Early Civilization

The mind alive encyclopedia

The Mind Alive Encyclopedia

The history of modern times will be documented in minute detail in print, on film, on tapes and in computer records. Early history is different: our distant past, like a richly coloured mosaic, must be pieced together by archaeologists and scholars from surviving written records and the products of years of painstaking excavation. Many of the fragments of the picture are missing. New facts constantly come to light.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Magic and fire worship


Magic and fire worship

The empire was self-sufficient not only in timber but also in metals, particularly copper, iron and silver. Large quantities of stone, quarried in the mountains of Elam (north of the Persian Gulf), provided the material to build the royal capitals. Shipwrights constructed Persian vessels of up to 200 tons that could sail up to 80 nautical miles a day. These plied up and down the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Achaemenian kings developed Persia’s ports and regulated shipping. Captains had to carry ships’ documents, and sailors were given ranks that corresponded with their skill.
The gaiety of the great New Year festival at Persepolis, however,
comes through even the stylized frieze, long rows of Medes, in
round head - dresses, and Persians, in fluted ones, some carrying
lotus - flowers, are holding hands or touching each other's
shoulders in a friendly fashion.But the great feature of that
festival was the arrival of delegations from all the 28 subject
nations to pay homage to the king. 

Persia rose to political supremacy before it developed its own distinctive art. At first the Persians borrowed and skilfully adapted the arts of other peoples particularly the Babylonians and Greeks. Later, in Persepolis and other royal cities, they developed a Persian style of architecture — sculpture favouring particularly the use of columns. They painted this stonework in bright colours. The Persians borrowed the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing of the Babylonians and improved it for their own use. This particular writing (which did not survive the Achaemenian dynasty) is recorded in a historically important document carved on the inaccessible Rock of Behistun (near present-day Kermanshah). This document shows Darius standing before defeated rebel chiefs and traitors. Ahura-Mazda, god of the Achaemenian family, dominates the scene.
The Persian religion in Darius’ time was a complex amalgamation of Babylonian and Aryan beliefs, together with earlier, local cults. The Magi (from whom the word magic comes) were a sect of priests who practised magic rites and ceremonies. They were probably Median rather than Persian in origin, and became important for a while when Gaumata usurped the throne of Cambyses. They declined in influence under the Achaemenian kings whose own god, Ahura-Mazda, is quoted and portrayed in practically every document and sculpture that has survived the Achaemenian period. As Darius was king of kings, so the winged Ahura-Mazda was gods of gods, and was worshipped as ‘protector of the just king’.
 
Up the great Staircase to the Audience Hall of Darius
I troop for ever tribute bearers bringing animals and
gold - though now the palace is ruined and weeds
grow on the stairs. 
Towards the end of his reign, Darius was increasingly preoccupied with campaigns against the Greeks. After his death in 486 BC his successors became embroiled in wars with Greece for more than 150 years. Alexander of Macedon finally defeated Darius III, the last Achaemenian king, in 330 BC. Darius III was killed by one of his own generals, the Achaemenians disappeared from history, and the Persian domains became part of Alexander’s empire. A year before the final defeat, Alexander committed an act of vandalism uncharacteristic of him. Having taken Persepolis, he destroyed its magnificent palaces by fire. Only. the stones endured to remind future generations of the glory of the Achaemenians the kings of kings.

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