We now arrive at a period in the life of the Iranians which is the beginning of the heroic age, and that which caused the Iranians to decide to adopt the heroic way of life was the invasion of foreign tribes. At that time, the land of Iran was composed of a number of nomads (but Iranian nomads) who had moved from one point of Iran to another and, in their new settlements, created a new civilisation that differed somewhat from the civilisation of Sialk. In the civilisation of Sialk (near present-day Kashan), pottery-making, metalworking, and the domestication of animals existed, but weaving did not exist; and as we have seen, weaving came from Giyan, which was a city near present-day Nahavand. After the Iranians migrated to Zabulistan and then to Khorasan and afterwards to the southeastern and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea, the recognition of useful plants, the […]
The Eternal Landسرزمین جاوید
“The Eternal Land” is an expansive narrative of ancient Iran that, in a storytelling prose, traces a blend of myth and history from the eras of the Pishdadians and Kayanids up to the rise of the Achaemenids. Its well-known Persian version is by Zabihollah Mansouri, who, rather than a word-for-word translation, rewrote the account based on the works of Iranologists such as Roman Ghirshman, Marijan Molé, and Ernst Herzfeld. The result is a compelling, readable work with vivid descriptions of rituals, wars, kings, and historical geography—an engaging introduction to the world of ancient Iran for a general audience.
«سرزمینِ جاوید» روایتِ بلندبالایی از ایرانِ باستان است که با نثرِ داستانگو، آمیزهای از اسطوره و تاریخ را از روزگاران پیشدادیان و کیانیان تا شکلگیریِ هخامنشیان دنبال میکند؛ متنِ فارسیِ مشهورش به قلمِ ذبیحالله منصوری است که بهجای ترجمهٔ لفظبهلفظ، بر پایهٔ نوشتههای ایرانشناسانی چون رومن گیرشمن، ماریژان موله و ارنست هرتسفلد، روایت را بازنویسی کرده است. نتیجه، اثری پرکشش و خواندنی با توصیفهای تصویری از آیینها، جنگها، پادشاهان و جغرافیای تاریخی است که برای آشنایی عمومی با فضای ایرانِ کهن جذاب است.
Continue reading The Eternal Landادامه مطالعه سرزمین جاوید
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part IV)
Sails of the Caspian — Guided by Stars
Rudab encouraged other women to build skiffs, and they too learned from the queen of Iran the craft of making skiffs and then small boats, and they put out to sea in their own skiffs. Iranian women learned the art of seafaring on a sea that in ancient times was one of the stormiest lakes in the world, and even now the Caspian Sea is the stormiest lake in the world. Because they constantly sailed on a sea with great waves, they gained insight into seamanship. They realized that, along the Caspian coast, the dangerous zone is the zone connected to the shore; if they avoided sailing there and kept a little distance from it—and thus from the land—the water would be without turbulence and one could sail with ease. They were also the ones who understood that, for seafaring on the Caspian, the most dangerous areas are river mouths; […]
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part III)
Rud II and the idea of worshiping God
Another outstanding event that occurred in the time of Rud II—and was more important than the foregoing events—was the emergence of the idea of worshiping God, and Rud II was the originator of that idea.1 What led Rud II to think of worshiping God was that she became more knowledgeable than her forebears and descendants about astronomy and realized that the stars in the sky have orderly motions and that their movements obey a specific law. Up to that time the Iranians worshiped the sun and—as we have said—attributed everything to the sun. But Rud II told her people that there is something that brought the sun into being, and that is “Mard,” and the Creator of the sun and the earth and the stars is “Mard,” and Mard has will; he was, is, and will be; and all must obey Mard—and Mard means God.2 The words “fard—mart—mazd (with z)—mardā—mazdā” […]
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part II)
Rud II and the Birth of Persian Perfumery
The Turanians stayed in Zabolestan until they had eaten everything there was and destroyed whatever they could—out of ignorance and merely for a moment’s amusement. Then they were struck by famine and resolved to head west to plunder the Iranian cities in that direction; but winter overtook them, and they realized that if they went west or north they would die of cold, and the land of Turan had no provisions for them to return home. They were forced to remain in Zabolestan and, from extreme hunger, began eating the animals they had slaughtered; by carrion-eating they fell ill and, one after another, perished in the fertile land of Zabolestan. The Turanians in Zabolestan died of hunger and disease, but Rud, the Iran-ban, and his family, and the Iranians who had migrated with him to Zabolestan, did not soon return there for fear of the savage Turanians. In the region […]
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part I)
Iraninan Immigration to the mountains
The new capital of Iran was preferable to Sialk in every respect, except that it lay on the path of the Turanians. The inhabitants by Lake “Hamun,” when they realized that the Iran-ban was moving the capital to their land, were very pleased and regarded that event as one of the sun’s blessings, and they gained confidence that once the Iran-ban had moved to the shores of Lake Hamun, he would prevent Turanian incursions. When the capital of Iran was transferred to the shore of Lake Hamun, the Iranians’ civilization had solidified, and the nation of Iran, in the true sense of the word, counted as a civilized nation; for in addition to living in cities, they smelted metal, farmed, raised domestic animals, and wove cloth. But to the east of Iran’s capital lived the Turanians, who were neither inclined to agriculture and animal husbandry, nor did they work metal, […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part XII)
Iranian migration to the shores of Lake Hamun
The Iran-ban’s husband beheld a vast lake and saw that forests surrounded it, and that along part of its shores people were sowing wheat. Zab, who had lost Iran’s primordial paradise, when he saw that great lake and the forests, realized he had once more found a paradise; he thought he should not live in the city of Sialk and that it would be better to move his dwelling from Sialk to the shore of that lake. Zab’s state of mind at that time was like that of a man in our own age who had been wealthy, lost his wealth, then spent a long period in poverty, and at last, through some turn of fortune, becomes prosperous again. Such a person, the second time, knows the value of wealth and will neither waste it nor let it slip away, for the long season of want has taught him to […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part XI)
Cattle Riders of the South
The inhabitants of the southern cities of Iran, distressed by the Turanians’ repeated raids, sought counsel from the Iran-ban, who was the wisest and most intelligent Iranian, and the Iran-ban sent her husband, Zab, to southern Iran. Zab, who had not gone south for some time and was unaware of conditions there, saw noteworthy things when he arrived. Among them, he observed that people rode oxen just as the people of the north rode horses; and he also saw in southern Iran two kinds of crops that did not exist in the north, both of which the southerners counted as “gāv” (“cow”), because the cattle ate those two crops and thus led people toward them. One of the two was a small grain still known in southern and eastern Iran as “gāv-dāneh” (gāvars, i.e., millet). The other was a kernel resembling wheat but slimmer and longer, which people also called […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part X)
The first type of commodity-to-commodity trade
Rud’s father—whom we know was a potter and also a coppersmith—and his apprentices (that is, the inhabitants of Sialk, who had copper-smelting furnaces in their homes) brought into the world something now known as “commerce.” Until the day Rud’s father and the other inhabitants of Sialk created industry, trade had no meaning in Iran, because each person, with each family, could meet their own needs. No one possessed something that another lacked and thus felt a need for. But after coppersmithing expanded in Sialk and the people there became specialists in making all kinds of tools and various vessels from copper, the inhabitants of Iran’s cities needed the people of Sialk to obtain copper tools and utensils. They brought sheep and horses, purchased the copper tools and vessels from the people of that city, and took them away; and thus “trade” came into being. Copper tools and vessels became so […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part IX)
Making a copper pot in Sialk
After Rud the Second and her husband Tam went to the city of Giyan (near present-day Nahavand), a chronic and unprecedented ailment appeared in Sialk: severe intestinal pain accompanied by diarrhea and fever. Rud could not understand what the illness was or how it should be treated. Those who contracted it would recover, and only rarely did anyone die; but they would become afflicted with the same illness again and suffer intensely from abdominal pain. However, after some time had passed, the disease grew more severe, and a number of the afflicted perished; their bodies were taken to the hill called “Gom” and placed there until the corpses decayed and disappeared. In other cities of Iran people also sometimes caught the disease and died, but in Sialk the number of cases was higher and the death rate greater. The dangerous illness spread in Sialk to such a degree that some […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part VIII)
Making a sickle from copper
Once it was understood that copper could be used to reap wheat, all the inhabitants of Sialk wanted copper and asked the potter to smelt it for them. Tam, who wished to marry Rud the Second, said, “I will not leave Sialk without copper; I must take some to Giyan so that the people there, too, can reap their fields with copper.” From the next day, the city of Sialk turned into an industrial town, for the potter could not quickly meet the people’s demand for copper. So everyone set out, brought ore-stone of copper, kindled a great fire, smelted the copper, and flattened what they obtained beneath heavy stones, producing sharp-edged tools. Gradually people realized the copper’s edge could be made even sharper, and they discovered that part of a copper sheet could be curled by blows of granite so that it would be easy to hold. Thereafter the […]