Was there a Persian Empire?

Historiography is a science and not the baseless musings of individuals...  as a science it has established theory based on facts and thus conventional wisdom on issues, such as "Medes were Iranic; there was a Persian Empire".   In your case, you are questioning whether the Persian empire existed at all and in your amateurish excitement you have neglected some glaring historical facts such as Darius' proclamation at Naghshe Rostam and others which Cyrus has so kindly brought to your attention (yet with no apparent effect which justifies the reallocation of this thread to the loony bin of AE).

effectively an eastern extension of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia—may have reached sufficient population densities to have swamped any genetic contribution from a small number of immigrating Indo-Iranians. If so, this may have been a case of language replacement through the ‘‘elite-dominance’’ model.

Well, duh.  Nomadic Persian tribes came to Western Iran from CA (not South Afghanistan) encroached on the existing civlisations (Elamite, etc) and over the course of a couple of centuries supplanted them adopting and amalgamating the sedentary culture with their own nomadic culture, as was the case with the Iranic Mada further to the North of Iran.  

PS: I moved it, as is my prerogative, because you are questioning whether the Persian empire existed. 




Edited by Zagros - 01-Aug-2008 at 18:10

Originally posted by norsken Yes. They claim that. But they do not show any evidence to support it. Can you show any sources that make these claims? Persians were actually similar to Japanese. They adopted anything which was technologically advance from any other people. Armaic was their Empire language.

Yes, Strabo in his Geography (15.8), he said that Persian, Medean and Soghdian were practically the same language with simple accent or dialectal differences.  He lived around 1AD but I suppose you know better than him since you have a time machine that is why no one can question what you say.  Maybe you should climb back in and check your facts because your head's in the sand on this one.

This confirms that Medes were not central  asians.

Even if you are to use the unreliable and flawed genetic line of argument, it does nothing of the sort since in NW Iran there is still a substantial % of M17 (R1a) which one can attribute to Medes.  And what proof is there that Indo Aryans predominantly bore R1a?  Why not R1b?  Well either way, your theory is debunked both by genetics and historical accounts. 

The red here is R1a and R1b, R1b is a third of R1a in NW Iran:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/1547718128_6898ed0025.jpg?v=0

This proves that Medes were a ruling Iranic elite from CA. 


Edited by Zagros - 01-Aug-2008 at 21:44

Originally posted by Zagros This confirms that Medes were not central  asians. Even if you are to use the unreliable and flawed genetic line of argument, it does nothing of the sort since in NW Iran there is still a substantial % of M17 (R1a) which one can attribute to Medes.  And what proof is there that Indo Aryans predominantly bore R1a?  Why not R1b?  Well either way, your theory is debunked both by genetics and historical accounts.  The red here is R1a and R1b, R1b is a third of R1a in NW Iran: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/1547718128_6898ed0025.jpg?v=0 This proves that Medes were Iranics from CA.  How do you like that?

So Azeri Turks have become Medes too!!!!!

This is similar to Azeri Turks claim they have the same genes as Persians. Sorry there is no Persian Genes because there is no Persian race.

Of course there was a Persian Empire, one of it's first descriptive history being in the Book of Esther - written before the Greeks landed in Arabia, in the Hebrew language. The Persian King Darius gave favour to the Jews after the Babylon destruction of King Solomon's temple, and allowed them to re-build it. It was later again destroyed by Rome in 70 CE. The Persians followed Zoroashtra as their diety, and was later Islamized after a series of wars. The Persian race is not Arab, but Islamic today.

[edit]

Edited by Aeolus - 30-Sep-2008 at 08:52

It seems like you are mixing up the notion of the Iranic world (Indo-Iranians) with the Persian Empire.

Originally posted by Carpathian Wolf Christianity didn't come from Zorastrianism. One is dualistic the other is not.

Joseph stop that please. There was no Greek conspiracy against Jews. 

Wow, what a thread! Some where above some one wrote these words;

"effectively an eastern extension of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia—may have reached sufficient population densities to have swamped any genetic contribution from a small number of immigrating Indo-Iranians. If so, this may have been a case of language replacement through the ‘‘elite-dominance’’ model."

I would tend to side with the last remarks of the above paragraph, I.e. "this may have been a case of language replacement through the ‘‘elite-dominance’’ model."

I would even compare it to the so called Romantic languages now so prevalent in Europe! In this case scholars have presumed that these so called "Romantic" languages are the successors to the original Latin language, or something very close! That is, they consider most of them to be but evolutionary or regressive versions of pure Latin! Note, I offered two possibilities!

Thus, if a small but highly organized group from Afganistan actually made great inroads into what is now Iran, and eventually established a dynasty, and it found it more agreeable to assume the language of the native population, rather than change it, which is a very difficult and dangerous task, then they merely let things continue to "continue" in the common and well developed language of the area thus conquered. Certainly some words were continued, and especially maybe among the elite!

So, maybe a minority group actually conquered the native Iranic peoples, and being rather ahead of their times, merely absorbed the language of the masses rather than attempt a major change in attitude by those so conquered? Along with potentially dangerous consequences?

Regards,