Iran: Past

About Elam (Etymology & language)

2009-02-21T01:35:00.000-08:00

Back to Elam, for some reason every time I wanted to do this task, it seemed so hard to me that I managed to find a way to postpone it. Well, not that it happened many times indeed.
The term Elam seems to come from the Sumerian and Akkadian elûm; meaning “to be high”, as far as I get it archeologists think it was because of the plateau located in southwest Iran and its high altitude, but a R. Zadok person has stressed that there was a period when they called any highlander from the Iranian plateau and its inhabitants as Elam. Interestingly the most popular way people know about the name Elam is not via the recovered cuneiforms, but it’s through bible.
It is good to know, however, that there were diverse groups of people with various languages living in the western plateau of Iran, and they did not identify themselves under the same name of Elamis, rather Sumerians and Akkadians called all these various groups by a same name, and as I found out we call all these different languages as Elamite because we do not have any indigenous terms for them.

Ref: The Archeology of Elam by: Daniel T. Potts.

Picture: Standing Lioness demon ca 3000-2800 B.c.; proto-elamite, Iran. Courtesy of: http://www.metmuseum.org/

Elamite period (3400 -550 BC)

2008-01-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Elamite period is generally divided into three distinct eras: Old, middle, late(neo-elamite). The elamites called their homeland Haltamti (highland), but akkadians called Elam. One point of view proposes that Elamites are the descendants of Elam, the eldest son of Shem of the Old Testament and hence the name1.
Many pieces of information regarding this historical era are missing yet. Indigenous sources are scarce and therefore, mostly we should rely on Mesopotemian sources. Although other civilizations existed before Elamites (I’ll discuss them in future posts), Elamite civilization seems to be a very influential one in the Persian plateau. As far as I have understood, according to old mesopotemian sources and their detailed map , in the late 3rd millennium B.C.E. Elam covered the whole Persian plateau (from Mesopotamia to the Kavîr-e Namak and Dašt-e Lût and from the Caspian (q.v.) to the Persian Gulf)2. However, today Elam is mainly known to have covered lowlands and highlands to the north and east of where Khuzestan lies in today’s Iran3.(see map)
Anyhow, we know that Elam’s cultural influence went much farther than the Persian plateau, reaching central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and southern shores of the Persian gulf2.
Elamites were always closely involved with their neighboring civilizations, including Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. But it seems that this relationship was mostly based on wars rather than peaceful trading.
Susa has been the site of most discoveries related to this era. Earliest objects found display remarkable work of art which can not be found in Mesopotemia. However, excavations revealing objects belonging to later periods of this civilization show the influence of Mesopotemians along with those from Persian plateau (starting 3200 B.C.E.)
A very interesting point is that the proto-elamite script which has a striking resemblance to Indus script is still undeciphered, (at least based on what I learned from texts about elamites).
Elamites rulers had a federated governing system. In this system brothers succeeded the ruler, and sons only became rulers when there was no uncles left! This is specially true about the first centuries of their ruling, later we can see more sons succeeding their fathers. Also when the king died, in many instances apparently the queen became the next king’s wife (her brother in law’s wife). Next I will discuss each phase of elamite era.

1 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Iranian_History/Contents/The_Elamites
2 The History of Elam. By: Francois Vallat http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/History/Elamite/elam_history.htm
3 Elamite Empire. By: Cyrus Shahmiri. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/elamite/elamite.php

Two examples of Elamite period's art

2007-07-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

I am back again after a long time, these last few months I have been really busy with projects and exams, still have a big one coming, but I missed writing in this blog very much.
So this is a short post.
The mid elamite period is known for its fine art works. Two remaining examples are well known today. The first one, which is also the largest metal statue (3,860 lbs) found in middle east (?) is the statue of Queen Napirasu, the wife of the famous king Untash-Huban who made Choga-zambil. The statue is made out of bronze and copper, but unfortunately the head and left arm are damaged and missing. Today this statue is kept at Louvre, Paris. The figure is life-size, and shows the great skills of that era's metalworkers.

The statue has been cast in two parts, and then pinned together. Some say that she is shown in an attitude of prayer with her folded hands, but not everybody agrees. She is wearing four bracelets on her right wrist and a ring on her left ring finger. Eventhough the costume is pretty simple, the details are shown with delicacy. There is an inscription on the front of her skirt, which reads:

He who would seize my statue, who would smash it, who would destroy its inscription, who would erase my name, may he be smitten by the curse of [the gods], that his name shall become extinct, that his offspring be barren.... This is Napir-Asu's offering.

The statue is placed under protection of god Beltiya, Inshushinak, Napirisha and Kiririsha.

See larger image here

The second remaining art work is a bronze head of presumably an elamite ruler. This one is in Metropolitan museum, New York, today. With its severe expression, it seems to be a portrait of a real person. The hair is is held by sort of a turban. He has prominent facial features.

You can see the larger image here

The oldest animation of the world on a 5000 years old vase from burnt city

2007-06-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Photos from CHN photo agencey: photographer: Hossein Salmanzadeh

I have found the whole animation sequence movie, but I should find a way to upload it here.

Have a better look at choga-zambil!

2007-04-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to World Heritage Organization!!! This is great.

Tour 1

Tour 2

Tour 3

note 1:you should have QuickTime
note 2:Click and move your mouse, you'll see a 360 degree view.

Choga Zambil's pics

2007-03-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

photos by Shahed Mohammadi

In the first pic you can see a model of what is left of Choga Zambil today. Second one is one of the things found there now kept in a museum. And yes the third one is a sample of an inscribed brick!

Kashan's Residences: Tabatabaei Residence pics

2007-03-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

Tabatabaei Residence was built in mid 1800 (circa 1840) for another afluent family. This residence is now a protected Unesco world Heritage site too.

Kashan's Residences: Abbasian Residence pics

2007-03-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures on February 2007, during a trip to some cities in desert in Iran. These ones are from Abbasian Residence in Kashan(Late 1700). It is now a protected Unesco world Heritage site. Though not related to my current discussion they are related to Iran's more recent past.

Choga-Zambil: part II

2007-03-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

As said in the previous post Choga-zambil or the holy city of Dur Untash (Untash Huban) is the most important remaining element from the Elamite civilization. Elam mainly consisted of today’s southwestern region of Iran. Though it covered varied regions through out the course of its existence. One of its most important cities was Susa (located in today’s Iran, in Khuzestan) In Middle Elamite period Elam gradually gained independence as a political and cultural power in the region.(1500-1000 BC) During this flourishing period king Untash Huban (Napirsha) decided to make a holy city some 40 kilometers away from Susa which today is known as Choga-zambil. ( Elamite’s glorious era soon ended when Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar I invaded them at the end of twelfth century BC. In the following period or the neo-Elimite era Elamites had their weakest and most vulnerable time of all, they were constantly threatened by Assyrians. The last blow was a series of attacks guided by Ashurbanipal, Assyrian leader, which led to massive destructions in Susa. Nevertheless Susa remained as the administrative capital and a great city under Cyrus the Great. Elimite language and culture persisted for a few centuries after that when Elam was ruled by Achaemenids, but they were never an independent political power again.)

Numerous Metal statues, polychrome glazed wall plaques, cylinder seals and thousands of baked bricks with inscriptions on them were found in the area.( I read somewhere that when these inscriptions were translated into French, they made 4 volume books. Actually every tenth row there was a layer of inscribed bricks. It is from these inscriptions that facts about the king himself and the gods worshipped in that era and the ziggurat and its temples and palaces are understood. There are even warnings to those who dare to harm the structure!!!)

Ziggurat's first storey is 95 meters high (the one with the central court) The next four stories which were added on top of the main body later in the second phase completed the ziggurat. Only two of these latter stories (25 meters high) have survived to this day. Girshman’s estimations conclude that 3rd and 4th stories were respectively 32 and 44 meters high, making the whole ziggurat’s height nearly 53 meters. Among amazes of Choga-zambil is its water supply and drainage system which was designed in a very sophisticated manner. (Canalizing water from the river, and designing the drainage system in a way to minimize destructive effect of rainfalls on this building made out of brick and mud…) From the remaining texts now we know that the glowing effect of the upper levels was maintained through blue and green colored bricks embedded with gold and silver pieces. The monument was even ornamented with glass, faience and gypsum works. There is a courtyard around the ziggurat for the visiting pilgrims.
Temples built between inner and middle wall each belonged to one of Elamite gods or goddesses. Five underground tombs with royal dimensions were found in the excavations. Much more can be said about different temples and palaces and details of what is found in Choga-zambil (like seven doors in one of the main walls surrounding the city which tells us about elamite beliefs.)

At the time of king Untash's death the construction work was not completed, and later the process slowed down till Assyrian attacks (7th century BC). During these times holy city was still visited by pilgrims and clergymen, but gradually it was deserted and valuable belongings were transferred to Susa.

Restoration and conservation project was designed and carried on by the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization and The UNESCO/Japan Trust Fund for the Preservation of World Cultural Heritage. As far as I know the first phase was completed in year 2002.

Choga-Zambil's Pics

2007-01-20T02:02:00.000-08:00

photos by Shahed Mohamadi

Choga-Zambil's Pics

2007-01-20T01:36:00.001-08:00

Photos by Shahed Mohammadi

(special thanx to Shahed for his beautiful photos, I don't have Babak's photos yet.)

Choga-Zambil: part I

2007-01-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

The ziggurat of Choga-Zambil is the most important monument remained from the middle period of Elamite art(1500 to 1000 B.C.). Choga-Zambil still standing today in the Susa region is a great storeyed tower, one of the many found in the Mesopotemia, but the most outstanding among those, the most well preserved and the most impressive. The Anglo-Iranian oil company was the first to find it and then the expediters came and expeditions took place circa 1936. Further excavations were done between years 1951 and 1962.

The ziggurat was dedicated to Inshushinak , the guardian god of Susa. It was built by Untash-Huban the Elamite king according to brick inscriptions. A group of palaces and temples were found beside the ziggurat.

A very interesting point for me is the assumption that this may indeed have been the tower of Babylonia. As Jean-Louis Huot mentions in his book from Genesis 11,verses 2 to 4:"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar,"-the shanar of the cuneiform texts, i.e. Babylonia-" and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven."... This may not be the most recent thesis about Babylonia though, I need to read further through the available texts.

As for Choga-Zambil's format and appearance Babak has some photos he took himself from the ziggurat. As soon as those are found I will post them here. But in brief it was a five storey building made from brick in the form of square, three of the five original stories are preserved. The first and lowest storey was built first, a large open square. Within the thickness of the walls are the vaulted chambers. The upper stories built in the second stage were constructed one inside the other, each resting directly on the ground. , with the highest one in the centre. There were monumental doors with staircases on each side, but only the one on the southwest entrance led to the highest level of the tower which was probably the temple of Inshushinak.

There is much more to say about Choga-Zambil. I am really happy to be back blogging here, and probably the next few posts are still going to be about Choga-Zambil .

(Also called :Choga-Zanbil, Chogha-Zambil or Chogha-Zanbil)

to be cont'd.

Results3:Susa

2006-09-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

It was in this period of time(Susa, last centuries of fourth millennium B.C.) that for the first time engraved stones were used as seals.Stamp seals were almost completely replaced by roller-shaped and lengthwise perforated seal-stones called cylinder seals.They were made of marble, of variously coloured limestone, and also of a composite material which was probably faience.The designs are almost always linear or employ hatching. Earlier the designs mostly included men hunting, tending cattle, hoeing the ground, making and filling storage vessels, storing grain in silos which are not unlike Egyptian ones in outline, baking, weaving, and carrying an exalted personage or statue in a procession or a bearded warrior, doubtless the ruler, is shown transfixing with arrows a host of nude enemies who seem to have threatened a noble temple on a terrace. But later in this period the designs mostly consist of tablets inscribed only with numerals which are called Proto-Elamite, the repertory of which consists almost exclusively of animals or monsters such as griffins. Many other designs are still obscure , but they may be related to protective spirits or the relationship between the vital forces of nature.(I saw many of these in Metropolitan musuem, though I am not sure if they all belonged to Susa, but they were used as seals and the designs were really interesting.).

to be cont'd

Siyalk Pottery Samples

2006-07-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

These two images show two Siyalk pottery.

Results 2: Susa

2006-07-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Another very important excavation site was Susa. Actually it was at Susa that the masterpieces of Iranian archaic painted pottery were found and it is believed that south-west Iran was one of the first centres of painted pottery. All the pottery were made by hand, but baked in special ovens. Susa is in fact an imposing mound with three peaks crowned by the citadel, the Apadana, and the royal town of the Achaemenid kings. It is divided to different levels according to the date and findings. The oldest, Susa A is known mainly for its cemetery, which contained more than 2000 tombs. The pottery related to Susa A is specifically interesting from the artistic point of view. The background is usually a light color with a greenish tinge, and the designs are still monochrome. "The decoration is notable for its unfailing sense of composition and its extremely clear and forceful drawing. Every item achieves the perfection, sureness and balance of a masterpiece." (Pictures show 2 of these found at the cemetery,they belong to Susa A)

- I have two big exams in the next two months, so in order to continue blogging I have to do a bit at a time, therefore the posts will be shorter than before.
- As for the exact dates of Siyalk, I haven't found enough data yet, it will take some time but I'll find the information.
- Next I will write some more about Susa and then I'll work on the Elamite period and specially Choga Zambil.

2006-07-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

I have a very good news. I contacted Jean Louis Huot to ask for his permission to use his book, and after recieving his permission I asked him to introduce the good and trusty books that he knows to me, and he was so kind that he sent me a list of books he thought I should read. So I have more than enough fuel for this wheel to turn.

Results 1:Siyalk

2006-07-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

First I will try to tell what was found at Siyalk in order, because eventhough mentioning different layers and what were found in them may sound too complicated, but for me it was really interesting. In a very simple way you will see the evolvement of mankind through these layers.
"The Iranian plateau has certainly been inhabited since the fifth millennium" (B.C). Ghirshman identified one of the oldest human settlements at Siyalk( near Kashan, western Iran). They are divided into three groups ( I believe this means 3 tepes , but I am not sure): Siyalk I, Sialk II and Sialk III. Sialk I is the oldest. "The inhabitants of Siyalk I may have practiced some form of agriculture and stock-breeding, since a few teeth of cattle and sheep were found there, together with sickles made of animal ribs combined with flint." Also the evidence shows that hunting must have played an important role in that era. In layer I.1 no architectural remains were found( probably the houses were built out of branches and mud....). Layers I.2 to I.5 contained fragments of unbaked clay, which were nevertheless as hard as stone. Sialk I 's pottery is red with black painted designs (the designs were abstract and remainings of baskets were left in the clay). As mentioned before these works belong to 5000 B.C. The pottery was made with hands and there were no ovens or potter's wheels in that era, so the base was usually very unstable and the forms were really simple. "Tools were in stone, though copper began to creep in towards the end of the period...Ornaments start to appear at level I.4." ( bracelet's, necklaces and cosmetic boxes...).
A very intersting point for me was the arrangement of tombs: dead were buried under the floors of houses, they were laid on their side and at Siyalk I the bones are reddish. There seems to be two theories behind this: 1. Corpses may have been painted red , 2. As a custom they were sprinkled with iron oxide.
At Siyalk II evidence of a more advanced era was found. (Siyalk II represents cheshmeh Ali period). Bricks were used in this period, (Siyalk II.2 the whole walls were made out of brick). Another interesting finding is related to Siyalk II, and that is several pieces of shells which are from the shores of Persian Gulf!!!! Well what do you think this means? Beginning of Trading! So people were not living in isolated groups any more!
"The ue of metal was still at the experimental stage." and eventhough objects were made out of copper they were mainly simple and made by hammering.
As for pottery, they are more delicate, but still red with black paintings, through the end of this period oven was used for baking them. Its from this period that highly stylized animal drawings appear on pottery.
The art of the pottery continued evolving through Siyalk III. More complicated ovens were used, and they had started using turn tables. Now drawings were even more complicated : animals like birds, snakes, leopards, ibex(kind of a wild goat with long , curved horns; this is probably what we have seen many times, in fact leopards and ibex were commonly used in drawings, an interesting point is that many times the horns were drawn disproportionately). The surface of the clays were buff colored or even greenish but the designs were still in black. Here we find Man's silhouette more and more often, "a slender silhouette, broad shouldered, the head shown in profile in a stylized manner."
It is at Siyalk III that at last the wonder of casting melted copper into moulds happens.

Ref: Huot, J.L, "Archaeologia Mundi :Persia I",Nagel publishers (geneva), 1965.

Methods 3

2006-07-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

So first let's see what is a "Tepe" according to Huot's explanations. Tepe looks like an artificial mound in the form of truncated cone, fairly high, with a flat top and sloping sides. Most buildings were built out of brick ( they were baked in the sun), usually the rooms were narrow and the walls were wide, rain, sun and other natural or unnatural events ruined the buildings and they were constantly restored, most of the times it was easier to heap the remains of a building together to form a terrace and erect the new building on that. So rebuilding took place on the same spot but at a slightly higher level. In this way large artificial hills were made after centuries. "And it should be remembered that every inhabited city tends to gait altitude."
That seems to explain why in archaeological diggings there are a lot of other important pieces of information to gather aside from finding valuable things.
As for pre-Achaemenid period , pottery is the material that gave us most of the information.
Huot says that no written records dating from before the Achaemenid period have been found in Iran apart from the proto-Elamite tablets of Susa and level IV of Siyalk. I wonder if that is true to date?
If still true, no wonder why pottery is so important in classification of Iranian civilizations ( for prehistoric and protohistoric periods).
The importance of pottery in people's life and it's widespread use can be understood by paying attention to this fact: The invention of agriculture was a turning point in man's history. Human became producers (Neolithic era) in contrast to predators (Paleolithic era). The preparation and storage of a cereal based diet raised problems; recipients were needed that would resist the fire and hold liquids. Hence the importance of pottery which was everywhere a feature of Neolithic peasant communities. It's said that pottery was made accidentally from baking a woven basket plastered by clay to render it watertight. (Gordon Chlide:Man makes himself). That is what can be seen in layer I of Siyalk, superimposed lines cutting one another at right angles. But pottery soon became a work of art. Huot mentions that from the aesthetic point of view the painted pottery is one of the most attractive features of Iranian archaeology. Next post will be dedicated to the results of studying the Tepes and the pottery.

Ref: Huot, J.L, "Archaeologia Mundi :Persia I",Nagel publishers (geneva), 1965.

(to be cont'd very soon)

Methods 2

2006-07-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

So the excavation work continued in other places like Raay( near Tehran), Bender Bushihr.... After first world war we had an increased amount of scientific excavations done in Iran. In 1928 the government invited Andre Godard to establish a proper archaeological service to make an inventory of historic monuments and have necessary restorations carried out. It seems that between years 1928 and 1960 he had a lot of remarkable achievements and wrote some books ( one of the about Luristan Bronze work was of a great help)...In 1931 Roman Ghirshman and Georges Contenau did a completely scientific archaelogical work in Giyan and Siyalk. The work done there made it possible to establish a relative chronology for prehistoric levels in west of Iran.
Here I should explain what I learned about these excavation methods a bit: The group working is managed in a pyramid shaped organizational structure, that means the head is an archaeologist, he or she is managing two or three engineers, each engineer has two or three ....But as far as I have learnt there are usually not so many people working on a project (like what Morgan did) so the whole process can be controlled and examined correctly.So one of the first principles is to use as few workers as possible. They go layer by layer, they study each layer's characteristics precisely according to what they find there and special methods they use in studying the soil and...they continue this way till they reach the virgin soil. They they name the layers upward, I mean the deepest layer would be layer one, in areas where they don't reach the virgin soil they can't name the deepest layer, layer one of course, so they name them downward as far as I have understood. What is important is to know that objects found are not the sole important material, even the so called "sterile layers" may give a lot of information if studied correctly, and materials that don't seem to be important now should be kept, because they may solve a problem later...So it seems that due to a lack of scientific and correct methods a lot of information may have been lost during the first excavations.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler says in his book :"There is no right way of digging, but there are many wrong ways."
Please note that what I am explaining here is from what I have read in Huot's book, which dates back to 1965 and he himself mentions that archaeologic methods and ways are improving and changing all the time, later I may write of other possibilities( and that's true about whatever is written here, remember I have just started the reasearch.)
Well, back to Sialk: importance of Sialk is because Ghirshman and Contenau reached layer one in their excavations.
Meanwhile groups from other countries had started working on other sites through out Iran( Americans, Germans...)Excavations were done in sites like Tuereng Tepe, Tell-i-Bakun( near Persepolis) ,Persepolis itself, Hissar near Damghan, Jamshidi, Chogha Zambil, Hasanlu, Ziwiye, Chashmeh-Ali and Pasargad...
In the next post I will explain in brief what is a "Tepe" and how it is formed and I'll continue with the rest of discussion.

Ref: Huot, J.L, "Archaeologia Mundi :Persia I",Nagel publishers (geneva), 1965.

( to be cont'd soon)

Methods 1

2006-07-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

First let's talk about the methods of the research and how things were found. This is from what I've read from the book mentioned before:
Jean Louis Huot in 1965 started his book like this:"Excavations in Iran have been carried out in a scientific manner only for some thirty years. In so short a time, it would be impossible to achieve any sort of detailed synthesis. The archaeology of Iran is thus still at the stage of tentative pronouncements and monographs. How different this is from the situation of the Greek world, which has been the subject of intense research for more than 150 years!"
The difficulty of work in Iran is mainly due to lack of written records, a problem that archaeologists did not have in Egypt or Mesopotamia. So here in a way archaeological research is the only real means of getting at the essentials. "What is often only an auxiliary science ( particualerly in Mesopotamia) is here the
sole means of investigation." Knowing this may be of some help, oriental archaeology was born in Mesopotamia. First Assyrians and then Sumerians were revealed and Museums in Europe first started showing objects related to them. To further investigate Mesopotamia history and to find answers to some questions and problems excavations were done in Susa, in Iran, which seemed to be geographically and historically only an extension of Mesopotamian plate. Soon many points of contact between the two areas were found and "it became increasingly clear that Iran was, if not the source , at least a main crossroads of the ancient civilisations of the Near East. "
Actually increasingly scientific excavations were carried out in Iran in twentieth century, specifically after world war I. But the first serious study happened in 1835 when an english diplomat named H.C Rawlinson went to kurdistan and there in his free time worked on the trilingual inscription of bas relief of Darius at Behistun. ( this bas relief is in these languages: old persian, Accadian, Elamite).
Afterwards the study was continued by archaeological diggings of Sir William Kennet Loftus , another englishman. But the real scientific research somehow started in 1884 when the french took over Susa. The french pioneers were Marcel Dieulafoy and his wife who worked on Apadana mound and brought back "The Frieze of the Archers" and a cornice decorated with kneeling bulls to Louvre.
When Jacques de Morgan ,a french mining engineer, arrived , the French Ambassador to Iran easily persuaded Shah Nassere-din to agree to a convention granting France a monopoly for archaeological reasearch throughout Persia!!!
Morgan brought a large group and work continued for years, but from Jean Louis Huot's critics it seems that his work was more like a road work and not even close to scientific archaeologic work, so Morgan and his team worked like hunters rather than paying attention to the importance of the layers they were excavating and the information they could get from them. When Morgan understood that he is not going to find a big noticeable building there, he set 1200 men to dig the place to find valuable objects!! he said:" experince (having shown) that if the workmen threw the earth into the wagons from a height of five meters , the materials would not suffer(!!!)" By his method in excavating the 35 meter Acropolis of Susa he saved time and money !?
"It has been said time and time again that the archaeological excavation is the only scientific experiment that can not be repeated." Once the damage is done, if you have not recovered the information you can never do so. An archaelogical site is studied only once, hence the importance of methods. But the application of methods such as Morgan's has resulted in the irreparable destruction of a number of valuable and ancient sites.

Ref: Huot, J.L, "Archaeologia Mundi :Persia I",Nagel publishers (geneva), 1965.

( to be cont'd very soon)

2006-06-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

I feel I need to explain something here. This weblog is not a place to prove how perfect we were so we can boast about it. I feel we have been proud of ourselves for a long time without...
Well this is of course not a generalization, as I said I feel I and a lot of people that I know need to know about our past and present more profoundly, so that we can use our knowledge to get out of a state we all seem to be unsatisfied with. And in my personal journey I prefer to start with our past.

2006-06-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have started with this book:
Archaeologia Mundi:
Persia I
From the origins to the Achaemenids
Author: Jean-Louis Huot
English translation: H.S.B. Harrison
1965
Nagel Publishers(switzerland)

I will start writing notes about what I am reading soon. And I will probably do some research about the author.