Persepolis

In previous postings I have outlined that the real origin of the three current monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (another one is Manichaeism of antiquity, which has vanished), most probably lies in Zoroastrian Persia of the 6th and 5th century BCE. Eurocentric humanists have always looked at the Greek achievements during that time with great admiration. It was a time of tremendous development of Science, Philosophy, and Art. In the East, Siddharta Gautama Buddha (ca. 563-483 BCE) abandoned his earthly body and entered Parinirvana, and Confucius taught his philosophy in China.

However, it was the dynasty of the Achaemenids who, during these years, erected their true World Empire. While seated mainly in the province of Fars in southern Iran, they tried to secure the periphery of the then known world by relative tolerance in religious matters and several military campaigns towards Egypt, Greece, the Scythians, and India. Their main capital was Pārsa, and the Hellenistic World called it Persepolis. It is said that Persepolis was the most beautiful city of the world, Built by Darius the Great in about 515 BCE, it was looted in 330 by Alexander’s troops and later burnt, most probably in revenge for the destruction of the Acropolis of Athens by Xerxes about 150 years earlier. That was the end of the Achaemenian Empire. But Persian History went on, of course.























There was recently considerable concern with regard to plans of the Iranian Government to build a dam between the historical sites of Parsagadae and Persepolis which might result in flooding especially parts of the former. Construction of the dam has already commenced.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the ...
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine...
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even ...
Read more