Darius the Great, the fourth king of the Achaemenid Empire, ruled over the Persian Empire when it was at its largest, stretching from The Caucasus and West Asia to what was then Macedonia (today’s Balkans), the Black Sea, Central Asia and even into Africa including parts of Libya and Eg...
became a cultural centre where old traditions were safeguarded butinnovationswere also attempted. An important development during this period was the opening of contacts withChina, which had also been incorporated into theMongol empire. Chinese artists came to Tabrīz and contributed significantly to the...
The Ancient Persian Empire's Technology and Craft TheAncient Persian Empire, orAchaemenid Empire, flourished from its inception by Cyrus I around 600 BCE to its collapse at the hands of Alexander the Great in circa 400 BCE. During the height of the empire's power, it was known for establish...
Persian was the first language in Muslim civilization to break through Arabic’s monopoly on writing. Already under the Sasanians astandard formof Persian had come into being that was calledFārsī-yi Darī(“Persian of the Court”). From the centre of the empire it had spread to the provin...
The Persian Wars or Greco-Persian Wars were two separate conflicts, which took place between 490 BCE and 479 BCE, fought between several of the various Greek city-states and the Persian Empire. The Greeks TheGreeceof the ancient world was not a single, united country. The mountainous geography...
Day 4 Shiraz - Pasargadae - Yazd Leaving Shiraz today, we head for Pasargadae with its six-tiered tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the great Persian Empire. Later we’ll continue to Yazd in time to watch an eerie sunset from the Towers of Silence, the unique Zoroastrian burial towers...
The threat of the nomadic people of central Eurasia was particularly important for the rulers of the Persian Empire. This is made clear by the very fact that the nations that ruled Iran in succession, the Medes, the Persians, and the Parthians, had come originally from the same group. Thos...
Persiaremained largely impenetrable to English-speaking travelers well into the 19th century. Persia was protected from Europe by overland trade routes that passed through territory inhospitable to foreigners, while trade at Persian ports in thePersian Gulfwas in the hands of locals. In contrast, intr...
The Jews, who were persecuted during the Seleucid rule, regained their status. Buddhism entered Iran and was promoted in the eastern regions of the Parthian Empire. It was at this time that one of the Parthian princes translated Buddhist literature into Chinese for the first time. During the ...
Al-Khwārizmī worked at and then became director of theHouse of Wisdomin Baghdad, in modern-day Iraq, which was the capital of the Islamic empire at the time. At this centre of scientific research and teaching, he oversaw the translation of many major Greek and Indian mathematical and astron...