Posted on 01/08/2020 1:54:01 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
A world of ancient mystery is located in Iran, with some sites dating back over 7,000 years, far before the civilization of the Persian Empire and its capital, Persepolis. This archaeological site is the number one tourist destination in the country, and with good reason. Culture Trip takes a look into why this forgotten empire is one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world.
Persepolis is no doubt the main attraction that lures tourists to Iran. Located about 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) outside of the modern city of Shiraz, these ancient ruins served as the capital of the Persian Empire, which spanned across Northern Africa, India, and southern Europe at the height of its power between 500 and 350 BC. Referred to locally as Takht-e Jamshid and established by King Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC and finished by his son Cambyses II and grandson Darius over the course of 150 years, Persepolis means “city of Persians.” The architecture was to be indicative of its supremacy; therefore, buildings such as the Imperial Treasury, Apadana Palace, and others were constructed. It was so great, in fact, that its splendor continues to act as a model for present-day architecture, as seen in Kish Island’s Darius Grand Hotel and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran.
Today, however, Persepolis is a mere shadow of its former self. The grand staircases and remaining colonnades of Tachara Palace (the oldest palace) are among the most intact parts. The Hall of 100 Columns once stood with towering wooden pillars, but the only evidence of them which remains at present is the stone bases. The most complete remnants are on display in several museums throughout Europe and North America, but as valuable as their insight may be, they can’t begin to capture the magnitude or surreal feeling that one gets by actually walking on these ancient grounds and becoming part of the past.
Bas-reliefs are among the highlights of this archaeological wonder. Lotus flowers and cypress trees frequently appear throughout the site. Other notable carvings represent nobles, dignitaries, and envoys of Ethiopian, Tajik, Indian, Egyptian, and Armenian nationalities, among others, who visited the capital bearing tributes for the King of Kings. Every detail of their face, hair, curly beards, and clothes is both mind-boggling and connected to the present in appearance.
Persepolis is not only a symbol of Iran, but its significance and grandeur are embedded in the psyche of Iranian people today. For this population, it’s not just ruins of a forgotten empire. It’s the place where the Cyrus Cylinder, the first charter of human rights that expressed tolerance and equality for all religions, races, and languages, was recorded. (It is now in the British Museum). Despite the negative attention Iran receives in mass media, Persepolis continues to act as a reminder of one of the most powerful empires and is a source of pride for Iranians who remember that they are descendants of these past great leaders and this most civil of ancient civilizations. You could even say that it serves as an aspiration for Iran to once again become a model society and rise to the top.
To Herodotus and other Greeks of that period, a barbarian was anyone who did not speak Greek. So even civilized peoples could count as barbarians. It’s thought that the term came from the foreign language sounding like nonsense syllables to a Greek: “bar-bar-bar-bar.”
True; I have Akkadian and Assyrian dictionaries, but my Sumerian is strictly a phonetic rendering {for example: http://sumerian.org/sumerian.pdf} IIRC Sumerian is NOT Semitic, not pre-Semitic; although perhaps related to the Akkadian and Assyrian - my memory is foggy.
***Samuel Noah Kramer noted that the names for the major rivers and even the cities in Sumer didn’t have Sumerian names***
I feel a little bit sheepish, but Kramer and I had a bone of contention. It had to do with the Sumerian word ME {or Mi}. He identified it as a somewhat untranslatable divine concept; I translated it as 'Who?'. It gets a little complicated, but it opens the possibility that the priest class may have believed in the 'one god' concept. The Sumerian Dictionary defines it: divine power, attribute, office.
***(they believed that cities were never founded by humans, but by the gods)***
Don't tell George Tsoukalos! :^)
***The Elamites were the big dog in the area of Iran long before the Persians. They too had a written language, but it’s still obscure (I don’t think a large preserved archive has been discovered). The Harappan script is also pretty old, but hasn’t been cracked to the satisfaction of anyone but the individual translators — there’s been no bilingual texts discovered, which may be a permanent problem and stumbling block***
Interesting. Again, if I studied all that my memory is epoxied. I wish I had the time now.
"Parthians and Medes and Elamites" are among the people present in Jerusalem on Pentecost day who were able to understand the apostles in their own language (Acts 2.9). The Elamite language eventually died out but not until the Middle Ages, I think.
Cuneifrom was cracked in modern times because Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language, and the translator recognized patterns. As it opened out, the other languages in the same archives (which had been brilliantly sorted by unknown language as part of the ongoing attempts at decipherment) could be correctly pronounced due to the nature of cuneiform itself. Early on it was recognized that Akkadian had been adapted into cuneiform, and that the other large body of texts must be the native language — that was Sumerian.
Old Elamite remains unread. The Elamite high king Chedorlaomer is mentioned in the Old Testament (Sodom and Gomorrah) — the name is believed to be a multi-layer transliteration of Kudur-Lagamar (”the servant of the goddess Lagamar”).
written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, the Behistun Inscription by King Darius did for cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone did for Egyptian hieroglyphs. Scholars were able to first decipher the cuneiform of the Old Persian part of the inscription and use that to make sense of the Elamite and Babylonian portions
I have a fairly extensive file on the Behistun Inscription. {Wikipedia once posted a translation of the inscription - which is in my file - but now they link to: https://web.archive.org/web/20090413214509/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Persia/Behistun_txt.html - which is similar to my archived translation.}
If such finds as this acted as a 'Rosetta Stone' why is Elamite still so unread?
If 'adapted' was there possibly an earlier written form of Akkadian? As I remember, all written languages {cuneiform and Egyptian... and?} were made up of phonetic characters until the Semitic languages of Palestine & the Sinai created 'alphabets'. {you are drawing me into an area that could consume the remainder of my life; stop it! ;^D}
Do you have the book I.J. Gelb A Study of Writing? I have it in paperback and I thought a few years ago it would be nice to get a less worn copy; I looked on Amazon and it was about $250! ...in paperback! I decided to just enjoy the copy that I have.
Biblical Arch Review published an article by Orly Goldwasser in the March/April 2010 issue - 'How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs'. I wrote Ms. Goldwasser and BAR and pointed out that her work duplicated I.J. Gelb's earlier work, perhaps coincidentally. Even her graphics were almost exactly the same. She answered and said that she would get back to me - she never did. BAR just ignored my essay. She ended up getting an award - as usual I ended up getting the shaft.
Oh wow, I was looking for something lese, found a really old file deep in the hard drive, behind some cobwebs and the body of Forrestal.The Lost Civilization of the Stone Age"The proposition that Ice Age reindeer hunters invented writing fifteen thousand years ago or more is utterly inadmissible and unthinkable. All the data that archaeologists have amassed during the last one hundred years reinforce the assumption that Sumerians and Egyptians invented true writing during the second half of the fourth millennium. The Palaeolithic-Mesolithic-Neolithic progression to civilisation is almost as fundamental an article of contemporary scientific faith as heliocentrism. Writing is the diagnostic trait, the quintessential feature of civilisation. Writing, says I.J. Gelb, 'distinguishes civilised man from barbarian.' If Franco-Cantabrians [i.e. Ice Age inhabitants of parts of France and Spain] invented writing thousands of years before civilisation arose in the Near East, then our most cherished beliefs about the nature of society and the course of human development would be demolished."
by Richard Rudgley
The Elamites were around a long time, and changed their writing system. Probably the old one was good enough at the time, but like most early inventions, was found wanting after a while.
Lost Languages:['Civ commented] Amusingly, the author reproduces a letter to The Economist magazine regarding its article on the Phaistos Disk. The letter calls it a century old fraud (the disk, not the magazine) that could be exposed as such using thermoluminescence. [p 298]. [/snip]
The Enigma Of The World's
Undeciphered Scripts
by Andrew Robinson
Whoops, for “Cuneifrom” read “Cuneiform”. Or, if writing in boustrophodon...
How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs
Biblical Archaeology Review | Mar/Apr 2010 | Orly Goldwasser
Posted on 03/24/2010 6:51:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2479150/posts
Who Really Invented the Alphabet — Illiterate Miners or Educated Sophisticates?
Biblical Archaeology Review | August 2010 | Anson F. Rainey & Orly Goldwasser
Posted on 08/31/2010 7:45:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2581158/posts
Buddha statues in Afghanistan
once great culture ruined by stone age islamists.....in a peaceful, respectful, prosperous world, works of art and culture can be accomplished...now,not so much...
>>>Buddha statues in Afghanistan
Exactly! While the Taliban were destroying the cultural History of Afghanistan, they were ordering goats to wear diapers (anti-islamic to expose gentilia) plus children not to fly kites or eat ice-cream, only because their Mohammad did not fly kites.
That’s exactly my point. Barbarian to Herodotus doesn’t mean the same thing that it means to us.
Yes. Herodotus was writing before Conan the Barbarian.
:^D Amazing how the files and directories add up in time.
***If Franco-Cantabrians [i.e. Ice Age inhabitants of parts of France and Spain] invented writing thousands of years before civilisation arose in the Near East, then our most cherished beliefs about the nature of society and the course of human development would be demolished."***
Rather pithy. Obviously one can never prove a negative. AND, if we discovered a prehistoric language, if it was representative of the 'click' language for example, what would it look like? What if they wrote by arranging dead insects... that sort of thing?
I refreshed my memory a bit. Linear Elamite {linear? Linear B [??] confusing enough} and Proto-Elamite. Apparently affected by Akkadian.
***the Phaistos Disk. The letter calls it a century old fraud***
The Phaistos Disk is questionable. I think the thermoluminescence testing would help.
If you are interested I can send you the essay letter I wrote to BAR about the possible plagiarism of the info from I.J. Gelb with graphic comparisons, etc.
AS I asked before, do you have Gelb's book?
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