History in brief
The cultural history of the Iranian plateau dawns some ten to twelve thousand years ago with the gradual change from hunting-gathering mode of life to a settled one which heralded in the age of agriculture in the Zagros hills of western Iran where early Neolithic Age clay figurines and pottery appear illustrating the genius and artistry of the inhabitants of the land.
The first people of the plateau to have a distinct culture, language and religion were the Elamites 4500-640 BC. Their advanced culture, distinct from those of the Sumerians and Babylonians of Mesopotamia, was marked by achievements in architecture and town planning, metal work and jewelry, artistic creations, trade and above all the art of hand writing, known as proto-Elamite used in the 4th millennium BC.
The Indo-European Aryans or Iranians arrived on the plateau mainly during the second millennium BC. It is generally recognized that the Iranians arrived via the northeast and northwest. The Medes appeared on the historical scene around the 9th century BC and established an empire that probably covered most of the area of modern Iran. The Medes in alliance with the Babylonians sacked and destroyed Nineveh, capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire which had ended 23 centuries of Elamite monarchy, and extended their territory into northern Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia. Closely allied to the Medes in the upper echelons of their army and administration was another confederation of tribes from the same Iranian stock: the Persians.
The first great development of ancient Iran took place during the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great who deposed the last Median king in 550 BC and rapidly established a vast empire, which he ruled from his capital of Pasargadae, by incorporating the former realms of Persia, Elam, Anatolia and Babylonia.
“O Man,
Whoever Thou Art,
And Wheresoever Thou Cometh,
For I Know Thou Wilt Come:
I Am Cyrus,
Who Founded the Empire of the Persians.
Grudge Me Not, Therefore,
This little Earth That Covers My Body.”
Cambyses II annexed Egypt, and Darius, the greatest Achaemenid Emperor after Cyrus, extended the boundaries further still by stretching the borders to the Indus in the east and northern Greece in the west, thus creating the world's largest ancient empire.
Darius was in the mould of Cyrus, a powerful personality and a dynamic ruler. During the first two years of his reign, he fought nineteen battles and suppressed all rebellions. He recorded his victory in a gigantic bas-relief cut on a high cliff at Bisotun, in western Iran. Darius united and reshaped the nation, organized a highly efficient army and an administrative system, conquered and governed territories through satrapies held to Persia by means of an unmatched communication network of roads. He also undertook the construction of the precursor to the Suez Canal.
The most important administrative center under Darius was at Susa where polychrome glazed brick panels decorated his famous Apadana Palace.
After the Hellenistic and Parthian interlude, the Sassanids saw themselves as successors to the Achaemenids, and perceived it as their role to restore the greatness of Iran by securing military supremacy over the Romans and extending the Persian Empire almost to its Achaemenid limits. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Moslem conquest.
Under Sassanid rule a revival of Iranian nationalism took place, and Zoroastrianism became the state religion.
The Zoroastrian religion explained that the world was ruled by two principles, Good and Evil – the first being Ahuramazda, the second a malevolent spirit, Ahriman, and that the struggle between Good and Evil was to end in the victory of Good.
The splendor in which the Sassanid monarchs lived is well illustrated by their surviving relics, bas-reliefs and palaces such as those at Taq-e Bostan in Kermanshah, Naqsh-e Rostam, Firuzabad and Bishapur in Fars, and the capital city of Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia.
The Moslem conquest of Persia gave birth to an era of innovation that had its roots in the pre-Islamic period. Arts and architecture received new impetus from the wish to create things novel yet Persian in essence. The mosque was built on plans similar to those of Sassanid palaces or temples; representational art gradually crept in following a two century lull; and Persian literature was revived with great zeal. The 8th century Tarikhaneh mosque near Damghan, and the Shahnameh, the epic masterpiece of the Persian language, were but a few products of this new age.
Persian visual arts flourished on an unprecedented scale in the 9th to 14th centuries culminating in the production of some of the world's finest luster and underglazed pottery and ceramics in centers such as Kashan and Neishabur. Miniature painting also reached its zenith in this period illustrating a wide range of manuscripts from the Qur'an to books of poetry. Metalwork and Textile traditions of the Sassanids were also revived each emulating their levels of excellence. The covered Bazaar formed to facilitate domestic as well as international trade with elements such as the caravanserai dominating.
