. This redaction also included some additions and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi, the Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the texts fidelity and meaning, and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone. In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections and this interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics. The Rigveda was probably not written down until the Gupta period, the oral tradition still continued into recent times. The text is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas, of varying age, the family books, mandalas 2–7, are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books, they are arranged by length and account for 38% of the text. Within each book, the hymns are arranged in collections each dealing with a deity, Agni comes first, Indra comes second. They are attributed and dedicated to a rishi and his family of students, within each collection, the hymns are arranged in descending order of the number of stanzas per hymn. If two hymns in the collection have equal numbers of stanzas then they are arranged so that the number of syllables in the metre are in descending order. The second to seventh mandalas have a uniform format, the eighth and ninth mandalas, comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively. The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest, they are also the longest books, of 191 suktas each, however, adds Witzel, some hymns in Mandala 8,1 and 10 may be as old as the earlier Mandalas. The first mandala has an arrangement not found in the other nine mandalas. The ninth mandala is arranged by both its structure and hymn length, while the first eighty four hymns of the tenth mandala have a structure different than the remaining hymns in it. Each mandala consists of hymns called sūkta intended for various rituals, the sūktas in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc, which are further analysed into units of verse called pada
9.
Avestan
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The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta. Avestans status as a language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language, Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian. The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group, Iranian languages are traditionally classified as eastern or western, and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and also in some extent close in nature to Vedic Sanskrit. It is believed that it might be close to a dialect of Pashto as well. The Avestan language is attested in two forms, known as Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan, the two not only in time, but are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order, The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for centuries. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood, the script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh religion writing. It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left and these symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, a few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language, Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was considered necessary for the prayers to be effective, the Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in Gujarati script, some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraϑuštra is written with j with a dot below
10.
Old Persian
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The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages. Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets. This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a language in use for practical recording. As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions and it is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts, the oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. Their language, Old Persian, became the language of the Achaemenid kings. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family which is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, the common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The former are the languages in that group which have left written original texts while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian. Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and is differentiated by dialectical features, Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the shows great simplification in grammar. However, New Persian is a descendent of Middle and Old Persian. Old Persian presumably has a Median language substrate, the Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms are only in personal or geographical names and some are typically from religious vocabulary
11.
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
12.
Saka language
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Saka or Sakan is a variety of Eastern Iranian languages, attested from the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan, Kashgar and Tumshuq in the Tarim Basin, in what is now southern Xinjiang, China. It is a Middle Iranian language, the two kingdoms differed in dialect, their speech known as Khotanese and Tumshuqese. Documents on wood and paper were written in modified Brahmi script with the addition of characters over time. The documents date from the fourth to the eleventh century, Tumshuqese was more archaic than Khotanese, but it is much less understood because it appears in fewer manuscripts compared to Khotanese. Both dialects share features with modern Pashto and Wakhi, the language was known as Hvatanai in contemporary documents. Many Prakrit terms were borrowed from Khotanese into the Tocharian languages, the two known dialects of Saka are associated with a movement of the Scythians. The Saka language became extinct after invading Turkic Muslims conquered the Kingdom of Khotan in the Islamicisation and Turkicisation of Xinjiang, in the 11th century, it was remarked by Mahmud al-Kashgari that the people of Khotan still have their own language and script and did not know Turkic well. According to Kashgari some non-Turkic languages like the Kanchaki and Soghdian were still used in some areas and it is believed that the Saka language group was what Kanchaki belonged to. It is believed that the Tarim Basin became linguistically Turkified by the end of the 11th century, Khotanese and Tumshuqese are closely related Eastern Iranian languages. Other than an inscription from Issyk kurgan that it is identified as Khotanese. Khotanese is attested from over 2,300 texts preserved among the Dunhuang manuscripts and these were deciphered by Harold Walter Bailey. The earliest texts, from the century, are mostly religious documents. There were several viharas in the Kingdom of Khotan and Buddhist translations are common at all periods of the documents, there are many reports to the royal court which are of historical importance, as well as private documents. An example of a document is Or. 6400/2.3, international Dunhuang Project A Turkish-Khotanese Vocabulary H. W. Bailey Bulletin of the. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 11, Bailey, H W Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge University Press Encyclopædia Iranica Iranian Languages http, //www. iranicaonline. org/articles/central-asia-xiii Emmerick, R. E. & Pulleyblank, E. G. A Chinese text in Central Asian Brahmi script, new evidence for the pronunciation of Late Middle Chinese and Khotanese, roma, Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. History of civilizations of Central Asia
13.
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
14.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
15.
Dacians
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The Dacians were an Indo-European people, part of or related to the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia, located in the area in and around the Carpathian Mountains and this area includes the present-day countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Southern Poland. The Dacians were known as Geta in Ancient Greek writings, and as Dacus or Getae in Roman documents and it was Herodotus who first used the ethnonym Getae in his Histories. In Greek and Latin, in the writings of Julius Caesar, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder, Getae and Dacians were interchangeable terms, or used with some confusion by the Greeks. Latin poets often used the name Getae, vergil called them Getae four times, and Daci once, Lucian Getae three times and Daci twice, Horace named them Getae twice and Daci five times, while Juvenal one time Getae and two times Daci. In AD113, Hadrian used the poetic term Getae for the Dacians, modern historians prefer to use the name Geto-Dacians. Strabo describes the Getae and Dacians as distinct but cognate tribes and this distinction refers to the regions they occupied. Strabo and Pliny the Elder also state that Getae and Dacians spoke the same language, by contrast, the name of Dacians, whatever the origin of the name, was used by the more western tribes who adjoined the Pannonians and therefore first became known to the Romans. According to Strabos Geographica, the name of the Dacians was Δάοι Daoi. The name Daoi was certainly adopted by foreign observers to designate all the inhabitants of the north of Danube that had not yet been conquered by Greece or Rome. The ethnographic name Daci is found under various forms within ancient sources, Greeks used the forms Δάκοι Dakoi and Δάοι Daoi. The form Δάοι Daoi was frequently used according to Stephan of Byzantium, latins used the forms Davus, Dacus, and a derived form Dacisci. There are similarities between the ethnonyms of the Dacians and those of Dahae, an Indo-European people located east of the Caspian Sea, scholars have suggested that there were links between the two peoples since ancient times. The historian David Gordon White has, moreover, stated that the Dacians, appear to be related to the Dahae. The name Daci, or Dacians is a collective ethnonym, Dio Cassius reported that the Dacians themselves used that name, and the Romans so called them, while the Greeks called them Getae. Opinions on the origins of the name Daci are divided, one hypothesis is that the name Getae originates in the Indo-European *guet- to utter, to talk. Another hypothesis is that Getae and Daci are Iranian names of two Iranian-speaking Scythian groups that had assimilated into the larger Thracian-speaking population of the later Dacia. In the 1st century AD, Strabo suggested that its stem formed a name borne by slaves, Greek Daos
16.
Indo-European languages
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The Indo-European languages are a language family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, the most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million speakers. Today, 46% of the population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language. The Indo-European family includes most of the languages of Europe, and parts of Western, Central. It was also predominant in ancient Anatolia, the ancient Tarim Basin and most of Central Asia until the medieval Turkic migrations, all Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other language families. In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, in 1583, English Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens in Goa wrote a letter to his brother in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin. Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti, a merchant born in Florence in 1540, writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian. However, neither Stephens nor Sassettis observations led to further scholarly inquiry and he included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorns suggestions did not become known and did not stimulate further research. Ottoman Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission, gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship among them. Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving from the extremes of the language family. A synonym is Indo-Germanic, specifying the familys southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches, a number of other synonymous terms have also been used. Franz Bopps Comparative Grammar appeared between 1833 and 1852 and marks the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline, the classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleichers 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmanns Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmanns neogrammarian reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussures development of the theory may be considered the beginning of modern Indo-European studies. This led to the laryngeal theory, a major step forward in Indo-European linguistics. Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC, Armenian, writing known from the beginning of the 5th century AD
17.
Strangling
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Strangling is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain. Fatal strangling typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and is one of two ways that hanging may cause death. Compression of the laryngopharynx, larynx, or trachea—causing asphyxia, stimulation of the carotid sinus reflex—causing bradycardia, hypotension, or both. Depending on the method of strangulation, one or several of these typically occur in combination. Complete obstruction of blood flow to the brain is associated with neurological damage and death. As in all cases of strangulation, the rapidity of death can be affected by the susceptibility to carotid sinus stimulation, carotid sinus reflex death is sometimes considered a mechanism of death in cases of strangulation, but it remains highly disputed. The reported time from application to unconsciousness varies from 7–14 seconds if effectively applied to one minute in other cases, manual strangulation is strangling with the hands, fingers, or other extremities and sometimes also with blunt objects, such as batons. Depending on how the strangling is performed, it may compress the airway, interfere with the flow of blood in the neck, consequently, manual strangulation may damage the larynx, and fracture the hyoid or other bones in the neck. In cases of airway compression, manual strangling leads to the sensation of air hunger. During the 18th century, a sentence of Death by Throttling would be passed upon the verdict of a Court Martial for the crime of desertion from the British Army. Ligature strangulation is strangling with some form of such as rope, wire, or shoe laces. Even though the mechanism of strangulation is similar, it is distinguished from hanging by the strangling force being something other than the persons own bodyweight. Incomplete occlusion of the arteries is expected and, in cases of homicide. Cases of ligature strangulation generally involve homicides of women, children, and the elderly, compared to hanging, the ligature mark will most likely be located lower on the neck of the victim. During the Spanish Inquisition, victims who admitted their alleged sins, throughout much of the 20th and 21st centuries, the American Mafia used ligature strangulation as a means of murdering their victims. Confessed American serial killer Altemio Sanchez used ligature strangulation in the rapes and/or murders of his victims, as did Gary Ridgway, anti-ligature is the prevention of tying or binding. Anti-ligature devices are used to prevent vulnerable people from accidentally or intentionally self harming, anti-ligature devices and equipment are primarily used where people are considered to be at risk such as hospitals, prisons and nursing homes, but can also be found in some offices and schools. They are designed to high levels of abuse and as a result are constructed from solid stainless steel and have minimal moving parts
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Gray wolf
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The gray wolf or grey wolf, also known as the timber wolf or western wolf, is a canine native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg, like the red wolf, it is distinguished from other Canis species by its larger size and less pointed features, particularly on the ears and muzzle. Its winter fur is long and bushy, and predominantly a mottled gray in color, although pure white, red. As of 2005,37 subspecies of C. lupus are recognised by MSW3 and it is nonetheless closely related enough to smaller Canis species, such as the eastern wolf, coyote, and golden jackal to produce fertile hybrids. It is an animal, travelling in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair. The gray wolf is typically an apex predator throughout its range, with only humans and it feeds primarily on large ungulates, though it also eats smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. The gray wolf is one of the worlds best known and well researched animals, although the fear of wolves is pervasive in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. The English wolf stems from the Old English wulf, which is thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Latin lupus is a Sabine loanword, both derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlqwos/*lukwos. The species Canis lupus was first recorded by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758, the thirty-seven subspecies of Canis lupus are listed under the designated common name of wolf in Mammal Species of the World third edition that was published in 2005. The nominate subspecies is the Eurasian wolf, also known as the common wolf, the subspecies includes the domestic dog, dingo, eastern wolf and red wolf, but lists C. l. italicus and C. l. communis as synonyms of C. l. lupus. However, the classification of several as either species or subspecies has recently been challenged, ecological factors including habitat type, climate, prey specialization and predatory competition will greatly influence the wolfs genetic population structure and cranio-dental plasticity. The domestic dog is the most widely abundant large carnivore and a descendant from one of those now-extinct wolf populations, in 2013, a genetic study found that the wolf population in Europe was divided along a north-south axis and formed five major clusters. Three clusters were identified occupying southern and central Europe in Italy, the Carpathians, another two clusters were identified occupying north-central Europe and the Ukrainian steppe. The Italian wolf consisted of a population with low genetic diversity. Wolves from Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece formed the Dinaric-Balkans cluster, the wolves from the Carpathians were more similar to the wolves from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe than they were to wolves from north-central Europe. These clusters may have been the result of expansion from glacial refugia, an adaptation to environments, and landscape fragmentation. These six wolf ecotypes were named West Forest, Boreal Forest, Arctic, High Arctic, Baffin, the studies found that precipitation and mean diurnal temperature range were the most influential variables
19.
Massagetae
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The Massagetae, or Massageteans, were an ancient Eastern Iranian nomadic confederation, who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, north-east of the Caspian Sea. The Massagetae are known primarily from the writings of Herodotus who described the Massagetae as living on a portion of the great plain east of the Caspian Sea. He several times refers to them as living beyond the River Araxes, scholars have offered various explanations for this anomaly. For example, Herodotus may have confused two or more rivers, as he had limited and frequently indirect knowledge of geography. According to Greek and Roman scholars, the Massagetae were neighboured by the Aspasioi to the north, the Scythians and the Dahae to the west, many scholars have suggested that the Massagetae were related to the Getae of ancient Eastern Europe and/or the Jats of modern South Asia. A 9th century work by Rabanus Maurus, De Universo, states, The Massagetae are in origin from the tribe of the Scythians, and are called Massagetae, as if heavy, that is, strong Getae. In Central Asian languages such as Middle Persian and Avestan, the prefix massa means great, heavy, mallory and Mair suggest that Da Yuezhi may at one time have been pronounced dad-ngiwat-tieg, connecting them to the Massagetae. Dahiya claimed that the Massagetae and Thyssagetae corresponded to the Da Yuezhi and these theories are not widely accepted, however. The original language of the Massagetae is little-known, according to Herodotus, Concering the death of Cyrus the Great of Persia, Herodotus writes, Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae. Evagrius Scholasticus, and in Thrace, by the inroads of the Huns, formerly known by the name of Massagetae, tadeusz Sulimirski notes that the Sacae also invaded parts of Northern India. In conventional wisdom the Massagetae and Saka Haumavarga are depicted as neighbors and inhabiting an area beyond Jaxartes, the Saka Tigraxauda are depicted as inhabiting the eastern littoral of the Caspian Sea between Hyrcania and Chorasmia. See, for example, Cook, pp. 282–283, there is also evidence to suggest strongly that the term Massagetae was a Greek name for the Saka Haumavarga. The term Saka Haumavarga did not appear in Herodotus, instead one learns of the Amyrgian Saka who formed a part of Xerxes army, a name that is said to have derived from the name of the plains that these Saka inhabited. It is equally plausible that the Amyrgian plain received its name from the Amyrgian Saka themselves, to further intimate the connection, the names Amyrgian and Haumavarga are not phonetically that far apart for the Greek name to be considered a corruption of the Persian. The Achaemenian records and Herodotus suggest that Massagetae and Haumavarga were one and this area that presently is watered by Gorganrud and Atrak in the south and the Oxus and Jaxartes in the north had a different look in the views of the ancient geographers. The Oxus and Jaxartes were deemed to empty into the Caspian Sea, see, for example, Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography, pp. 2–5. The coincidence of Massagetae and Saka Haumavarga obtains from the correlation of a few shreds of evidence, first, Herodotus stated that Massagetae were viewed according to some as a nation belonging to the Saka race. See Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography, pp. 2–5, third, etymologically, many have concluded that the name Massagetae meant Great Saka
20.
Getae
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The Getae /ˈdʒiːtiː/ or /ˈɡiːtiː/ or Gets are several Thracian tribes that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Several scholars, especially in the Romanian historiography, posit the identity between the Getae and their neighbours, the Dacians. The ancient geographer also wrote that the Dacians and Getae spoke the language, after stating the same about Getae. Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia, ca, though various races have occupied the adjacent shores, at one spot the Getae, by the Romans called Daci. Justin, the 3rd century AD Latin historian, wrote in his Epitome of Pompeius Trogus that Dacians are spoken of as descendents of the Getae, Daci quoque suboles Getarum sunt. He also shows the Dacians to live on both sides of the Lower Danube, the south of the river, in Moesia. Two of the tribes found among them are those formerly called the Triballi, and the Dardani. There is a dispute among scholars about the relations between the Getae and Dacians, and this also covers the interpretation of ancient sources. Some historians such as Ronald Arthur Crossland state that even Ancient Greeks used the two designations interchangeable or with some confusion, thus, it is generally considered that the two groups were related to a certain degree, while the exact relation is a matter of controversy. Strabo, as well as ancient sources, led some modern historians to consider that, if the Thracian ethnic group should be divided. The linguist Ivan Duridanov also identified a Dacian linguistic area in Dacia, Scythia Minor, Lower Moesia, Romanian scholars generally went further with the identification, historian Constantin C. Giurescu claiming the two were identical, the archaeologist Mircea Babeş spoke of a veritable ethno-cultural unity between the Getae and the Dacians. According to Glanville Price, the account of the Greek geographer Strabo shows that the Getae and the Dacians were one and this same belief is stated by some British historians such as David Sandler Berkowitz and Philip Matyszak. Some scholars consider the Getae and Dacians to be the people at different stages of their history. Ronald Arthur Crossland suggested the two designations may refer to two groups of a homogeneous people that had come to historical prominence at two distinct periods of time. He also compared the probable linguistic situation with the relation between modern Norwegian and Danish languages, paul Lachlan MacKendrick considered the two as branches of the same tribe, speaking two dialects of a common language. The Romanian historian of ideas and historiographer Lucian Boia stated, At a certain point, Lucian Boia took a sceptical position, arguing the ancient writers distinguished among the two people, treating them as two distinct groups of the Thracian ethnos. Boia contended that it would be naive to assume Strabo knew the Thracian dialects so well, the latter claim is contested, some studies attesting Strabos reliability and sources
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Hyrcania
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Hyrcania is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian Sea in modern day Iran, bound in the south by the Alborz mountain range and the Kopet Dag in the east. The region served as a satrapy of the Median Empire, a sub-province of the Achaemenid Empire, and a province within its successors, Hyrcania bordered Parthia to the east, Dihistan to the north, Media to the south and Mardia to the west. After the fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651 AD, Hyrcania was known as Tabaristan, according to Ctesias, Astyages grandson Megabernes also served as satrap of Hyrcania. Under the Achaemenid Empire, Hyrcania served as a sub-province of the satrapy of Parthia, at times, Cadusia may have been administered as part of Hyrcania. Fortifications to protect Hyrcania against nomadic incursions were constructed during the Achaemenid period, following Darius the Greats victory over the Magian usurper, Gaumata, in September 522 BC, revolts spread throughout the empire. In December 522 BC, a revolt in support of the Median leader Phraortes erupted in Hyrcania, and in March 521 BC, in May, Phraortes was defeated and Hyrcania returned to Achaemenid rule. Darius later settled Hyrcanians in the settlement of Dareionkome in the Hyrcanian Plain in Lydia, other Hyrcanian settlements in the Hermus valley include Ormoita and Tyanolla. According to Herodotus, Hyrcanian soldiers participated in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC under the command of Megapanus, after the war, a garrison composed of Hyrcanian soldiers was posted in the valleys of the rivers Hermus and Caicus. Under Xerxes I, Hyrcania was likely detached from the satrapy of Parthia, some sources imply Hyrcania was later administered as a sub-province of Media. According to Ctesias, Artaxerxes I appointed his illegitimate son Ochus as satrap of Hyrcania in c.425 BC, by the time of Alexander the Greats invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 334 BC, Hyrcania was reattached to the satrapy of Parthia and administered as a sub-province. Hyrcanian soldiers are mentioned in the Battle of Gaugamela against Alexander in 331 BC, after the death of Darius III in 330 BC, many Persian noblemen fled to Hyrcania. Alexander reached Hyrcania in 330 BC, where he accepted the surrender of Phrataphernes, satrap of Hyrcania and Parthia, Alexander seized Zadracarta, the capital of Hyrcania, hereafter known as Syrinx, later that year and received the surrender of other satraps and nobles. Whilst in Hycania, Alexander appointed his general Amminapes as satrap of Hyrcania and Parthia, in 328 BC, Autophradates rebelled against Alexander and Phrataphernes, who had been reinstated as satrap of Parthia, was sent to quell the revolt. Autophradates was defeated and executed by Alexander at Pasargadae in 324 BC and Phrataphernes was granted the satrapies of Hyrcania, Tapuria, and Mardia. Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, his empire was divided amongst the Diadochi in the Partition of Babylon, which confirmed Phrataphernes control of Hyrcania and Parthia. The Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC granted Parthia and Hyrcania to Philip, however, Philip was killed by Peithon, satrap of Media, in 318 BC and Peithon appointed his brother Eudemus as satrap. Seleucus son, Antiochus I, appointed Andragoras as satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania at a date prior to 266 BC. Andragoras may have founded the city of Dehestān during his tenure as satrap, Andragoras was killed in 238 BC during the Parni conquest of Parthia, led by Arsaces, who went on to conquer Hyrcania in 235 BC, thereafter forming part of the Arsacid Empire
22.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
23.
Gorgan
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Gorgan pronunciation (Persian, گرگان, formerly Astrabad or Astarabad, is the capital of Golestan Province, Iran. It lies approximately 400 kilometres to the north east of Tehran, in the 2006 census, its population was 269,226, in 73,702 families. The region is mentioned in Avesta as Vəhrkāna. The name is derived from the Proto-Iranian word *vrka-, meaning wolf, in post-Islamic Persia the city was known as Jurjān, the Arabized form of the Persian word. The Caspian form of the name is Wergen, there are several archaeological sites near Gorgan, including Tureng Tepe and Shah Tepe, in which there are remains dating to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras. According to the Greek historian Arrian, Zadracarta was the largest city of Hyrcania, the term means the yellow city, and it was given to it from the great number of oranges, lemons, and other fruit trees which grew in the outskirts of that city. Hyrcania became part of the Achaemenid Empire during the reign of Cyrus the Great, its founder, the Great Wall of Gorgan, the second biggest defensive wall in the world, was built in the Parthian and Sassanian periods. At the time of the Sassanids, Gurgan appeared as the name of a city, province capital, Gurgan maintained its independence as a Zoroastrian state even after Persia was conquered by the invading Arab Muslims in 8th century. In 1210, the city was invaded and sacked by the army of Kingdom of Georgia under command of the brothers Mkhargrdzeli. The Old Gorgan was destroyed during the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, and the center of the region was moved to what was called Astarabad, Gurgan with its surrounding regions was sometimes considered as part of the Parthia or the Tabaristan regions. Astarabad was an important political and religious city during the Qajar dynasty, the wide Dasht-e Gorgan are located north of the city and geographically bounded by 37°00 - 37°30 north latitude and 54°00 - 54°30 east longitude, covering an area of about 1,700 square kilometres. Some 150 km east of Gorgan is the Golestan National Park, according to Köppen climate classification, Gorgan has a Cfa humid subtropical climate. In general, Golestan has a moderate and humid climate known as the moderate Caspian climate, as a result of the above factors, three different climates exist in the region, plain moderate, mountainous, and semi-arid. Gorgan valley has a semi-arid climate, the average annual temperature is 17.7 °C and the annual rainfall is 601 millimetres. The population of the city has been 329,536 as of 2011, majority of people of Gorgan speak Persian. A big portion of the city are migrants from nearby regions, including Mazanderanis, Azeris, people from Semnan and Khorasan provinces, as well as some Turkmens, and a small population of Kazakhs. Gorgani, a dialect of Mazanderani language, was spoken in the city, but it is extinct now. House of Karen, a feudal family first attested in the Arsacid era
24.
Sari, Iran
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Sari is the provincial capital of Mazandaran and former capital of Iran, located in the north of Iran, between the northern slopes of the Alborz Mountains and southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Sari is the largest and most populous city of Mazandaran, the Mazandaran Sea provides a beautiful coastline to the north of Sari, north-east of the city lies Neka. Qaemshahr is to its south-west, Juybar is to its north-west, and Kiasar, Damghan, excavations in the Hutto cave present evidence for the existence of settlements around Sari as far back as the 70th millennium BCE. The Muslim historian Hamdollah Mostowfi attributes the foundation of Sari to king Tahmoures Divband of the Pishdadian Dynasty, after that success, Fereydun of Pishdadi feeling indebted to Kaveh, chose this city so as to live near him until his death. For this reason, when Touraj and Salam murdered Iraj, they buried him here, espahbod Tous-e Nouzar systematically founded it to remain as family monument. Han Way, who visited Saruye in 1734, makes mention of four ancient Magian temples as still standing then, built in the form of several rotundas, each thirty feet in diameter, and about 120 in height. However Sir William Ouseley, who had travelled to the site in 1811, has speculated that these to be masses of masonry of the Mohammedan age. Out of four, one of the rotunda is still standing since the rest were overturned by an earthquake, in the seventh century, Farrukhan the Great of the Dabuyid dynasty reconstructed the city, and because his sons name was Sarouyeh, he called it by this name. Sari once again became the capital of Tabaristan during that century, after invasions by the successors of Mongols, Timur the Lame of Uzbeks, Turcoman, and Tatars the city lost its high status and was periodically burnt to ashes. Because Shah Abbas Is mother was from Behshahr, he founded Farahabad as his capital of Persia in the north of the city. Still many towns, villages and neighbourhoods in Mazandaran bear the name Gorji in them, after the Safavid dynasty fell and until the rise of Agha Mohammad Khan to power there, is no evidence of any notable events in Sari. Major developments took place after the Qajar dynasty, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the face of the town was changed drastically. Sari Rail Station and most of the streets and governmental buildings date from that era, during World War II the Soviet army occupied the city, but left it after the war. The Clock Tower, in the Clock Square located in downtown Sari, Sari also contains the tombs of the Muslim cleric leaders Yahya and Zayn Al-Abedin, Emamzade-ye Abbas, and Shazdeh Hussein the architecture of which are from the 15th century. The economy of Sari is based on food such as milled rice, dairy products, canned meat. Sari is a citrus fruits producer, especially oranges, tangerines. Oil seeds such as soybean and rape being cultivated in vast lands around villages for producing of vegetable ghee, during the 1950s to 1970s, a factory of MM company was the citys largest industrial complex and one of the countrys biggest vegetable oil producers. After the 1979 revolution, the company was nationalized but got bankrupt, other sources of the economy include, but are not limited to, paper, wood, fabrics and construction materials
25.
New Persian
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
26.
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
27.
Syr Darya
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The Syr Darya /ˌsɪərˈdɑːrjə/ is a river in Central Asia. It is the northern and eastern of the two rivers in the endorrheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya. The second part of the name river in Persian. The current name only from the 18th century. The earliest recorded name comes down to us as Jaxartes /ˌdʒæɡˈzɑːrtiːz/ or Iaxartes /ˌaɪ. əɡˈzɑːrtiːz/ in Ancient Greek and this name is recorded by several sources, including those relating to Alexander the Great kage the great. The Greek preserves the Old Persian name Yakhsha Arta, perhaps a reference to the color of its glacially-fed water, more evidence for the Persian etymology comes from its Turkic name up to the time of the Arab conquest, the Yinchu, or Pearl river. Following the Muslim conquest, the river appears in the sources uniformly as the Seyhun, the current local name of the river, Syr, does not appear before the 16th century. In the 17th century, Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan, historian and ruler of Khiva, calls the Aral Sea the Sea of Sïr and its annual flow is a very modest 37 cubic kilometres per year—half that of its sister river, the Amu Darya. Along its course, the Syr Darya irrigates the most productive cotton-growing region in the whole of Central Asia, together with the towns of Kokand, Khujand, Kyzylorda, various local governments throughout history have built and maintained an extensive system of canals. These canals are of importance in this arid region. Many fell into disuse in the 17th and early 18th century, massive expansion of irrigation canals in Middle and Lower Syr Darya during the Soviet period to water cotton and rice fields caused ecological damage to the area. The amount of water taken from the river was such that in some periods of the year, no water at all reaches the Aral Sea, similar to the Amu Darya situation in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. During the era of Alexander the Great, the Syr Darya marked the northernmost limit of Hellenic conquests and also the site of a famous battle, the Battle of Jaxartes. It was on the shores of the Syr Darya that Alexander placed a garrison in the City of Cyrus, for most of its history since at least the Muslim Conquest of Central Asia, the name of this city has been Khujand. In return, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan received Kazakh, Turkmen, and Uzbek coal, gas, after the fall of the Soviet Union this system disintegrated and the Central Asian nations have failed to reinstate it. Inadequate infrastructure, poor management, and outdated irrigation methods all exacerbate the issue. Britannica. com Livius. org, Jaxartes BBC News, Syn Darya in pictures
28.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
29.
Strabo
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Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus, Strabos life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus. He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, in 29 BC, on his way to Corinth, he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae and it is not known precisely when Strabos Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around 17 or 18 AD, the latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia, who is said to have died just recently. He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, on the presumption that recently means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next, when he died. The first of Strabos major works, Historical Sketches, written while he was in Rome, is completely lost. Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his life at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, Strabo was an admirer of Homers poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, despite Xenarchuss Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus. Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, the final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items, his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts, moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which he would not otherwise have known. Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica, which presented a history of people. Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its antiquity, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469, the first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice
30.
Karakum Desert
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The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara-Gum, is a desert in Central Asia. Its name means Black Sand in Turkic languages, in reference to the soil that lies beneath the sandy surface of much of the desert. It occupies about 70 percent, or 350,000 km², the population is sparse, with an average of one person per 6.5 km². Rainfall is also sparse, ranging from 70 to 150 mm per year, covering much of present-day Turkmenistan, the Karakum Desert lies east of the Caspian Sea, with the Aral Sea to the north and the Amu Darya river and the Kyzyl Kum desert to the northeast. In modern times, with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, although the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. Although the North Aral Sea is currently rising, the South Aral Sea is still dropping, the sands of the Aral Karakum are made up of a salt-marsh consisting of finely-dispersed evaporites and remnants of alkaline mineral deposits, washed into the basin from irrigated fields. The dust blown on a full east-west airstream carry pesticide residues that have found in the blood of penguins in Antarctica. Aral dust has also found in the glaciers of Greenland, the forests of Norway. The Karakum Desert is home to the Darvaza Gas Crater, 40°15′08. 40″N 58°26′23. 10″E The area has significant oil and natural gas deposits. To the south the Murghab and Tejen rivers flow out of the Hindu Kush Mountains, flow west, the desert is crossed by the second largest irrigation canal in the world, the Kara Kum Canal, which brings water from the Amu Darya to southern regions of the desert. Construction on the canal was started in 1954 and completed in 1958 and it is 1,375 km in length, and carries 13-20 km³ of water annually. Leakages from the canal have created lakes and ponds along the canal, within the Karakum are the Uly Balkan, a mountain range in which archaeologists have found human remains dating back to the Stone Age. The oases of Mary and Tejen are noted for cotton growing, the desert is crossed by the Trans-Caspian Railway. Kyzylkum Desert List of deserts by area Gonur Depe site in the Karakum Desert photos and about the Karakum Desert TravelBlog Darvasa Craters, Entrance to Hell
31.
Margiana
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Margiana bordered Parthia to the south-west, Aria in the south, Bactria in the east and Sogdia in the north. Historians currently disagree as to the history of Margiana prior to the Achaemenid conquest. Some have argued that a kingdom was established and an urban society had begun to develop surrounding the oasis and it has also been postulated the region existed as part of a major Iranian state centred in Chorasmia that controlled Aria, Sogdia, Parthia and Margiana. Other historians have noted that whilst advanced irrigation had begun in the 7th century BC and it has been also suggested that Margiana was part of the satrapy of Bactria under the Median Empire. Margiana was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great between 545 and 539 BC and remained as part of the satrapy of Bactria, Cyrus also founded the city of Merv. After Darius the Greats victory over the Magian usurper, Gaumata, in September 522 BC, the revolt in Margiana, led by a certain Phraates, was suppressed almost immediately, in December 521 BC by Dadarsi, the Satrap of Bactria. In the Aramaic version of the Behistun Inscription, it is claimed that 55,423 Margians were killed and 6,972 taken captive in the aftermath of the revolt. Margiana was separated from the satrapy of Bactria and joined to the satrapy of Aria at some point after the rule of Darius the Great, bessus fled north to Sogdia where he too was betrayed and was handed over to Alexander by his courtiers, Spitamenes and Datames. In July 329 BC, as Alexander founded the city of Alexandria Eschate on the border of Sogdia, Spitamenes led a revolt. In the spring of 328 BC, Alexander sent his general Craterus to fortify Margiana, disagreements between the generals led to another meeting and in the Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC, Philip was replaced as satrap of Bactria and Sogdia by Stasanor. During the Wars of the Diadochi, Stasanor remained neutral, however after the Babylonian War of 311-309 BC, in c.280 BC, Margiana was devastated by the nomadic Parni tribes and several cities were destroyed. Seleucus responded by sending his general Demodamas to repel the nomads, Margiana was successfully defended by Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria, against an invasion by the Parni in c. Margiana was conquered by the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia in c.170 BC. The defeat of the Yuezhi people in 175 BC caused many Yuezhi to flee westwards, displacing the Saka as a result, leading to a movement of Saka. In 53 BC,10,000 Roman prisoners captured by the Parthians after the Battle of Carrhae in Upper Mesopotamia were settled in Antiochia in Margiana, the Yuezhi went on to conquer the remaining Greek territories in Paropamisadae and establish the Kushan Empire. The Kushans returned to Margiana in the 1st century AD and helped the satrap Sanabares declare himself king who ruled from ca.50 AD to 65 AD. At the onset of the 3rd century AD, Margiana had been restored as a vassal of the Parthian Empire, but continued to exist as a virtually independent state. After Ardashir Is victory over the last Parthian king, Artabanus V, at the Battle of Hormozdgān in 224 AD, Margiana, ruled by a certain king Ardashir, submitted to Ardashir I and accepted vassalage
32.
Balkh
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Balkh was an ancient city and centre of Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif. It was one of the cities of Khorasan, since the latters earliest history. Marco Polo described Balkh as a noble and great city, the ancient city of Balkh was known to the Ancient Greeks as Bactra, giving its name to Bactria. It was mostly known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Tokharistan, Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery later known as Naubahar, french Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh, also offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala, elevated candle as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, the name of the province or country appears in Old Persian inscriptions as Bāxtri, i. e. Bakhtri. It is written in the Avesta as Bāxδi, from this came the intermediate form Bāxli, Sanskrit Bahlīka for Bactrian, and by transposition the modern Persian Balx, i. e. Balkh, and Armenian Bahl. Balkh is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from the North of Amu Darya, the Arabs called it Umm Al-Belaad or Mother of Cities due to its antiquity. The city was traditionally a center of Zoroastrianism, the name Zariaspa, which is either an alternate name for Balkh or a term for part of the city, may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp. Balkh was regarded as the place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, the changing climate has led to desertification since antiquity, when the region was very fertile. For a long time the city and country was the seat of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion. Armenian sources state that the Arsacid Dynasty of the Parthian Empire established its capital in Balkh, there is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder. Alexander the Great married Roxana of Bactria after killing the king of Balkh, the city was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire. Balkh town is well-known to Buddhist countries because of two great Buddhist monks of Afghanistan – Trapusa and Bahalika, there are two stupas over their relics. According to a legend, Buddhism was introduced in Balkh by Bhallika, disciple of Buddha. He was a merchant of the region and had come from Bodhgaya, in literature, Balkh has been described as Balhika, Valhika or Bahlika. First Vihara at Balkh was built for Bhallika when he returned home after becoming a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang visited Balkh in 630 when it was a flourishing centre of Hinayana Buddhism
33.
Daxia
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It is possible that Daxia, in part, conflated or confused Tokhara with the country of the Dahae, who were usually known in classical Chinese sources as the Dayi. Daxia is mentioned by, for instance, Chapter VIII of the Guanzi, having passed through the valleys of the Taihang and Bier, took captive the chief of the Da Xia. Further to the west, he subjugated the Xi Yu of Liusha, the reports of Zhang Qian are preserved in Shiji by Sima Qian in the 1st century BCE. They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, Daxia was an affluent country with rich markets, trading in an incredible variety of objects, coming as far as Southern China. By the time Zhang Qian visited Daxia, there were no longer a king, and the Bactrian were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi. Overall, Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war, all these states, he was told, were militarily weak and prized Han goods and wealth. These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese, initiating the development of the Silk Road
34.
Caspian Sea
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The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the worlds largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in a basin located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, the Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. In its northern part, the Caspian Depression lies 28 to 130 m below sea level, the sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1023 m below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal. The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness, the sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 and a volume of 78,200 km3. It has a salinity of approximately 1. 2%, about a third of the salinity of most seawater, the word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo wrote that to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea, but the tribe has now disappeared. Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Irans Tehran province, the Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Bahr al-Qazwin, in classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the دریای خزر, Daryā-e Khazar, ancient Arabic sources refer to it as Baḥr Gīlān meaning the Gilan Sea. Turkic languages refer to the lake as Khazar Sea, in Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňizi, in Azeri, it is Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it is Hazar denizi. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called Каспий теңізі, old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn or Khvalis Sea after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called Каспи́йское мо́ре, Kaspiyskoye more, the Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, Namak Lake, and Lake Urmia, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. Due to the current inflow of water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions, and is most saline on the Iranian shore. Currently, the salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earths oceans. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world, the coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct regions, the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian
35.
Daeva
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Daeva is an Avestan language term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon and this meaning is – subject to interpretation – perhaps also evident in the Old Persian daiva inscription of the 5th century BCE. In the Younger Avesta, the daevas are noxious creatures that promote chaos, in later tradition and folklore, the dēws are personifications of every imaginable evil. Equivalents for Avestan daeva in Iranian languages include Pashto, Balochi, Kurdish dêw, Persian dīv/deev, all of which apply to demons, monsters, the Iranian word was borrowed into Old Armenian as dew, Georgian as devi, with the same negative associations in those languages. In English, the word appears as daeva, div, deev, Old Avestan daēuua or daēva derives from Old Iranian *daiva, which in turn derives from Indo-Iranian *daivá- god, reflecting Proto-Indo-European *deiu̯ó with the same meaning. For derivatives in a European context, see Tyr, the Vedic Sanskrit cognate of Avestan daēuua is devá-, continuing in later Indo-Aryan languages as dev. The same is true of the inscription, where the daiva are the gods of rebels. The issue is related to the question of how Zoroasters own contribution to Iranian religion might be defined, while the progressive hypothesis gives Zoroaster credit for giving Iranian religion a moral and ethical dimension, it does not give Zoroaster credit for the development of the daevas into demons. It assumes that the development was gradual, and that a general distrust of the daevas already existed by the time the Gathas were composed, although with some points of comparison such as shared etymology, Indic devá- is thematically different from Avestan daēva. In the Rigveda, the devas are the angels of natural elements, in conflict with the asuras, although, asuras cant be compared to western world demons. There is no such division evident in the Zoroastrian texts, the use of asura in the Rigveda is unsystematic and inconsistent and it can hardly be said to confirm the existence of a category of gods opposed to the devas. Indeed, RigVedic deva is variously applied to most gods, including many of the asuras, likewise, at the oldest layer, Zoroastrianisms daevas are originally also gods, and it is only in the younger texts that the word evolved to refer to evil creatures. And the Zoroastrian ahuras are also only vaguely defined, and only three in number, the Gathas speak of the daevas as a group, and do not mention individual daevas by name. In these ancient texts, the term daevas occurs 19 times, wherein daevas are a category of quite genuine gods. In Yasna 32.3 and 46.1, the daevas are still worshipped by the Iranian peoples, Yasna 32.8 notes that some of the followers of Zoroaster had previously been followers of the daevas, though, the daevas are clearly identified with evil. In the Gathas, daevas are censured as being incapable of discerning truth from falsehood and they are consequently in error, but are never identified as drəguuaṇt- people of the lie. In Yasna 32.4, the daevas are revered by the Usij, described as a class of priests, devoid of goodness of mind and heart. Like the daevas that they follow, the Usij are known throughout the region of the earth as the offspring of aka mainyu, druj
36.
Xerxes I
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Xerxes I, called Xerxes the Great, was the fourth king of kings of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. He ruled from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC at the hands of Artabanus, Xerxes I is most likely the Persian king identified as Ahasuerus in the biblical Book of Esther. He is also notable in Western history for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Like his predecessor Darius I, he ruled the empire at its territorial apex and his forces temporarily overran mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until the losses at Salamis and Plataea a year later reversed these gains and ended the second invasion decisively. Xerxes was born to Darius I and Atossa, Darius and Atossa were both Achaemenids as they were both descendants of Achaemenes. While Darius was preparing for war against Greece, a revolt spurred in Egypt in 486 BC due to heavy taxes. Under Persian law, the king was required to choose a successor before setting out on dangerous expeditions, when Darius decided to leave, Darius prepared his tomb at Naqsh-e Rustam and appointed Xerxes, his eldest son by Atossa, as his successor. However, Darius could not lead the campaign due to his failing health, Xerxes was crowned and succeeded his father in October–December 486 BC when he was about 36 years old. Almost immediately, Xerxes crushed revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as satrap over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down the statue of Bel. This comes from the Daiva Inscriptions of Xerxes, lines 6-13, although Herodotus report in the Histories has created debate concerning Xerxess religious beliefs, modern scholars consider him a Zoroastrian. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxess first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax, in retaliation, Xerxes ordered the Hellespont whipped three hundred times, and had fetters thrown into the water. Xerxess second attempt to bridge the Hellespont was successful, many smaller Greek states, moreover, took the side of the Persians, especially Thessaly, Thebes and Argos. Xerxes was victorious during the initial battles, Xerxes set out in the spring of 480 BC from Sardis with a fleet and army which Herodotus estimated was roughly one million strong along with 10,000 elite warriors named the Persian Immortals. More recent estimates place the Persian force at around 60,000 combatants, at the Battle of Thermopylae, a small force of Greek warriors led by King Leonidas of Sparta resisted the much larger Persian forces, but were ultimately defeated. According to Herodotus, the Persians broke the Spartan phalanx after a Greek man called Ephialtes betrayed his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. At Artemisium, large storms had destroyed ships from the Greek side and so the battle stopped prematurely as the Greeks received news of the defeat at Thermopylae, most of the Athenians had abandoned the city and fled to the island of Salamis before Xerxes arrived. A small group attempted to defend the Athenian Acropolis, but they were defeated, Xerxes burnt the city, leaving an archaeologically attested destruction layer, known as the Perserschutt
37.
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
38.
Saka
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The Saka or Saca was the term used in Persian and Sanskrit sources for the Scythians, a large group of Eastern Iranian nomadic tribes on the Eurasian Steppe. Modern scholars usually use the term Saka to refer to Iranians of the Eastern Steppe, rené Grousset wrote that they formed a particular branch of the Scytho-Sarmatian family originating from nomadic Iranian peoples of the northwestern steppe in Eurasia. They migrated into Sogdiana and Bactria in Central Asia and then to the northwest of the Indian subcontinent where they were known as the Indo-Scythians, modern debate about the identity of the Saka is partly from ambiguous usage of the word by ancient, non-Saka authorities. According to Herodotus, the Persians gave the name Saka to all Scythians, however, Pliny the Elder claims that the Persians gave the name Sakai only to the Scythian tribes nearest to them. The Scythians to the far north of Assyria were also called the Saka suni by the Persians, the Assyrians, of the time of Esarhaddon, record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza. However, modern consensus is that the Saka language, ancestor to the Pamir languages in northern India and Khotanese in Xinjiang. Another people, the Gimirrai, who were known to the ancient Greeks as the Cimmerians, were associated with the Sakas. In ancient Hebrew texts, the Ashkuz are considered to be an offshoot from the Gimirri. The Saka were regarded by the Babylonians as synonymous with the Gimirrai, the Sakā paradraya were the western Scythians or Sarmatians. Both the Sakā tigraxaudā and Sakā haumavargā are thought to be located in Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea, Sakā haumavargā is considered to be the same as Amyrgians, the Saka tribe in closest proximity to Bactria and Sogdiana. In the modern era, the archaeologist Hugo Winckler was the first to associate the Sakas with the Scyths, J. M. Sakā and Skuthai evidently constituted a generic name for the nomads on the northern frontiers. Persian sources often treat them as a tribe called the Saka. Modern scholars usually use the term Saka to refer to Iranian-speaking tribes who inhabited the Eastern Steppe, the Saka people were an Iranian people who spoke a language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. They are known to the ancient Greeks as Scythians and are attested in historical and archaeological records dating to around the 8th century BC. In the Achaemenid-era Old Persian inscriptions found at Persepolis, dated to the reign of Darius I, likewise an inscription dated to the reign of Xerxes I has them coupled with the Dahae people of Central Asia. The contemporary Greek historian Herodotus noted that the Achaemenid Persians called all of the Iranian Scythian peoples as the Saka. According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great confronted the Massagetae, a related to the Saka. Darius the Great also waged wars against the eastern Sakas, who fought him with three armies led by three kings according to Polyaenus, in 520–519 BC, Darius I defeated the Sakā tigraxaudā tribe and captured their king Skunkha
