Fragment From The Tomb Of The Dancers
Fragment from the Tomb of the Dancers
Second Intermediate Period, 17th Dynasty, c. 1630-1550 B.C. From Dra’ Abu el-Naga’. Now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. AN1958.145
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Educational-Intellectual De-Westernization for Africa: Rejection of the Colonial, Elitist, Racist and Profane European Concepts of 'University' and 'Academy'
In a previous article published under the title "Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization", I expanded on the diverse misconceptions, oversights, errors and problems that existed in the early discourses of the African Afrocentric intellectuals who wanted to liberate Africa from the colonial yoke but did not assess correctly all the levels of colonial penetration and impact, namely spiritual, religious, intellectual, educational, academic, scientific, cultural, socio-behavioral, economic, military and governmental. You can find the article's contents and links to it at the end of the present, second part of the series.
What matters mostly is not the study and the publication of Assyrian cuneiform texts, but the reestablishment of the Ancient Mesopotamian conceptual approach to Medicine as a spiritual-material scientific discipline; "a large collection of texts from the Assyrian healer Kisir-Ashur's family library forms the basis for Assyriologist Troels Pank Arbøll's new book. In the book entitled Medicine in Ancient Assur - A Microhistorical Study of the Neo-Assyrian Healer Kiṣir-Aššur, Arbøll analyses the 73 texts that the healer, and later his apprentices, scratched into clay tablets around 658 BCE. These manuscripts provide an incredibly detailed picture of the elements, which constituted this specific Mesopotamian healer’s education and practice". https://humanities.ku.dk/news/2020/new-book-provides-rare-insights-into-a-mesopotamian-medical-practitioners-education-2700-years-ago/
Contents
Introduction
I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"
II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism
III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy"
Introduction
As I stated in my previous article, the most erroneous aspects of the African Afrocentric intellectuals' approach were the following:
a) their underestimation of the extremely profound impact that the colonization has had on all dimensions of life in Africa,
b) their failure to identify the compact nature of the colonial system as first implemented in Western Europe, then exported worldwide via multifaceted types of colonization, and finally imposed locally by the criminal traitors and stooges of their Western masters in a most tyrannical manner, and
c) their disregard of the fact that the multilayered colonization project was carried out indeed by the colonial countries in other continents (Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc.) as well, being thus not only an African affair.
To the above, I herewith add another, most crucial, element of the worldwide colonial regime that the African Afrocentric intellectuals failed to identify:
- its indivisibility.
In fact, you cannot possibly think that it is possible to reject even one part of the evil system (example: its Eurocentric pseudo-historical dogma, the promotion of incest and pedophilia, the sophisticated diffusion of homosexuality or another part) while accepting others, namely 'high technology', 'sustainable development', 'politics', 'democracy', 'economic stability', 'human rights', etc. Of course, this relates to the element described in the aforementioned aspect b, but it is certainly very important for all Africans not to make general dreams and not to harbor delusions as regards the Western colonial system that they have to reject as the most execrable and the most criminal occurrence that brought disaster to the Black Continent (and to the rest of the world) for several centuries.
In the present article, I will however stay close to the fundamental educational-academic-intellectual aspects of colonization that African academics, intellectuals, mystics, wise elders, erudite scholars, and spiritual masters have to take into account when considering how to reject and ban from their educational and research centers the colonially imposed pseudo-education and the associated historical forgeries, such as Eurocentrism, Hellenism, Greco-Roman world, Judeo-Christian civilization, etc. In part IV of my previous article, I explained why "Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization". Now, I will take this issue to the next stage.
I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"
You cannot possibly decolonize your land and de-Westernize your national education by tolerating the existence of 'universities' on African soil or anywhere else across the Earth. Certainly, this word is alien to all Africans, because it is part of the vocabulary or the barbarian invaders (université, university, etc.), who imposed it without revealing to the African students the racist connotation, which is inherent to this word.
Actually, the central measure taken and the principal practice performed by the inhuman Western colonial masters was the materialization of the evil concept of 'university' and the establishment of such unnecessary and heinous institutions in their colonies. This totalitarian notion was devised first in Western Europe in striking contrast to all the educational, academic, scientific systems that had existed in the rest of the world.
Since times immemorial, and noticeably in Mesopotamia and Egypt before the Flood (24th – 23rd c. BCE), institutions were created to record, archive, study, comprehend, represent, preserve and propagate the spiritual or material knowledge and wisdom in all of their aspects. From the Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian-Babylonian Eduba (lit. 'the house where the tablets are completed') and from the Ancient Egyptian Per-Ankh (lit. 'the house of life') to the highest sacerdotal institutions accommodated in the uniquely vast temples of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, an undividable method of learning, exploring, assessing, and representing the spiritual and material worlds (or universes) has been attested in numerous texts and documented in the archaeological record.
About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Mesopotamia:
About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Egypt:
There was no utilitarian approach to learning, studying, exploring, comprehending, representing and propagating knowledge and wisdom; in this regard, the human effort had to fit the destination of Mankind, which was -for all civilized nations- the epitome of all eschatological expectations: the ultimate reconstitution of the original perfection of the First Man.
Learning, studying, exploring, assessing or concluding on a topic, and representing it to others were parts of every man's moral tasks and duties to maintain the Good in their lives and to unveil the Wonders of the Creation. The only benefit to be extracted from these activities was of moral and spiritual order – not material. That is why the endless effort to learn, study, explore, assess, conclude and represent had to be all-encompassing.
The same approach, attitude and mentality was attested among Cushites, Hittites, Aramaeans, Iranians, Turanians, Indians, Chinese and many other Asiatic and African nations. It continued so all the way down to Judean, Manichaean, Mazdaean, Christian, and Islamic times as attested in
a) the Iranian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries of Gundishapur (located in today's Khuzestan, SW Iran), Tesifun (Ctesiphon, also known as Mahoze in Syriac Aramaic and as Al-Mada'in in Arabic; located in Central Mesopotamia), and Ras al Ayn (the ancient Assyrian city Resh-ina, which is also known as Resh Aina in Syriac Aramaic; located in North Mesopotamia);
b) the Aramaean scientific centers and schools of Urhoy (today's Urfa in SE Turkey; which is also known as Edessa of Osrhoene), Nasibina (today's Nusaybin in SE Turkey; which is also known as Nisibis), Mahoze (also known as Seleucia-Ctesiphon), and Antioch;
c) the Ptolemaic Egyptian Library of Alexandria, the Coptic school of Alexandria, and the Deir Aba Maqar (Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great) in Wadi el Natrun (west of the Nile Delta);
d) the Imperial school of the Magnaura (lit. 'the Great Hall') at Constantinople (known in Eastern Roman as Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας, i.e. 'the all topics teaching center of Magnaura');
e) the Aramaean 'Workshop of Eloquence', which is also known as the 'Rhetorical school of Gaza' (earlier representing the Gentile tradition and later promoting Christian Monophysitism);
f) the Judean Rabbinic and Talmudic schools and Houses of Learning (בי מדרשא/Be Midrash) that flourished in Syria-Palestine (Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai) and in Mesopotamia (Nehardea, Pumbedita, Mahoze, etc.); and
g) the Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries of Baghdad (known as House of Wisdom - Bayt al Hikmah/بيت الحكمة), Harran (in North Mesopotamia, today's SE Turkey), al-Qarawiyyin (جامعة القرويين; in Morocco), Kairouan (جامع القيروان الأكبر; in Tunisia), Sarouyeh (سارویه; near Isfahan in Iran), Maragheh (مراغه; in NW Iran), Samarqand (in Central Asia), and the numerous Nezamiyeh (النظامیة) schools in Iran, Caucasus region, and Central Asia, to name but a few.
About Iranian, Aramaean, Judean, and Christian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries:
About Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries:
All these centers of learning did not develop the absurd distinction between the spiritual and material worlds that characterizes the modern 'universities' which were incepted in Western Europe. Irrespective of land, origin, language, tradition, culture and state, all these temples, schools, madrasas, observatories, and libraries included well-diversified scientific methods, cosmogonies, world perceptions, approaches to life, interpretations of facts, and considerations of data. Sexagesimal and decimal number systems were accepted and used; lunar, solar and lunisolar calendars were studied and evaluated; astronomy and astrology (very different from their modern definition and meaning which is the result of the Western pseudo-scientific trickery) were inseparable, whereas chemistry and alchemy constituted one discipline. These true and human centers of knowledge and wisdom were void of sectarianism and utilitarianism.
Viewed as moral tasks, search, exploration and study, pretty much like learning and teaching constituted inextricably religious endeavors. Furthermore, there was absolute freedom of reflection, topic conceptualization, data contextualization, text interpretation, and conclusion, because there were no diktats of theological or governmental order.
In brief, throughout World History, there were centers of learning, houses of knowledge, libraries, centers of scientific exploration, all-inclusive schools, but no 'universities'.
II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism
Western European and North American historians attempt to expand the use of the term 'university' and cover earlier periods; this fact may have already been attested in some of the links that I included in the previous unit. However, this attempt is entirely false and absolutely propagandistic.
The malefic character of the Western European universities is not revealed only in the deliberate, absurd and fallacious separation of the spiritual sciences from the material sciences and in the subsequently enforced elimination of the spiritual universe from every attempt of exploration undertaken within the material universe. Yet, the inseparability of the two universes was the predominant concept and the guiding principle for all ancient, Judean, Christian, Manichaean, Mazdaean, and Islamic schools of learning.
One has to admit that there appears to be an exception in this rule, which applies to Western universities as regards the distinction between the spiritual and the material research; this situation is attested only in the study of Christian theology in Western European universities. However, this sector is also deprived of every dimension of spiritual exercise, practice and research, as it involves a purely rationalist and nominalist approach, which would be denounced as entirely absurd, devious and heretic by all the Fathers of the Christian Church. As a matter of fact, rationalism, nominalism and materialism are forms of faithlessness.
All the same, the most repugnant trait of the Western European universities is their totalitarian and inhuman nature. In spite of tons of literature written about the so-called 'academic freedom', the word itself, its composition and etymology, fully demonstrate that there is not and there cannot be any freedom in the Western centers of pseudo-learning, which are called 'universities'. The Latin word 'universitas' did not exist at the times of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Western Roman Empire. The nonsensical term was not created in the Eastern Roman Empire where the imperial center of education, learning, and scientific research was wisely named 'Pandidakterion', i.e. 'the all topics teaching center'.
The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the anti-Constantinopolitan heretics of Rome managed to get rid of the obligation to accept as pope of Rome the person designated by the Emperor at Constantinople, which was a practice of vital importance which lasted from 537 until 752 CE.
The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the beginning of the systematic opposition that the devious, pseudo-Christian priesthood of Rome launched against the Eastern Roman Empire, by fallaciously attributing the title of Roman Emperor to the incestuous barbarian thug Charlemagne (800 CE).
Last, the first 'universitas' was incepted long after the first (Photian) schism (867 CE) and, quite interestingly, several decades after the Great Schism (1054 CE) between the Eastern Roman Empire and the deviate and evil Roman papacy.
In fact, the University of Bologna ('Universitas Bononiensis'; in Central Italy) was established in 1088 CE, only eight (8) years before the First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE.
It is necessary for all Africans to come to know the historic motto of the terrorist organization that is masqueraded behind the deceitful title "University of Bologna': "Petrus ubique pater legum Bononia mater" (: St. Peter is everywhere the father of the law, Bologna is its mother). This makes clear that these evil institutions (universities) were geared to function worldwide as centers of propagation and imposition of the lawless laws and the inhuman dogmas of the Western European barbarians.
At this point, we have to analyze the real meaning and the repugnant nature of the monstrous word. Its Latin etymology points to the noun 'universus', which is formed from 'uni-' (root of the Genitive 'unius' of the numeral 'unus', which means 'one') and from 'versus' (past participle of the Latin verb 'verto', which in the infinitive form 'vertere' means 'to turn'). Consequently, 'universus' means forcibly 'turned into one'. It goes without saying that, if the intention is to mentally-intellectually turn all the students into one, there is not and there cannot be any freedom in those malefic institutions.
'Universitas' is therefore the inauspicious location whereby 'all are turned into one', inevitably losing their identity, integrity, originality, singularity and individuality. In other words, 'universitas' was conceived as the proper word for a monstrous factory of mental, intellectual, sentimental and educational uniformity that produces copies of dehumanized beings that happen to have the same, prefabricated world views, ideas, opinions, beliefs and systematized 'knowledge'. In fact, the first 'students' of the University of Bologna were the primary industrial products in the history of mankind. Speaking about 'academic freedom' and charters like the Constitutio Habita were then merely the ramifications of an unmatched hypocrisy.
To establish a useful parallel between medieval times in Western Europe and modern times in North America, while also bridging the malefic education with the malignant governance of the Western states, I would simply point out that the evil, perverse and tyrannical institution of 'universities' definitely suits best any state and any government that would dare invent an inhumane motto like 'E pluribus unum' ('out of many, one). This is actually one of the two main mottos of the United States, and it appears on the US Great Seal. It reflects always the same sickness and the same madness of diabolical uniformity that straightforwardly contradicts every concept of Creation.
One may still wonder why, at the very beginning of the previous unit, I referred to "the racist connotation, which is inherent to" the word 'universitas'; the answer is simple. By explicitly desiring to "turn all (the students) into one", the creators of these calamitous institutions and, subsequently, all the brainless idiots, who willingly accepted to eliminate themselves spiritually and intellectually in order to become uniformed members of those 'universities', denied and rejected the existence of the 'Other', i.e. of every other culture, civilization, world conceptualization, moral system of values, governance, education, and approach to learning, knowledge and wisdom.
The evil Western structures of tyrannical pseudo-learning did not accept even the 11th c. Western European Christians and their culture an faith; they accepted only those among them, who were ready (for the material benefits that they would get instead) to undergo the necessary process of irrevocable self-effacement in order to obtain a filthy piece of paper testifying to their uniformity with the rest. Western universities are the epitome of the most inhuman form of racism that has ever existed on Earth.
As a matter of fact, there is nothing African, Asiatic, Christian, Islamic or human in a 'university'. If this statement was difficult to comprehend a few centuries or decades ago, it is nowadays fully understandable.
III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy"
It is therefore crystal clear that every new university, named after the Latin example and conceived after the Western concept, only worsens the conditions of colonial servility among African, Asiatic and Latin American nations. As a matter of fact, more Western-styled 'universities' and 'academies' mean for Africa more compact subordination to, and more comprehensive dependence on, the Western colonial criminals.
It is only the result of pure naivety or compact ignorance to imagine that the severe educational-academic-intellectual damage, which was caused to all African nations by the colonial powers, will or can be remedied with some changes of names, titles, mottos and headlines or due to peremptory modifications of scientific conclusions. If I expanded on the etymology and the hidden, real meaning of the term 'universitas', it is only because I wanted to reveal its perverse nature. But merely a name change would not suffice in an African nation's effort to achieve genuine decolonization and comprehensive de-Westernization.
Universities in all the Arabic-speaking countries have been called 'Jamaet' (or Gamaet; جامعة); the noun originates from the verb 'yajmaC ' (يجمع), which means collecting or gathering (people) together. At this point, it is to be reminded that the word has great affinity with the word 'mosque' (جامع; JamaC) in Arabic. However, one has to take into consideration the fact that the mere change of name did not cause any substantive differentiation in terms of nature, structure, approach to science, methods used, and moral character of the overall educational system.
Other vicious Western terms of educational nature that should be removed from Africa, Asia and Latin America are the word 'academy' and its derivatives; this word denoted initially in Western Europe 'a society of distinguished scholars and artists or scientists'. Later, in the 16th-17th c., those societies were entirely institutionalized. For this reason, since the beginning of the 20th c., the term 'academia' was coined to describe the overall academic environment or a specific independent community active in the different fields of research and education. More recently, 'academy' ended up signifying any simple place of study or training company.
As name, nature, contents, structure and function, 'academy' is definitely profane; in its origin, it had a markedly impious character, as it was used to designate the so-called 'school of philosophy' that was set up by Plato, who vulgarized knowledge and desecrated wisdom. In fact, this philosopher did not only fail to pertinently and comprehensively study in Ancient Egypt where he sojourned (in Iwnw; Heliopolis), but he also proved to be unable to grasp that there is no knowledge and no wisdom outside the temples, which were at the time the de facto high centers of spiritual and material study, learning, research, exploration and comprehension. He therefore thought it possible for him to 'teach' (or discuss with) others despite the fact that he had not proficiently studied and adequately learned the wisdom and the spiritual potency of the Ancient Egyptian Iwnw (Heliopolitan) hierophants and high priests.
Being absolutely incompetent to become a priest of the sanctuary of Athena at the suburb 'Academia' of Athens, he gathered his group of students at a location nearby, and for this reason his 'school' was named after that neighborhood. It is noteworthy that the said suburb's name was due to a legendary figure, Akademos (Ακάδημος; Academus), who was mythologized in relation with the Theseus legends of Ancient Athens. Using the term 'school' for Plato's group of friends and followers is really abusive, because it did not constitute an accredited priestly or public establishment.
In fact, all those, absurdly eulogized, 'Platonic seminars' were informal gatherings of presumptuous, arrogant, wealthy, parasitic and idiotic persons, who thought it possible to become spiritually knowledgeable and portentous by pompously, yet nonsensically, discussing about what they could not possibly know. It goes without saying that this disgusting congregation of immoral beasts found it quite normal to possess numerous slaves (more than their family members), consciously practiced pedophilia and homosexuality, and viewed their wives as 'things' in a deprecatory manner unmatched even by the Afghan Taliban. This nauseating and execrable environment is at the origin of vicious term 'academy'. And this environment is the target of today's Western elites.
Consequently, any use of the term 'academy' constitutes a straightforward rejection of the sacerdotal, religious and spiritual dimension of knowledge and wisdom, in direct opposition to what was worldwide accepted among civilized nations with great temples throughout the history of mankind. In fact, the appearance of what is now called 'Ancient Greek Philosophy' was an exception in World History, which was due to the peripheral and marginal location of Western Anatolia and South Balkans with respect to Egypt, Cush, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Iran. In brief, the Ancient Greek philosophers (with the exception of very few who were true mystics and spiritual masters and therefore should not be categorized as 'philosophers') failed to understand that, by exploring the world only mentally and verbally (i.e. by just thinking and talking), no one can sense, describe, and represent (to others) the true nature of the worlds, namely the spiritual and the material universes.
Plato and his pupils (his 'school' or 'academy') were therefore ordinary individuals who attempted to 'prove' orally what cannot be contained in words and cannot be comprehended logically but contemplatively and transcendentally. All the Platonic concepts, notions, ideas, opinions and theories are maladroit and failed efforts to explain the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) religion of Ancient Egypt (also known among the Ancient Greeks as the 'Ennead'). But none of them was able to perform even a minor move of priestly potency or any transcendental act.
Furthermore, I have to point out that the absurd 'significance' that both, the so-called Plato's school and 'Ancient Greek Philosophy', have acquired in the West over the past few centuries is entirely due to the historical phenomenon of Renaissance that characterized 15th-16th c. Western Europe. But this is an exception even within the context of European History. Actually, the Roman ruler Sulla destroyed the Platonic Academy in 86 BCE; this was the end of the 'Academy'. Several centuries later, some intellectuals, who were indulging themselves in repetition, while calling themselves 'successors of Plato', opened (in Athens) another 'Academy', which was erroneously described by modern Western university professors as 'Neo-Platonic'. All the same, the Roman Emperor Justinian I the Great put an irrevocable end to that shame of profanity and nonsensical talking (529 CE).
The revival of the worthless institution that had remained unknown to all Christians started, quite noticeably, little time after the fall of Constantinople (1453); in 1462, the anti-Christian banker, statesman and intellectual Cosimo dei Medici established the Platonic Academy of Florence to propagate all the devilish and racist concepts of the Renaissance and praise the worthless institution that had been forgotten.
I recently explained why the Western European Renaissance and the colonial conquests are an indissoluble phenomenon of extremely racist nature; here you can find the links to my articles:
It becomes therefore crystal clear that Africa does not need any more Western-styled universities and academies; contrarily, there is an urgent need for university-level centers of knowledge and wisdom, which will overwhelmingly apply African moral concepts, values and virtues to the topics studied and explored. Learning was always an inextricably spiritual, religious, and cultural affair in Africa. No de-colonization will be effectuated prior to the reinstallation of African educational values across Africa' s schools.
Consequently, instead of uselessly spending money for the establishment of new 'universities' and 'academies', which only deepen and worsen Africa's colonization, what the Black Continent needs now is a new type of institution that will help prepare African students to study abroad in specifically selected sectors and with pre-arranged determination and approach, comprehend and reject the Western fallacy, and replace the Western-styled universities with new, genuinely African, educational institutions. Concerning this topic, I will offer few suggestions in my forthcoming article.
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Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization
Introduction
I. Decolonization and the failure of the Afrocentric Intelligentsia
II. Afrocentric African scholars should have been taken Egyptology back from the Western Orientalists and Africanists
III. Western Usurpation of African Heritage must be canceled.
IV. Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization
V. Afrocentrism as a form of African Isolationism drawing a line of separation between colonized nations in Africa and Asia
VI. General estimation of the human resources, the time, and the cost needed
VII. Decolonization means above all De-Anglicization and De-Francization
================
Download the article in PDF:
Silver inlaid brass candlestick holder, Iran, 13th-14th century
from The British Museum
So, I saw this image on Facebook, and it was supposedly showing what Queen Nefertiti would have looked like in real life:
Now, I thought this AI generated garbage was just truly terrible on a number of levels; first off, she looks wayyyyyy too modern - her makeup is very “Hollywood glamour”, she looks airbrushed and de-aged, and as far as I’m aware, Ancient Egyptians didn’t have mascara, glitter-based eyeshadows and lip gloss. Secondly, her features are exceptionally whitewashed in every sense - this is pretty standard for AI as racial bias is prevalent in feeding AI algorithms, but I genuinely thought a depiction of such a known individual would not exhibit such euro-centric features. Thirdly, the outfit was massively desaturated and didn’t take pigment loss into consideration, and while I *do* like the look of the neck attire, it's not at all accurate (plus, again, AI confusion on the detailing is evident).
So, this inspired me to alter the image on the left to be more accurate based off the sculpture’s features. I looked into Ancient Egyptian makeup and looked at references for kohl eyeliner and clay-based facial pigment (rouge was used on cheeks, charcoal-based powder/paste was used to darken and elongate eyebrows), and I looked at pre-existing images of Nefertiti (namely other reconstructions). While doing this, I found photos of a 3D scanned sculpture made by scientists at the University of Bristol and chose to collage the neck jewellery over the painting (and edited the lighting and shadows as best as I could).
Something I see a lot of in facial recreations of mummies is maintaining the elongated and skinny facial features as seen on preserved bodies - however, fat, muscle and cartilage shrink/disappear post mortem, regardless of preservation quality; Queen Nefertiti had art created of her in life, and these pieces are invaluable to developing an accurate portrayal of her, whether stylistic or realistic in nature.
And hey, while I don't think my adjustments are perfect (especially the neck area), I *do* believe it is a huge improvement to the original image I chose to work on top of.
I really liked working on this project for the last few days, and I think I may continue to work on it further to perfect it. But, until then, I hope you enjoy!
Remember, likes don't help artists but reblogs do!
History of Achaemenid Iran 1A, Course I - Achaemenid beginnings 1A
Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Tuesday, 27 December 2022
Outline
Introduction; Iranian Achaemenid historiography; Problems of historiography continuity; Iranian posterior historiography; foreign historiography; Western Orientalist historiography; early sources of Iranian History; Prehistory in the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia
1- Introduction
Welcome to the 40-hour seminar on Achaemenid Iran!
It is my intention to deliver a rather unconventional academic presentation of the topic, mostly implementing a correct and impartial conceptual approach to the earliest stage of Iranian History. Every subject, in and by itself, offers to every researcher the correct means of the pertinent approach to it; due to this fact, the personal background, viewpoints and thoughts or eventually the misperceptions and the preconceived ideas of an explorer should not be allowed to affect his judgment.
If before 200 years, the early Iranologists had the possible excuse of studying a topic on the basis of external and posterior historical sources, this was simply due to the fact that the Old Achaemenid cuneiform writing had not yet been deciphered. Still, even those explorers failed to avoid a very serious mistake, namely that of taking the external and posterior historical sources at face value. We cannot afford to blindly accept a secondary historical source without first examining intentions, motives, scopes and aims of it.
As the seminar covers only the History of the Achaemenid dynasty, I don't intend to add an introductory course about the History of the Iranian Studies and the re-discovery of Iran by Western explorers of the colonial powers. However, I will provide a brief outline of the topic; this is essential because mainstream Orientalists have reached their limits and cannot provide us with a real insight, eliminating the numerous and enduring myths, fallacies, and deliberately naïve approaches to Achaemenid Iran.
In fact, most of the specialists of Ancient Iran never went beyond the limitations set by the delusional Ancient 'Greek' (in reality: Ionian and Attic) literature about the Medes and the Persians (i.e. the Iranians), because they never offered themselves the task to explain the reasons for the aberration that the Ancient Ionian and Attic authors created in their minds and wrote in their texts about Iran. This was utterly puerile and ludicrous.
And this brings us to the other major innovation that I intend to offer during this seminar, namely the proper, comprehensive contextualization of the research topic, i.e. the History of Achaemenid Iran. To give some examples in this regard, I would mention
a - the tremendous, multilayered and multifaceted impact of the Mesopotamian World, Civilization and Heritage on the formation of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, and more specifically, the determinant role played by the Sargonid Empire of Assyria on the emergence of the first Empire on the Iranian plateau;
b - the ferocious opposition of the Mithraic Magi to the Zoroastrian Achaemenid court;
c - the involvement of the Anatolian Magi in the misperception of Iran by the Ancient Greeks; and
d- the utilization of the Ancient Greek cities by the Anti-Iranian side of the Egyptian priesthoods, princes and administrators.
To therefore introduce the proper contextualization, I will expand on the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Sargonid times, not only to state the first mentions of the Medes and the Persians in History, but also to show the importance attributed by the Neo-Assyrian Emperors to the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau, as well as the numerous peoples, settled or nomadic, who inhabited that region.
There is an enormous lacuna in the Orientalist disciplines; there are no interdisciplinary studies in Assyriology and Iranology. This plays a key role in the misperception of the ancient oriental civilizations and in the mistaken evaluation (or rather under-estimation) of the momentous impact that they had on the formation of the World History. There are no isolated cultures and independent civilizations as dogmatic and ignorant Western archaeologists pretend.
Only if one studies and evaluates correctly the colossal impact of the Ancient Mesopotamian world on Iran, can one truly understand the Achaemenid Empire in its real dimensions.
2- Iranian Achaemenid historiography
A. Achaemenid imperial inscriptions produced on solemn occasions
Usually multilingual texts written by the imperial scribes of the emperors Cyrus the Great, Darius I the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II, and Artaxerxes III, as well as of the ancestral rulers Ariaramnes and Arsames.
Languages and writing systems:
- Old Achaemenid Iranian (cuneiform-alphabetic; the official imperial language)
- Babylonian (cuneiform-syllabic; to offer a testimony of historical continuity and legitimacy, following the Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great, who presented himself as king of Babylon)
- Elamite (cuneiform-logo-syllabic; to portray the Persians in particular as the heirs of the ancient land of Anshan and Sushan that the Assyrians and the Babylonians named 'Elam' and the indigenous population called 'Haltamti' / The first Achaemenid to present himself as 'king of Anshan' is Cyrus the Great and the reference is found in his Cylinder unearthed in Babylon.)
and
- Egyptian Hieroglyphic (if the inscription or the monument was produced in Egypt, since the Achaemenids were also pharaohs of Egypt, starting with Kabujiya/Cambyses)
Imperial inscriptions are found in: Babylon (Cyrus Cylinder), Pasargad, Behistun, Hamadan, Ganj-e Nameh, Persepolis, Naqsh-e Rustam, Susa, Suez (Egypt), Gherla (Romania), Van (Turkey), and on various items
B. Persepolis Administrative Archives
This consists in an enormous documentation that has not yet been fully studied; it is not written in Old Achaemenid as one could expect but mainly in Elamite cuneiform. It consists of two groups, namely
- the Persepolis Fortification Archive, and
- the Persepolis Treasury Archive.
The Persepolis Fortification Archive was unearthed in the fortification area, i.e. the northeastern confines of the enormous platform of the Achaemenid capital Parsa (Persepolis), in the 1930s. It comprises of more than 30000 tablets (fragmentary or entire) that were written in the period 509-494 BCE (at the time of Darius I). The tablets were written in Susa and other parts of Fars and the territory of the ancient kingdom of Elam that vanished in the middle of the 7th c. (more than 130 years before these texts were written). Around 50 texts had Aramaic glosses. More than 2000 tablets have been published and translated. These texts are records of transactions, distribution of food, provisioning of workers, transportation of commodities, etc.; few tablets were written in other languages, namely Old Iranian (1), Babylonian (1), Phrygian (1) and Greek (1).
The Persepolis Treasury Archive was found in the northeastern room of the Treasury of Xerxes. It contains more than 750 tablets and fragments (in Elamite) and more than 100 have been published. They all date back in period 492-458 BCE. These tablets are either letters or memoranda dispatched by imperial officials to the head of the Treasury; they concern the payment of workmen, the issue of silver, and other administrative procedures. Only one tablet was written in Babylonian.
The entire documentation offers valuable information as regards the function of various imperial services, namely the couriers, the satraps, the imperial messengers, the imperial storehouse, etc. The archives shed light on the origin of the imperial administrators, as ca. 1900 personal names have been recorded: 10% were Elamites (who had apparently survived for long far from their country after the destruction of Susa by Assurbanipal (640 BCE), fewer were Babylonians, and the outright majority consisted of Iranians (Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Sakas, Arians, etc.).
C. Imperial Aramaic
The diffusion of the use of Aramaic started already in the Neo-Assyrian times and during the 7th c. BCE; the creation of the 'Royal Road', the systematization of the transportation, the improvement of communications, and the formation of the network of land-, sea- and desert routes that we now call 'Silk-, Spice- and Perfume- Road' during the Achaemenid times helped further expand the use of Aramaic. The linguistic assimilation of the Babylonians, the Jews and the Phoenicians with the Aramaeans only strengthened the diffusion of the Aramaic, which became the second international language ('lingua franca') in the History of the Mankind (after the Akkadian / Assyrian-Babylonian). Gradually, Aramaic became an official Achaemenid language after the Old Achaemenid Iranian.
Except the Aramaic texts attested in the Persepolis Administrative Archives, thousands of Aramaic texts of the Achaemenid times shed light onto the society, the economy, the administration, the military organization, the trade, the religions, the cults, the culture and the spirituality attested in various provinces of the Iranian Empire. At this point, only indicatively, I mention few significant groups of texts:
- the Elephantine papyri and ostraca (except Aramaic, they were written in Hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Coptic, Alexandrian Koine, and Latin) – 5th and 4th c. BCE,
- the Hermopolis Aramaic papyri,
- the Padua Aramaic papyri, and
- the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents from Bactria (48 texts written on leather, papyrus, stone or clay, dating from the period 353-324 BCE, and mainly from the reign of Artaxerxes III whereas the most recent dates from the reign of Alexander the Great).
Here I have to add that the widespread use of Imperial Aramaic and its use as a second official language for Achaemenid Iran brought an end to the use of the Elamite (in the middle of the 5th c.) and, after the end of the Achaemenid dynasty and the split of the state of Alexander the Great, contributed to the formation of two writing systems, namely Parthian and Pahlavi which were in use during the Arsacid and the Sassanid times. Imperial Aramaic helped establish many other writing systems, but this goes beyond the limits of the present seminar.
3- Problems of historiography continuity
There are no historical references to the Achaemenid dynasty made at the time of the Arsacids (Ashkanian: 250 BCE-224 CE) and the Sassanids 224-651 CE); this situation is due to many factors:
- the prevalence of another Iranian nation of probably Turanian origin, namely the Parthians and the Arsacid dynasty,
- the rise of the anti-Achaemenid, anti-Zoroastrian Magi who tried to impose Mithraism throughout Iran during the Arsacid times,
- the formation of an oral epic tradition and the establishment of a legendary historiography about the pre-Arsacid past during the Sassanid times, and
- the scarcity of written sources and the terrible destructions that occurred in Iran during the Late Antiquity, the Islamic era, and the Modern times (early Islamic conquests, divisions of the Abbasid times, Mongol invasions, Safavid-Ottoman wars, Western colonial looting, etc.).
This situation raised Western academic questions of Iranian identity, continuity, and historicity. But this attempt is futile. Iranian historiography of Islamic times shows that these questions were fully misplaced.
4- Iranian posterior historiography (Iranian historiography of Islamic times)
With Tabari (839-923) and his voluminous History of Prophets and Kings we realize that there were, in spite of the destructions caused because of the Islamic conquests, historical documents on which he was based to expand about the Sassanid dynasty; actually one out of the 40 volumes of the most recent translation of Tabari to English (published by the State University of New York Press from 1985 through 2007) is dedicated to the History of Sassanid Iran (vol. 5). And the previous volume (vol. 4) covers the History of Achaemenid and Arsacid Iran, Alexander the Great, Nabonid Babylonia, Assyria and Ancient Israel and Judah.
Other important Iranian historians of the Islamic times, like Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi (995-1077), Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247-1318) who wrote the truly first World History, Alaeddin Aṭa Malik Juvaynī (1226-1283), and Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi (ca. 1370-1454), did not expand much on pre-Islamic periods as the focus of their writing was on contemporaneous developments.
However, the aforementioned historians and all the authors, who are classified in this category, represent only one dimension of Iranian historiography of Islamic times. A totally different approach and literature have been illustrated by Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Abu 'l Qasem Ferdowsi (940-1025) was not the first to compose an epic in order to standardize in mythical terms and legendary concepts the pre-Islamic Iranian past; but he was the most successful and the most illustrious. That is why many other epic poets followed his example, notably the Azeri Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209) and the Turkic Indian Amir Khusraw (1253-1325).
Within the context of this poetical historiography, historical emperors of pre-Islamic Iran appear as legendary figures only to be then viewed as materialization of divine patterns. The origin of this transcendental historiography seems to be retraced in the Sassanid times, but all the major themes are clearly of Zoroastrian identity and can therefore be attributed to the Achaemenid world perception and world conceptualization.
It is essential at this point to state that, until the imposition of modern Western colonial academic and educational standards in Iran, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and the corpus of Iranian legendary historiography was the backbone of the Iranian cultural, intellectual and educational identity.
It is a matter of academic debate whether an original text named Khwaday-Namag, written during the Sassanid times, and now lost, is at the very origin of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and of the Iranian legendary historiography. The 19th c. German Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke is credited with this theory that has not yet been proved.
All the same, the spiritual standards of this approach are detected in the Achaemenid times.
5- Foreign historiography
Ancient Greek (in reality, Ionian and Attic), Ancient Hebrew and Latin sources of Achaemenid History exist, but first they are external, second they appear to be posterior in their largest part, and third they often bear witness to astounding inaccuracies, fables, untrustworthy data, misplaced focus, excessive verbosity without real substance, and -above all- an enormous and irreconcilable misunderstanding of the Iranian Achaemenid reality, values, world view, mindset, and behavior.
The Ancient Hebrew sources shed light on issues that were apparently critical to the tiny and unimportant, Jewish minority of the Achaemenid Empire; however, these Biblical narratives concern facts that were absolutely insignificant to the imperial authorities of Parsa. One critical issue is concealed by modern scholars though; although all the nations of the Empire were regularly mentioned in the Achaemenid inscriptions and depicted on bas reliefs, the Jews were not. This undeniable fact irrevocably conditions the supposed 'importance' of Biblical texts like Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, etc. All the same, these foreign historical sources are important for the Jews.
The Ionian and Attic accounts of events that were composed by the Carian renegade Herodotus, the Dorian Ctesias, and the Athenian Xenophon present an even more serious problem. They happened to be for many centuries (16th – 19th c.) the bulk of the historical documentation that Western European academics had access to as regards Achaemenid Iran. This situation produced grave biases among Western academics, because they took all these sources at face value since they had no access to original documentation. The grave trouble persisted even after the decipherment of the Old Achaemenid cuneiform writing and the archaeological excavations that brought to daylight original Iranian imperial documentation.
Only recently, at the end of the 20th c., leading Iranologists like Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg started criticizing the absolutely delusional History of Achaemenid Iran that modern Western scholars were producing without even understanding it by foolishly accepting Ancient Ionian myths, lies and propaganda against the Iranian Empire at face value. This grave problem had also two other parameters:
- first, there was an enormous gap of civilization and a tremendous cultural difference between the Iranian imperial world view, the spiritual valorization of the human being, and the Zoroastrian monotheism from one side and the chaotic, disorderly and profane elements of the western periphery of the Empire. The so-called Greek tribes in Western Anatolia and in the South Balkans were not only multi-divided and plunged in permanent conflict; they were also extremely verbose on common issues, they desecrated the divine world with their nonsensical myths and puerile narratives, and they defiled human spirituality with their love stories about their pseudo-gods. But, very arbitrarily and quite disastrously, the so-called Ancient Greek civilization had been erroneously taken as 'classics' by modern Europeans at a time they had no access to Ancient Oriental sources.
- second, the vertical differentiation between Imperial Iran as the blessed land of divine mission and the disunited and peripheral lands of conflict, discord and strife that were inhabited by the Greek tribes was reflected on the respective, impressively different types of historiography; to the Iranians, few words written by anonymous scribes were enough to describe the groundbreaking deeds of divinely appointed rulers. But for the Greeks, the useless rumors, the capricious hearsay, the intentional lie, the nefarious expression of their complex of inferiority, the vicious slander, and the deliberate ignominy 'had' to be recorded and written down.
The fact that Herodotus' and Xenophon's long narratives have long been taken as the basic source of information about Achaemenid Iran demonstrates how disoriented and misplaced modern Western scholarship is. But by preferring to rely mainly on the Ancient Greek lengthy and false narratives, and not on the succinct, true and chaste Old Achaemenid Iranian inscriptions, they totally misrepresent Ancient Iranian History, preposterously extrapolating later and corrupt standards to earlier and superior civilizations.
And whereas Ancient Roman authors, who wrote in Latin (Pliny the Elder, Seneca the Younger, etc.), and Jewish or Christian historians, who wrote in Alexandrine Koine, like Flavius Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima, reproduced the style of lengthy narratives that turns History to mere gossip, the great Babylonian scholar Berossus was very reluctant to add personal comments to his original sources or to allow subjective considerations and thoughts to contaminate his text.
In any case, the vast issue of the multilayered damages caused by the untrustworthy Ancient Greek historiography to modern Western academics' perception and interpretation of Achaemenid Iran is a topic that deserves an entirely independent seminar.
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To watch the video (with more than 110 pictures and maps), click the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1Α
By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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To listen to the audio, clink the links below:
HISTORY OF ACHAEMENID IRAN - Achaemenid beginnings 1 (a+b)
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Download the text in PDF:
Model of a Multi-Storied Tower, Chinese, 1st century. Earthenware with unfired pigments.
Courtesy Alain Truong
The Villa des Orangers, luxury five star hotel is located in the heart of Marrakech and is a true haven of peace. Everything has been carefully chosen to make your stay relaxing and sophisticated: an elegant decoration, delicious cuisine with Mediterranean and Moroccan flavours, a large garden and lush courtyards, three swimming pools, a traditional Moroccan Hammam, massage rooms, beauty salon, fitness, an open bar to enjoy a mint tea with Moroccan pastries during the day.
Μεχραγκάν, η Μεγάλη Φθινοπωρινή Εορτή των Παρσιστών του Ιράν και της Ινδίας
Μεχραγκάν, η Μεγάλη Φθινοπωρινή Εορτή των Παρσιστών του Ιράν και της Ινδίας: όταν η Μαζδεϊστική Παράδοση περνάει από τον Μουσουλμάνο Φερντοουσί
Mehragan, the Parsis' Great Autumn Feast in Iran & India: when Mazdeism's Tradition comes through a Muslim, the Great Epic Poet Ferdowsi
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 1 Οκτωβρίου 2019.
Ευχαριστώντας με για την μετάφραση τμημάτων του επισυναπτόμενου βίντεο από τα φαρσί (περσικά), ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης αναπαράγει σημεία διαλέξεών μου για τους υπερβατικούς συμβολισμούς με τους οποίους ο Φερντοουσί παρουσιάζει στο έπος του την αρχή, την διάρκεια και το τέλος της Παγκόσμιας Ιστορίας, βλέποντας στους ήρωές του την διαχρονικότητα της Θείας Παρέμβασης και στους βασιλείς του τις αενάως αναπαραγόμενες και διαφοροποιούμενες κατ' άτομο συνθέσεις των Μεγάλων Ιδεών.
------------------------
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/μεχραγκάν-η-μεγάλη-φθινοπωρινή-εορτή/ ======================
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Αυτές τις μέρες, οι Παρσιστές του Ιράν και της Ινδίας γιορτάζουν μία από τις μεγαλύτερες εορτές τους, τα Μεχραγκάν. Όπως το ίδιο το όνομα δηλώνει, αυτή η εορτή είναι αφιερωμένη στον Μίθρα, ένα θεό του οποίου την υπόσταση προσπάθησε ο Ζωροάστρης χωρίς επιτυχία να εξαφανίσει και του οποίου (Μίθρα) τους πολυθεϊστικούς Μάγους οι Αχαιμενιδείς σάχηδες επίμονα προσπάθησαν να εξαφανίσουν.
Αυτό μάλιστα συνέβαλε στην δημιουργία μιας επιπλέον αρχαίας ελληνικής λέξης ως μετάφρασης από την αντίστοιχη αρχαία ιρανική: “Μαγοφονία”! Αυτό ειπώθηκε για την εξόντωση, από τον Δαρείο Α’ τον Μέγα, του Μάγου Γαυματά ο οποίος είχε αποπειραθεί να ανατρέψει την δυναστεία.
Ο Ηρόδοτος μάλιστα διασώζει ότι αυτή η περίσταση έγινε αμέσως ένας εορτασμός. Αυτό είναι ενδεικτικό των τρομερών συγκρούσεων ιερατείων που συνέβαιναν ακόμη και στην κορυφή της αχαιμενιδικής αυτοκρατορίας.
Ο Ζωροαστρισμός και ο Μιθραϊσμός ήταν δυο θρησκείες η μία στους αντίποδες της άλλης και ο τρόπος σύγκρουσης ιερατείων δεν είναι μόνον μάχες, πόλεμοι, στάσεις και δολοφονίες αλλά επίσης και αλλαγή του θρησκευτικού περιεχομένου μιας εορτής ή τροποποίηση των χαρακτηριστικών της. Σχετικά με τις ιρανικές θρησκείες από την Αρχαιότητα μέχρι σήμερα, μπορείτε να βρείτε μια σύντομη παρουσίαση εδώ:
Ιράν: η Χώρα που γέννησε Περισσότερες Θρησκείες από Οποιαδήποτε Άλλη, Πρώτη Χώρα που Θρησκείες της διαδόθηκαν από τον Ατλαντικό μέχρι τον Ειρηνικό
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/ιράν-η-χώρα-που-γέννησε-περισσότερες-θ/
(και πλέον: https://www.academia.edu/51404599/Ιράν_η_Χώρα_που_γέννησε_Περισσότερες_Θρησκείες_από_Οποιαδήποτε_Άλλη_Πρώτη_Χώρα_που_Θρησκείες_της_διαδόθηκαν_από_τον_Ατλαντικό_μέχρι_τον_Ειρηνικό)
Ιράν: η Χώρα που γέννησε τις Περισσότερες Θρησκείες, Πρώτη Χώρα που Θρησκείες της διαδόθηκαν από Ατλαντικό μέχρι Ειρηνικό – ΙΙ
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/08/21/ιράν-η-χώρα-που-γέννησε-τις-περισσότερ/
(και πλέον: https://www.academia.edu/51484958/Ιράν_η_Χώρα_που_γέννησε_τις_Περισσότερες_Θρησκείες_Πρώτη_Χώρα_που_Θρησκείες_της_διαδόθηκαν_από_Ατλαντικό_μέχρι_Ειρηνικό_ΙΙ)
Ο Μίθρας είναι ένας ιρανοϊνδικός θεός που διαδόθηκε ιδιαίτερα ανάμεσα στους Αραμαίους, τους Έλληνες, τους Ρωμαίους και όλους τους αρχαίους λαούς της Ευρώπης. Σε όλες τις μορφές και φάσεις ιρανικών γλωσσών ο Μίθρας έχει δύο ονόματα: Μιτρά και Μεχρ. Το δεύτερο είναι τμήμα του ονόματος της εορτής που εορτάζουν σήμερα οι Παρσιστές, χωρίς ωστόσο καμμιά επίκληση του Μίθρα. Ο Παρσισμός, ως τελευταίο στάδιο των αρχαίων ιρανικών θρησκειών, έχει διαμορφωθεί κάτω από την επίδραση δύο πολιτιστικών φαινομένων:
α. του Μαζδεϊσμού που είναι η σασανιδικών χρόνων (224-651 μ.Χ.) αναπροσαρμογή του Ζωροαστρισμού, και
β. της σύστασης του ιρανικού μυθικού επικού κύκλου κατά τα ισλαμικά χρόνια, όταν είτε Παρσιστές είτε Μουσουλμάνοι Ιρανοί προσπάθησαν να ανασυντάξουν την προϊσλαμική ιρανική πολιτισμική κληρονομιά και να την ανασυνθέσουν σε μια ενότητα παραδόσεων, κοσμολογίας, μυθικής αφήγησης του ιρανικού και του πανανθρώπινου παρελθόντος, σωτηριολογίας και εσχατολογίας.
Έτσι, προκλήθηκε ένα πολύ παράξενο και κυριολεκτικά μοναδικό φαινόμενο: η επίσημη θρησκεία του σασανιδικού Ιράν, ο μαζδεϊσμός, τερματίσθηκε. Όσοι Ιρανοί παρέμειναν προσηλωμένοι σ’ αυτήν την θρησκεία, την διατήρησαν στις κοινότητές τους, πλην όμως όχι ως επίσημη αυτοκρατορική θρησκεία, εφόσον άλλωστε ανήκαν στο ισλαμικό χαλιφάτο. Έτσι, διαμορφώθηκε ο Παρσισμός, ένα μετα-μαζδεϊστικό στάδιο ιρανικής θρησκείας της οποίας οι πιστοί σήμερα ανέρχονται σε μερικές εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες ανθρώπων στο Ιράν και στην Ινδία.
Από την άλλη, όσοι Ιρανοί προσχώρησαν στο Ιράν, συνέθεσαν ένα ιρανοϊσλαμικό κύκλο επών και μυθικής αφήγησης της Ιστορίας μέσα στον οποίο το προϊσλαμικό παρελθόν του Ιράν παρουσιάσθηκε ως ισλαμικού χαρακτήρα και αποδεκτό για το Ισλάμ. Όμως αυτός ο κύκλος επών έγινε εξίσου δεκτός από τους Ιρανούς που δεν έγιναν Μουσουλμάνοι και, διατηρώντας ό,τι είχαν μπορέσει από την παλιότερη, αυτοκρατορική θρησκεία τους, διαμόρφωσαν τον Παρσισμό.
Έτσι, σήμερα στο Ιράν, όταν συναντήσουμε κάποιον που ονομάζεται Φερεϋντούν (το οποίο είναι ντε φάκτο ένα προϊσλαμικό ιρανικό προσωπικό όνομα), δεν μπορούμε σε καμμιά περίπτωση να ξέρουμε, αν αυτός είναι Μουσουλμάνος ή Παρσιστής. Και εννοείται ότι είναι μακρύς ο κατάλογος των ονομάτων αυτών που, όντας προϊσλαμικά ιρανικά, έχουν γίνει ολότελα αποδεκτά από τους μουσουλμάνους Ιρανούς και επιλέγονται ως δικά τους προσωπικά ονόματα.
Η νίκη του Φερεϋντούν επί του Ζαχάκ, κεντρικό θέμα της παρσιστικής εορτής των Μεχραγκάν, εδώ απεικονίζεται σε σμικρογραφία χειρογράφου του έπους Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί, μουσουλμάνου εθνικού ποιητή των Ιρανών και των Τουρανών.
Καθώς μάλιστα οι Ιρανοί και οι Τουρανοί αποτελούν ένα αδιαχώριστο σύνολο εθνών, όλη αυτή η ιρανική πολιτισμική κληρονομιά και επική παράδοση έχει επίσης διαδοθεί ανάμεσα σε όλα τα τουρανικά και μογγολικά φύλα.
Ονόματα όπως Ρουστάμ, Φερεϋντούν, Κέυ Κουμπάντ, Κέυ Καούς, Κεϋχοσρόης, Εσκαντέρ, Σιγιαβούς, Αφρασιάμπ, κλπ είναι προσωπικά ονόματα κατοίκων της Τουρκίας, της Συρίας, του Ιράκ, του Αζερμπαϊτζάν, του Αφγανιστάν, του Πακιστάν, της Ινδίας, της Κίνας, της Ρωσσίας, και όλων των χωρών της Κεντρικής Ασίας – στον μεγαλύτερο βαθμό τους προσωπικά ονόματα Μουσουλμάνων και σε μικρότερο βαθμό προσωπικά ονόματα Παρσιστών.
Ο βασικός χαρακτήρας των Μεχραγκάν (جشن مهرگان , جشن ملی ایرانیان/ εορτασμός Μεχραγκάν – εθνικός εορτασμός των Ιρανών / τζεσν Μεχραγκάν – τζεσν μελί-γιε Ιρανιάν) είναι ο εορτασμός της φθινοπωρινής ισημερίας.
Έτσι, αυτόματα, η εορτή αυτή είναι η δεύτερη σημαντικώτερη των Παρσιστών μετά το Νοουρούζ, το οποίο εορτάζεται κατά την εαρινή ισημερία και αποτελεί την ιρανική Πρωτοχρονιά είτε για τους Μουσουλμάνους είτε για τους Παρσιστές.
Λόγω της ύπαρξης αρκετών ιστορικών ιρανικών ημερολογίων και της αναπροσαρμογής κάποιων από αυτά, συχνά οι ημερομηνίες του εορτασμού διαφέρουν.
Οι επικρατέστερες ημερομηνίες είναι οι πρώτες ημέρες του Οκτωβρίου.
Δεν σώζονται αναφορές σε Μεχραγκάν στα αχαιμενιδικά χρόνια, και προφανώς η εορτή ως μιθραϊστική και αντίθετη στα κηρύγματα του Ζωροάστρη θα είχε απαγορευθεί.
Αλλά για τους Μιθραϊστές ήταν μια πολύ σημαντική εορτή.
Η πρώτη αναφορά σε Μεχραγκάν ανάγεται στα σασανιδικά χρόνια, δηλαδή λίγο καιρό πριν τον εξισλαμισμό του Ιράν.
Η επικράτηση του Μιθραϊσμού στα αρσακιδικά χρόνια (250 π.Χ. – 224 μ.Χ.) είχε υποχρεώσει τους Σασανιδείς που ανήλθαν στην εξουσία το 224 μ.Χ. να κάνουν κάποιους συμβιβασμούς.
Όμως, η ηρωοποιητική προβολή του Ιράν ως εκλεκτού λαού του Άχουρα Μαζντά κατά τα σασανιδικά χρόνια από τον Καρτίρ έδωσε τον ουσιαστικό χαρακτήρα του Μαζδεϊσμού, της τότε αυτοκρατορικής θρησκείας που επιχείρησε να κάνει τους Ιρανούς ένα έθνος ηρώων και τους Σάχηδες αυτοκράτορες όλης της γης.
Ο Ζαχάκ σκοτώνει τον ταύρο.
Έτσι, η παλιά εορτή των Μιθραϊστών διατηρήθηκε στα σασανιδικά χρόνια πλην όμως πήρε ένα χαρακτήρα πανηγυρισμού της νίκης του μυθικού ήρωα Φερεϋντούν επί του Ζαχάκ, του αρνητικού και κακοβουλου ηγεμόνα. Το βασικώτερο χαρακτηριστικό του Ζαχάκ ήταν το κυνήγι ταύρου και η ταυροκτονία. Όμως, εντελώς συμπτωματικά, το βασικώτερο χαρακτηριστικό του Μίθρα ήταν η ταυροκτονία.
Η σύγκρουση του Φερεϋντούν με τον Ζαχάκ
Έτσι, καταλαβαίνουμε ότι οι Μαζδεϊστές διατήρησαν την μιθραϊστική εορτή, δίνοντας όμως εντελώς αρνητικό χαρακτήρα στο μέγιστο επίτευγμα του Μίθρα. Πουθενά αλλού δεν περιγράφεται η σύγκρουση Φερεϋντούν και Ζαχάκ καλύτερα από το Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί, του εθνικού ποιητή του Ιράν, ο οποίος αν και μουσουλμάνος είναι αυτός που χρωμάτισε περισσότερο τον εορτασμό των συγχρόνων Παρσιστών.
Έτσι, κι αυτοί εορτάζουν μια εορτή της οποίας το όνομα παραπέμπει στον Μίθρα και το περιεχόμενο αφορά απόρριψη του έργου του Μίθρα.
Η μάχη του Φερεϋντούν με τον Ζαχάκ
Στην συνέχεια, μπορείτε να δείτε ένα βίντεο που παρουσιάζει όψεις του εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν από τους σύγχρονους Παρσιστές. Στο εισαγωγικό σημείωμα θα βρείτε επεξηγήσεις (σε ελληνικά, αγγλικά και ρωσσικά) για το κάθε τι που δείχνει το βίντεο λεπτό προς λεπτό.
Ευχαριστώ ιδιαίτερα τον διακεκριμμένο ιρανολόγο και ανατολιστή, καθ. Μουχάμαντ Σαμσαντίν Μεγαλομμάτη για την μετάφραση σε νέα ελληνικά των βασικών σημείων του βίντεο, το οποίο είναι ηχογραφημένο σε φαρσί (νέα περσικά). Στην συνέχεια, θα βρείτε πληροφοριακά κείμενα σχετικά με τα Μεχραγκάν.
Ο Φερεϋντούν υποδέχεται τον Τουρσάντ
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Мехраган, Великий осенний праздник парсов в Иране и Индии (مهرگان)
https://www.ok.ru/video/1522499062381
Περισσότερα:
01:43 – 01:57 Великий иранский эпический герой Ферейдун
02:00 – 03:00 Праздничные аспекты современных торжеств Мехреган
03:00 – 03:30 Осеннее Равноденствие – Меграган (эквивалентно празднику Навруз, который совпадает с Весенним Равноденствием, поэтому является Новым годом для мусульманских иранцев и парсов)
03:30 – 03:45 Поэзия Насира Хусрава, иранского шиитского поэта-исмаилита, философа и математика
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Khusraw
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Насир_Хосров
03:46 – 04:10 Персеполис (известный иранцам как Тахт-э Джамшид: трон Джамшида, главного героя иранского эпоса, описанного в «Шахнаме» Фердоуси и многих других иранских эпосах)
04:10 – 04:47 Праздничные аспекты современных торжеств Мехреган
04:48 Статуя Фердоуси («Райский»), национальный иранский поэт (10 в)
04:50 – 05:50 Выживание праздников Мехреган после завоевания Ирана мусульманами, турками и монголами
6:00 – 06:50 Барельеф Митры в Так-Бостане – Иран; представления Митры в индийском, иранском и среднеазиатском искусстве
06:50 – 07:00 У современных парсов образы Ахура Мазды и Зороастра обычно идентичны.
07:05 – 07:15 Ссылки на Ахура Мазду в клинописных древнеахеменидских иранских текстах
07:20 – 07:40 Отрывки из Хорде Авесты (Маленькая Авеста)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khordeh_Avesta
07:40 Праздничные аспекты современных торжеств Мехреган
08:15 Доисламские иранские концепции и верования сохраняются в религиозном, шиитском и суннитском, исламском танце семах
08:42 Персеполис / Тахт-Джамшид
09:00 Дариус I Барельеф в Бехистуне / Бисотуне возле Экбатаны (Хамедан)
09:11 Немруд Даг, юго-восточная Турция: греко-иранское пиковое святилище, самое святое место королевства Коммагены
9:30 Различные памятники иранской цивилизации
09:55 Ссылка на иранского мифического героя Ферейдуна и его победу над Заххаком, который считается отправной точкой праздника Мехреган
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fereydun
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Траэтаона
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahhak
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Заххак
10:30 Праздничные аспекты современных торжеств Мехреган
10:52 Аль Бируни (ведущий мусульманский историк, математик и астроном: XI-XI века) – ссылки на Мехреган
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Аль-Бируни
11:15 Снимки с торжеств Мехреган; ряд иранских памятников и древностей; и изображения сцен из иранских эпосов, в частности, битвы между Ферейдуном и Заххаком
12:50 Слово «Мехреган» было распространено среди арабов уже в доисламские времена, что означает «празднование» или «праздничная годовщина».
13:10 Параллели с древнегреческими религиозными праздниками
13:20 Значительные Мехреган отмечены в истории
14:00 Праздничные аспекты современных торжеств Мехреган
Больше:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehregan
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мехреган
Απεικόνιση του Φερεϋντούν στην νεώτερη ιρανική τέχνη
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Mehragan (Мехреган), the Great Autumn Celebration of the Parsis in Iran and India (مهرگان)
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240311
Περισσότερα:
01:43 – 01:57 Representations of Fereydun
02:00 – 03:00 Festive aspects of modern celebrations of Mehragan
03:00 – 03:30 Autumn Equinox – Mehragan (equivalent to the feast of Nowruz, which coincides with the Spring Equinox, being therefore the New Year’s Day for Muslim Iranians and Parsis)
03:30 – 03:45 Poetry by Nasir Khusraw, Iranian Shiite Ismaili poet, philosopher and mathematician
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Khusraw
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Насир_Хосров
03:46 – 04:10 Persepolis (known to Iranians as Takht-e Jamshid: the throne of Jamshid, the foremost hero of the Iranian epic described in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and many other Iranian epics)
04:10 – 04:47 Festive aspects of modern celebrations of Mehragan
04:48 Statue of Ferdowsi (‘the Paradisiacal’), the national Iranian poet (10th c)
04:50 – 05:50 Survival of Mehragan celebrations after Iran’s conquest by Muslims, Turks and Mongols
6:00 – 06:50 Bas-relief of Mithra in Taq-e Bostan – Iran; representations of Mithra in Indian, Iranian and Central Asiatic art
06:50 – 07:00 Among modern Parsis, the representations of Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster are usually identical.
07:05 – 07:15 References to Ahura Mazda’s in cuneiform Old-Achaemenid Iranian texts
07:20 – 07:40 Excerpts from Khordeh Avesta (Little Avesta)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khordeh_Avesta
07:40 Festive aspects of modern celebrations of Mehragan
08:15 Pre-Islamic Iranian concepts and beliefs are preserved in the religious, Shiite and Sunni, Islamic dance Semah
08:42 Persepolis / Takht-e Jamshid
09:00 Darius I ‘s relief in Behistun / Bisotun near Ekbatana (Hamedan)
09:11 Nemrud Dagh, south-eastern Turkey: the Greek-Iranian peak sanctuary, the holiest place of the kingdom of Commagene
9:30 Various monuments of the Iranian civilization
09:55 Reference to the Iranian mythical hero Fereydun and his victory over Zahhak which is thought to have been the starting point of the Mehragan feast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fereydun
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Траэтаона
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahhak
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Заххак
10:30 Festive aspects of modern celebrations of Mehragan
10:52 Al Biruni (leading Muslim historian, mathematician and astronomer: 10th-11th century) – references to Mehragan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni
11:15 Snapshots from Mehragan celebrations; a number of Iranian monuments and antiquities; and representations of scenes from the Iranian epics, notably the battle between Fereydun and Zahhak
12:50 The word ‘Mehragan’ was diffused among Arabs already in Pre-Islamic times, meaning ‘celebration’ or ‘festive anniversary’
13:10 Parallels with ancient Greek religious festivals
13:20 Significant Mehragan celebrations recorded in History
14:00 Festive aspects of modern celebrations of Mehragan
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehregan
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мехреган
Ζαχάκ: ο κακόβουλος ηγεμόνας
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Μεχραγκάν, η Μεγάλη Φθινοπωρινή Εορτή των Παρσιστών (Mehregan / مهرگان)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EI5E6jOfp8
Περισσότερα:
Αυτές τις μέρες, οι Παρσιστές του Ιράν και της Ινδίας γιορτάζουν μία από τις μεγαλύτερες εορτές τους, τα Μεχραγκάν.
(جشن مهرگان , جشن ملی ایرانیان)
(εορτασμός Μεχραγκάν – εθνικός εορτασμός των Ιρανών / τζεσν Μεχραγκάν – τζεσν μελί-γιε Ιρανιάν)
01:43 – 01:57 Αναπαραστάσεις του Φερεϊντούν
02:00 – 03:00 Όψεις σύγχρονου εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
03:00 – 03:30 Φθινοπωρινή ισημερία – Μεχραγκάν (αντίστοιχο της εαρινής ισημερίας που είναι η ιρανική, μουσουλμανική και πασριστική, Πρωτοχρονιά – Νόουρουζ)
03:30 – 03:45 Στίχοι του Νάσερ Χουσράου, Ιρανού Σιίτη Εβδομοϊμαστή ποιητή, φιλοσόφου και μαθηματικού του 11ου αι
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Khusraw
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Насир_Хосров
03:46 – 04:10 Περσέπολη (γνωστή στους Ιρανούς ως Ταχτ-ε Τζαμσίντ: Θρόνος του Τζαμσίντ, κορυφαίου ήρωα του ιρανικού έπους που έχει περιγραφεί στο Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί και σε πλήθος άλλων ιρανικών επών)
04:10 – 04:47 Όψεις σύγχρονου εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
04:48 Άγαλμα του Φερντοουσί (: Παραδεισένιου) εθνικού ποιητή του Ιράν (10ος αι)
04:50 – 05:50 Επιβίωση του εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν μετά τις κατακτήσεις του Ιράν από τους Μουσουλμάνους, τους Τούρκους και τους Μογγόλους
6:00 – 06:50 Ανάγλυφο του Μίθρα στο Ταγ-ε Μποστάν – Ιράν και απεικονίσεις του Μίθρα στην ινδική, ιρανική και κεντρασιατική τέχνη
06:50 – 07:00 Στους νεώτερους Παρσιστές οι απεικονίσεις του Άχουρα Μαζντά και του Ζωροάστρη συγχέονται και ταυτίζονται.
07:05 – 07:15 Αναφορές του Άχουρα Μαζντά σε σφηνοειδή αρχαία αχαιμενιδικά ιρανικά κείμενα
07:20 – 07:40 Απαγγελία από την Χορντέ Αβέστα (μικρή Αβέστα)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khordeh_Avesta
07:40 Όψεις σύγχρονου εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
08:15 Διατήρηση ιρανικών προϊσλαμικών παραδόσεων στον ισλαμικό σιιτικό και σουνιτικό θρησκευτικό χορό Σαμά
08:42 Περσέπολη / Ταχτ-ε Τζαμσίντ
09:00 Ανάγλυφο του Δαρείου Α’ στο Μπεχιστούν / Μπισοτούν κοντά στα Εκβάτανα
09:11 Νέμρουντ Νταγ, νοτιοανατολική Τουρκία: ελληνοϊρανικό ιεροθέσιο κορυφής της Κομμαγηνής
9:30 Διάφορα μνημεία ιρανικού πολιτισμού
09:55 Αναφορά στον ιρανικό μυθικό ήρωα Φερεϊντούν και την νίκη του επί του Ζαχάκ που υστερογενώς εκλήφθηκε ως αρχή του εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
10:30 Όψεις σύγχρονου εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
10:52 Αλ Μπιρούνι (κορυφαίος μουσουλμάνος ιστορικός, μαθηματικός κι αστρονόμος: 10ος- 11ος αι.) – αναφορές σε Μεχραγκάν
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni
11:15 Σκηνές από εορτασμούς των Μεχραγκάν, ποικίλα ιρανικά μνημεία και αρχαιότητες, και αναπαραστάσεις σκηνών από την ιρανική εποποιΐα, ιδιαίτερα της μάχης μεταξύ Φερεϊντούν και Ζαχάκ
12:50 Διάδοση της λέξης ‘Μεχραγκάν’ στα αραβικά με την γενική έννοια ‘εορτασμός’, ‘εορταστική επέτειος’
13:10 Παράλληλα με αρχαιοελληνικές εορτές
13:20 Σημαντικοί εορτασμοί Μεχραγκάν στην Ιστορία
14:00 Όψεις σύγχρονου εορτασμού των Μεχραγκάν
Επιπλέον:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehregan
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мехреган
=========================
Διαβάστε:
The Festival of Mehregan
Mehregan is one of the most ancient Iranian festivals known, dating back at least as far as the proto- Iranians. According to Dr. Taqizadeh, (1938, p. 38: “The feast of Mithra or baga was no doubt one of the most popular, if not the greatest of all the festivals for the ancient Iranians, where it was celebrated with the greatest attention.
This was originally an old-Iranian and pre-Zoroastrian feast consecrated to the sun-god and its’ place in the Old-Persian calendar was surely in the month belonging to this deity.
This month was called Bagayadi or Bagayadish and almost certainly corresponded to the seventh Babylonian month Tishritu, the patron of which, was also Shamash, the Babylonian sun god.
This month was, as has already been stated, probably the first month of the Old-Persian year, and its more or less fixed place was in the early part of the autumn.
The feast was in all probability pre-Zoroastrian and it was perhaps the survival of an earlier Iranian New Year festival dating from some prehistoric phase of the Proto-Iranian (Aryan) calendar, when the year began at the autumnal equinox. It was connected with the worship of one of the oldest Iranian deities (Baga-Mithra), of whom traces are found as far back as in the fourteenth century BCE.
In the Zoroastrian religious calendar, Mehregan is celebrated on the sixteenth day of the seventh month. According to Fasli reckoning, this occurs on October 1st. Modi (1922), p. 463, states that Mehregan should properly fall on the fall equinox (which is the first day of the seventh month), but it is usually performed on the name day of Mithra (16th day). Meherjirana (1869, tr 1982 by Kotwal and Boyd) p. 161 says that this feast is important for the following reasons:
“This jashn is called Mehregan and is a time for love and gratitude for life. [In ancient times] Zohak was very cruel to the people. So a blacksmith named Kaveh, with the help of others, sought out Faridoun who then caught Zohak and prisoned him in mount Damavand. Faridoun then became king and the peoples’ lives were saved. For these reasons, King Faridoun and all the people had a great jashan on that day. It is so stated in the Persian Vajarkard Dini.”
According to Zoroastrian angelology, Mithra is the greatest of the Yazats (angels), and is an angel of light, associated with the sun (but distinct from it), and of the legal contract (Mithra is also a common noun in the Avesta meaning contract). He has a thousand ears, ten-thousand eyes.
The feast of Mehregan is a community celebration (Jashan), and prayers of thanksgiving and blessings of the community (Afarinagan) figure prominently in the observances.
In the Rig Veda, Mitra figures prominently mentioned over 200 times.
The Sun is said to be the eye of Mitra, or of the compound Asura “Mitravaruna” (analogous to Mithra-Ahura in Avesta), who wield dominion by means of maya (occult power).
They are guardians of the whole world, upholders of order, barriers against falsehood. (The Vedic language also has a common noun Mitra meaning ‘friend’.)
In the angelology of Jewish mysticism, as the result of Zoroastrian influence, Mithra appears as Metatron, the highest of the angels.
He also appeared as Mithras, god of the Mithraic religion popular among the Roman military.
He can also be found in Manichaeism and in Buddhist Soghdian texts. Mehregan, Tiragan, and Norooz, were the only Zoroastrian feasts be mentioned in the Talmud, which is an indication of their popularity.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Celebrations/mehregan.htm
-------------------------------
Mehregān
Mehregān (Mehrgān/Mehregān; Ar. Mehrajān; Meherangān among the Parsis), an Iranian festival apparently dedicated to the god Miθra/Mehr, occurring also in onomastics and toponymy.
By extension this name is used with the generical meaning of autumn and identifies a musical mode. In the Mazdean annual schema of feasts, the festival occurs on the day Mehr of the month Mehr, that is, the 16th day of the 7th month. In some almanacs the occurrence of Mehragān is marked at the 10th of Mehr, after the modern reform (1925 CE) of the Iranian calendar (Ruḥ-al-Amini, p. 83).
The name of the festival is to be found in the Jerusalem Talmud and in that of Babylon (Taqizāda, pp. 192, 214; tr. pp. 158-59, 311; Bokser, pp. 261-62; Neusner, pp. 185-86).
According to Masʿudi (Moruj, sec. 1287), in the Christian milieu of Syria and Iraq, the word Mehrajān indicated the first day of winter.
The Arabic form Mehrajān identifies also a festival widespread outside the Iranian plateau. In a variant of the Aḥsan al-taqāsim by Moqaddasi (p. 45, n. d), there is mention of its celebrations in ʿAden, where the author has been visiting around the end of the 9th century (Cristoforetti, pp. 162-63).
On the basis of some Arabic verses of the Sicilian poet ʿAli b. ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Ballanubi, Mehrajān celebrations were observed in Cairo in the 11th-12th centuries (Corrao, p. 56).
After its prohibition, at an unknown date, this “Coptic” festival was allowed again by the Fatimid caliph al-Ẓāher (r. 1021-36; Corrao, p. xxxvii). For Egypt one can envisage a symmetry between Mehrajān and the local festival Nayriz, which clearly derives from Nowruz and occurs at the 1st of the Coptic month of Tut (September 10-11). We know that in modern times a Mehrajān festival occurs in mid-February in Somalia (Cerulli, p. 162). According to Ebn ʿEḏāri (p. 84), in 399/1009 in Andalus Mehrajān occurred at the end of Šawwāl, which corresponds to the last ten days of June.
In Andalus during 10th century, the name ʿAnsara was much more in use than the Persian derived name Mehrajān for the same festival (Lévi-Provénçal, p. 172 n. 1). The coincidence with the St. John festival and its fires (24th of June) makes one think of a symmetrical Andalusi Nayriz festival on the 1st of January, but the general lack of information on the matter does not allow one to say anything conclusive (for Arabic sources about Christian festivals in Andalus, including Mehrajān, see Fernando de la Granja). The relation of symmetry and consequent analogy between Mehrgān and Nowruz is frequently asserted in the extant sources (see below). This is the basis on which one may make inferences about the ancient rites of Mehrgān.
The name of the festival Mehragān is formed of the proper noun Mehr (Old Pers. Miθra/Mithra, a diety) and the suffix –agān, which is used in many names of the Mazdean festivals (on this point and for a survey of other possible etymologies, see Calmard, p. 15). Walter Belardi (esp. pp. 61-149) has done a detailed study on the position of Mithra/Mehr in the Iranian calendar. His study is focused on the significant meaning of the name of this Indo-Iranian god, based on the common noun *mitrá, as “pact, contract, covenant,” and on Mithra/Mehr’s function as an arbiter (cf. Boyce, 1975-82, I, pp. 24-31). This function is well testified by his Greek attribute mesítēs (according to Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 46) and by the Iranian and para-Iranian sources, in which Mithra/Mehr acts as arbitrator on the cosmological, eschatological, and anthropological levels (Belardi, pp. 32-45).
The Mehragān festival is clearly correlated to the equinox (see Biruni, Āṯār, p. 222; tr., p. 208), which is the astronomical phenomenon most easily linked to the concept of equity and equilibrium. But it remains uncertain whether the festival was in honor of Mithra or if the dedication to Mithra was, in Ḥasan Taqizāda’s view, serendipitous. According to Taqizāda (pp. 350-51; tr., p. 145), the reason may as well be a compromise that occurred in the process of adoption of some ancient religious beliefs by Zoroastrians.
Hence, the celebration of Baga Mithra in the 7th month of the Achaemenian calendar Bagayadi- (Av. Bāgayāday-) may have been added to the “new-Avestan” calendar in a period (second half of the 5th century BCE) in which the seasonal celebrations for the autunm equinox coincided with the 16th of Mehr. The name of the festival (*bāgayāda?) had been replaced by the name that this festival features in the “new-Avestan” calendar, that is Mehragān (<*miθrakāna).
Taqizāda’s hypothesis implies that the name of the Achaemenian month was taken to mean “(the month of) the worship of Baga,” assimilated with Mithra, but this interpretation has been rejected for philological reasons (Boyce, 1981, pp. 66-68; idem, 1982, II, pp. 16-18, esp. p. 24; on the name Baga, see Gignoux, pp. 88-90).
In fact, the only possible analogy between the Achaemenian celebration and the posterior Mehragān could be found in the stated celebration for the triumph of justice over usurpation, respectively represented by the victory of Darius I the Great over Gaumāta and of the epic hero Ferēdūn over Bēvarasp (Żaḥḥāk).
According to Taqizāda (p. 350; tr., p. 145), the Iranian epic preserved the memory of the coincidence of Mehragān with the day on which the usurper Gaumāta was killed by Darius I in 522 BCE. Some of the rites used on Magophonia, that is, the commemoration of the murder of the magi, or “of the magus” Gaumāta under Darius I, may have influenced the observance of *Mithrakāna (see Boyce, 1975-82, II, pp. 86-89; Hartner, p. 749; Henning, pp. 133-44; Dandamaev, pp. 138-40; Widengren, pp. 163-66).
It is noteworthy that the report by Ebn al-Balḵi (pp. 90-91) about the massacre of the Mazdakites ordered by Ḵosrow I Anuširavān (r. 531-79 CE) on the occasion of the great banquet for Mehragān could confirm the analogy, but this passage would also imply that Mehragān was an official occasion in which the king assigned “duties and assignments” (kārhā wa šoḡlhā; cf. Ps.-Jāḥeẓ, Ketāb al-tāj, p. 144; tr., p. 164; cf., for Nowruz, ḴELʿAT).
The festival, which was once connected to the solar calendar of the Iranian tradition, evidently suffered all the consequences of the complex evolution of the various forms of that calendar used by the Iranian people. Originally, and probably until the early Sasanian period, Mehragān was a single day (Boyce, 1970, pp. 518-19; idem, 1982, II, p. 34), but it seems to have been duplicated during the Islamic age as a Small or General Mehragān and a Great or Special Mehragān, as is the case of Nowruz and other festivals (Biruni, Āṯār, pp. 223-24; tr., p. 209).
This kind of duplication, producing a distance of five days between these two festivals, is clearly related to the general issue of interventions in the Iranian calendar, on which scholarly opinions differ notably (Bickerman, p. 203; Boyce, 1970, pp. 514-29; Balinski, p. 99; Marshak, pp. 145-52; de Blois, pp. 40-41, 46-49; Scarcia, pp. 133-41). The Arabic sources (e.g., Biruni, Āṯār, pp. 222-23; tr., pp. 207-9; Ṯaʾālebi, pp. 33-35) testify to attempts, clearly a posteriori, to explain those duplications on the basis of two different moments in the epic tradition being referred to; concerning Mehragān, they attribute it to the rebellion of Kāva and the triumph of Fereydun over Bēvarasp.
The fact that the epic tradition plays a role also in connection with the Sada festival may be due to the occurrence of the calendrical Mehragān in the traditional seasonal place of the Sada festival during the 6th and 7th centuries CE (Cristoforetti, 2002, p. 295). According to Biruni, the Sasanian king Ohrmazd I (r. 272-73 CE) joined the Small and the Great Mehragān, thereby turning it into a six-day festival (according to Taqizāda, pp. 351 n. 496, tr. p. 323 n. 496, this enlargement is a phenomenon that had already occurred in a more ancient time).
The fact that festivals were extended is supported for the later Sasanian times by a Byzantine document dated 565 CE (Boyce, 1983, pp. 807-8). However, afterwards the kings and the people of Iran celebrated the festival over thirty days, “distributing them over the several classes of the population in the same way as we have heretofore explained regarding Nowruz” (Biruni, Āṯār, p. 224; tr., p. 209; cf. idem, Tafhim, pp. 254-55). Biruni’s note that Nowruz was celebrated for thirty days through the month of Farvardin, if taken at face value, would make it reasonable to assume that the festival of Mehragān also lasted for the same number of days, starting on the day of Mehragān and ending on the 15th of Ābān.
It is possible to see a relation between this ambiguous passage by Biruni and the fact that Ferdowsi (I, p. 89, v. 3) talks about a Mehrgān of the 1st of Mehr as in perfect symmetry to the Nowruz of the 1st of Farvardin (cf. Modi, 1922, p. 463). The following sentence attributed to Salmān Fārsi (Biruni, Āṯār, p. 222; tr., p. 208) clearly reflects such symmetry between the two festivals in a different way: “In Persian times we used to say that God has created an ornament for his slaves, of rubies on Nowruz, of emeralds on Mehrajān.
Therefore these two days excel all other days in the same way as these two jewels excel all other jewels” (cf. similar point in Ps-Jāḥeẓ, Maḥāsen, p. 361).
This close relation of perfect twinship is also reflected by the fact that in Arsacid times “Nō Rōz came to be celebrated at the autumn equinox, and Mihragān at the spring one, the two poles of the religious year thus changing places” (Boyce, 1983, p. 805; cf. idem, 1979, p. 106).
According to Mary Boyce, the original festival may have been renamed under the influence of a Babylonian autumn festival, which was “under the protection of Shamash, Mithra’s Mesopotamian counterpart” (Boyce, 1982, II, p. 35).
However, all of our information concerning the Mehragān festival is provided by sources of non-Iranian origin (Rajabi, p. 222).
In Greek authors we find only mentions of generic celebrations: “The dominant aspect is that of a royal festival of a new year or renewal, celebrated by festivities, present-giving, animal sacrifices” (Calmard, p. 16).
According to Ctesias, it was the only annual occasion on which it was proper for the king of Persia to get inebriated (cf. Boyce, 1975, I, p. 173, who connects the practice with the use of soma/haoma).
Nevertheless, another dominant feature of the festival seems to have been its royal and solar aspect; on the day of Mehragān, the day of the creation of the sun itself, the king would wear a crown engraved with the image of the sun (Biruni, Āṯār, p. 222; tr., p. 207).
As regards the Arsacids, a passage in Ṯaʿālebi (p. 47) referring to an official meeting between Ḵosrow son of Firuz (Osroes II? r. ca. 190-95 CE) and the chief of the Zoroastrian priests seems to be the most ancient testimony of customs regarding exchanging of gifts on Mehragān.
But both the name of the ruler and the congruity of the two characters recall the well-known topos of wisdom of Ḵosrow I Anuširavān and his most wise minister Bozorgmehr.
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Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε Word doc.:
https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/ss-250611802
https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/mehragan_the_parsis_great_autumn_feast.docx
https://vk.com/doc429864789_620132611
https://www.docdroid.net/nnR62DK/mekhraghkan-i-meghali-fthinoporini-eorti-ton-parsistwn-toy-iran-kai-tis-indias-docx
The Kargaly/Wusun diadem 2nd C. BCE - 2nd C. CE. Note, Katheryn's article below is much longer and has more info, I just took snips of what I found most interesting. It can be found online.
"According to Chinese archaeologists, the excavated skeletal remains presumed to be Wusun are of the short-headed Europoid Central Asian interfluvial type (Mallory Mair 2000: 93-94). On the basis of six skulls from the last centuries BC/first centuries AD found in Semirechye and presumed to be those of the Wusun, Soviet archaeologists have described them as ranging from primarily Europoid with some Mongoloid admixture to pure Europeans (Mallory Mair 2000: 93-94). Evidence from ancient Chinese texts is contradictory about the appearance of these peoples and only DNA and other types of scientific testing will bring clarity to this issue.
Although gold artefacts and inlay can be found dating from the Late Neolithic through to the Bronze Age in China, it was most prevalent in its borderlands (Bunker 1993: 27-46) until the Qin and Han, when it found preference on a broader scale.
In addition, the lost-wax lost-textile casting technology was developed and used (Bunker 1988: 222-27) in the area adjacent to the very tombs from where the iconography and style of the diadem hails. Observations about the inlay technology used on the diadem are important clues as well. Inlay appeared on Chinese-produced objects almost exclusively where a cell was created into which the stone was placed and adhered with some fixative (Bunker 1993). This is not the technique used to produce the diadem, where the gold was hammered into a matrix-template, then engraved (or chased) on the surface. Many of the cells for inlay were created in the hammering process and after the stones were in place, secured by hammering the bezels surrounding each stone. In addition, there were pierced cells filled from behind with stone and secured with the addition of a gold sheet adhered behind the stone. Items produced using such techniques would probably not have been created in Chinese foundries.
Moreover, gold animal plaques known from earlier Xiongnu tombs (third century BC) use inlay to enhance the natural conformation of the beasts (Figure 5). By placing inlays at the points of movement such as at the haunches of quadrupeds or at the wing joints of birds, the potential of movement and thereby the power of these wild creatures is underscored. Inlays also mark such features as eyes. On the Kargaly diadem, however, circular inlays are used decoratively as a patterned design, still often at the haunches, but also throughout the clouds. They no longer emphasize the natural form or movement of the animals or the clouds, but create an overall pattern. This recommends a later date for the diadem, perhaps late first or second century AD.
But why would such models be used in south-eastern Kazakhstan at this time? This is a unique piece—its style and iconography were nor known before or after in the region. The models for the iconography were taken from types known near Han imperial military outposts in a place where the Chinese hoped their troops could contain barbarian incursions and where peace and stability were difficult to maintain. Those units often included conscripts whose allegiance was opportunistic. The models for diadems (Stark 2012: 134) or for applications to adorn carts or clothing come from further west.
So, was this piece made in the Western Regions, in the territory beyond the Jade Gate of the Great Wall (in present day Gansu) that marked the boundary of Han hegemony, and then carried west? Was it perhaps made as a gift for an embassy to present to a Wusun or Yuezhi leader far outside of Han territory, such as in Wusun? Or, alternatively, was it carried by a regional princess to her place of exile and burial as the partner of one of those 'foreign' leaders?"
-Katheryn Linduff, Immortals in a foreign land: the Kargaly diadem. 2014, Antiquity, Vol 88, issue 339
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Akhnatens letters
*These are five of the Amarna letters in the british museum
The Amarna letters features letters directed to Akhnaten and before him his father about the fall of conquered terratories in Caanan and Syria to the kingdoms of the Mitanni, the Babylonians and the Hittites.
These letters are featured in the opera Akhnaten in the third act and are transcribed from Samuel A.B Mercers translation from his 1939 book "Mercer, The Tel-el-Amarna Tablets". The book is hard to find so I cannot connect the letters to their correct tablets at this time but I will when I get ahold of the book.
The letters are used to paint a good picture of the severe losses Egypt suffered during Akhnaten and his ancestors reign. His descendants in the 18th dynasty mitigated the issue but the 19th dynasty namely Seti I and Ramesses II probably reclaimed the most.
Letter No. 1: I have written repeatedly for troops, but they were not given and the king did not listen to the word of his servant. And I sent my messenger to the palace, but he returned empty-handed - he brought no troops. And when the people of my house saw this, they rediculed me like the governors, my brethren, and dispised me.
Letter No. 2: The king's whole land, which has begun hostilities with me, will be lost. Behold the territory of Seir, as far as Carmel; its princes are wholly lost; and hostilities prevail against me. As long as ships were upon the sea the strong arm of the king occupied Naharin and Kash, but now the Apiru are occupying the king's cities. There remains not one prince to my lord, the king; every one is ruined. Let the king take care of his land and let him send troops. For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my lord, the king, will perish. If there are no troops in this year, let the king send his officer to fetch me and his brothers, that we may die with our lord, the king.
Note: Naharin meant the land of the Mitanni claimed by Thutmose III in his military campaign.
Letter No. 3: Verily, they father did not march forth nor inspect the lands of the vassal-princes. And when thou ascended the throne of thy father's house, Abdashirta's sons took the king's lands for themselves. Creatures of the king of Mittani are they, and of the king of Babylon and of the king of the Hittites.
Letter No. 4 Who formerly could have plundered Tunip without being plundered by Thutmose III? The gods of the king of Egypt, my lord, dwell in Tunip. May my lord ask his old men if this not be so. Now, however, we belong no more to our lord, the king of Egypt. And now Tunip, thy city, weeps and her tears are flowing and there is not help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to our lord, the king of Egypt, but there has not come to us a word - no, not one.
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