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Ancient Persia

Artaxerxes I

History of Iran: Artaxerxes I Artaxerxes (ArtÃ-khshatra) Ardashir-e DerÃ-z-Dast. The first Artaxerxes (465 - 425 BCE), among all the kings of Persia (Achaemanian Empire) the most remarkable for a gentle and noble spirit, was surnamed the Long-handed, his right hand being longer than his left, and was the son of Xerxes. The second, whose story I am...

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Alexander the Great

He was king of Macedonia and one of the greatest generals in history... He conquered much of what was then the civilized world. Alexander brought Greek ideas and the Greek way of doing things to all the countries he conquered. This great general and king made possible the broadly developed culture of the Hellenistic Age....

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Palace of Cyrus Stone Relief

Stone relief from doorway of Cyrus' palace at Pasargadae A winged figure, probably a protective spirit of the royal household. The crown resembles a Near Eastern figure that wards off evil spirits....

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Soldiers from the Ten Thousand Immortals

Glazed tile relief showing soldiers from the Ten Thousand Immortals. This imperial guard was an elite force made up of trustworthy ethnic Persians. From the Achaemenid winter palace at Susa, Elam. 520-500 B.C. (Paris: Louvre)...

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The Medes

During the second millennia B.C., successive Indo-European (Aryan) invaders broke through into the Iranian plateau, either from the Caucasus, or through Central Asia. Those who settled in Iran were divided into tribes that were distinguished from each other by their different dialects. The most famous of these tribes were the Persians (Parsa), and ...

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Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia

The British Museum. Magnificent palaces, glittering gold life-like carvings: the wealth and power of ancient Persia "" modern Iran is legendary. Two thousand years ago, this vast and powerful empire stretched from the Mediterranean to the River Indus. Great kings created the breathtaking cities of Persepolis, Susa and Pasargadae, which now lie in r...

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Cyrus Takes Babylon (530 BCE): Cyrus Cylinder

In October 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus took Babylon, the ancient capital of an oriental empire covering modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In a broader sense, Babylon was the ancient world's capital of scholarship and science. The subject provinces soon recognized Cyrus as their legitimate ruler. Since he was already lord of peripheral re...

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Persian Art Through the Centuries

The long prehistoric period in Iran, is known to us mostly from excavation work carried out in a few key sites, which has led to a chronology of distinct periods, each one characterised by the development of certain types of pottery, artefacts and architecture. Pottery is one of the oldest Persian art forms, and examples have been unearthed from bu...

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Epic Literature of Ancient Iran

The most significant literary heritage of ancient Iran, however, is the heroic poetry which eventually evolved into the Iranian national epic. The core of this poetry belongs to a heroic age of remote antiquity, that of the Kayanians. Under this dynasty, whose history is wrapped in legend, the ancestors of the Avestan people offered worship and sac...

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Ancient Persia Geography

Persia was a land that included parts of what are now Iran and Afghanistan. The map above shows the Achaemenid Empire at its peak in 500BC. It was the center of an empire that stretched west to the central Mediterranean Sea, east to India, and from the Gulf of Oman in the southern Russia in the north. Persia is one of the world's most mountainous c...

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