Midway between Mesopotamia and India, the meeting- ground of Semitic and Aryan influence, the cradle of a great religion which, in either of its modified forms of Mithraism or Manichaeism, might easily have become that of the Western world of today, Iran — Persia — has for three millennia been a meeting-place of peoples and a battleground of civilizations.
Its prehistory, now being uncovered by the efforts of Western and of Russian scholars, has not hitherto been exhaustively and competently dealt with between the covers of a single volume in a way that will appeal to the general reader. Professor Ghirshman, who has spent many years in field research in Persia, here outlines its story from the earliest times until the great wars in which over centuries the Persian Empire tried its strength with Greece and Rome, leaving the issue undecided until its unique Iranian civilization was reshaped and transformed by the Islamic conquest.
Author(s): Roman Ghirshman
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 1954
Language: English
Pages: 368
City: London
List of Plates, 10
List of Text Figures, 14
Editorial Foreword, 17
Introduction. The Physical Aspect of Iran, 21
1. Prehistory, 27
—Cave Man, 27
—The First Settlers on the Plain, 28
—The Prehistoric Civilization of Iran in the Fourth Millennium B.C., 32
—Iran at the Beginning of the Third Millennium B.C., 45
—Iran in the Third Millennium B.C., 50
—Iran in the Second Millennium B.C., 60
—Elam, 63
—The Kassites, 64
2. The Coming of the Iranians, 73
—The Immigration of the Medes and Persians, 73
—The Formation of Median Unity, 90
—Cimmerians and Scythians, 96
—The Median Kingdom, 98
—The Luristan Bronzes, 99
—Cyaxares, 106
—The Treasure of Sakiz, 106
—The Median Kingdom, 112
—Elam and the Persians — The Rise of the Achaemenians, 118
3. East Against West, 127
—The Achaemenian Empire, 127
—Cyrus(559–530), 128
——The Fall of Babylon 131
——Pasargadae, 134
—Cambyses (530–522), 136
—Darius (522–486), 139
——Administration, 142
——The Campaigns of Darius, 146
——The Political and Administrative Achievement of Darius, 152
——Religion, 155
——Language and Writing, 163
——Art, 164
——Economic and Social Life, 181
4. The Later Achaemenians, 189
—The Successors of Darius, 189
—Xerxes, 190
—Artaxerxes I, 194
—Darius II, 196
—Artaxerxes II, 197
—Artaxerxes III, 201
5. West Against East and the Reaction of the Orient, 206
—End of the Achaemenian Empire. Alexander the Great, 206
—The Seleucids, 219
—Art, 232
—Economic and Social Life, 237
6. The Parthians, 243
—The Parthians and the East, 260
—Organization and Administration, 262
—Parthians and Greeks, 266
—Religion, 268
—Urban Development, Architecture and Art, 272
—Economic and Social Life, 282
7. The Expansion of Iranian Civilization, 289
—The Sassanians, 289
——Organization, Administration, Army, 309
——Religion, 314
——Arts, Letters, Sciences, 318
——Economic and Social Life, 341
Conclusion, 350
Selected Bibliography, 353
Index, 360
