Ancient Iranian peoples The Iranian peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly on the Iranian plateau and beyond in central, southern, and southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. As a group of people, they are predominantly defined along linguistic lines as speaking the Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European who settled Greater Iran Greater Iran refers to the regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence. It roughly corresponds to the territory surrounding the Iranian plateau, stretching from the Caucasus to the Indus River in modern day Pakistan, and conform to the historical understanding of the full territory of "Iran." in the 2nd millennium BC first appear in Assyrian Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur (Akkadian: Aššur; Arabic: أشور Aššûr; Hebrew: אַשּׁוּר Aššûr, Aramaic: ܐܫܘܪ Ašur, ܐܬܘܪ Atur). The term records in the 9th century BC The 9th century BC was a period of great changes in civilizations. In Africa, Carthage is founded by the Phoenicians. In Egypt, a severe flood covers the floor of Luxor temple, and years later, a civil war starts. They remain dominant throughout Classical Antiquity Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world in Scythia In Classical Antiquity, Scythia was the area in Eurasia inhabited by the Scythians, from the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on this map. The area known to classical authors as Scythia included: and Persia Iran (pronounced /ɪˈrɑːn/; Persian: ايران [ʔiˈɾɒn] ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persia until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used.

Contents

Origins

Main article: Indo-Iranians Indo-Iranian people consist of the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Dardic and Nuristani people, that is, speakers of Indo-Iranian languages The extent of the BMAC (according to the EIEC The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is an encyclopedia of Indo-European studies and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The encyclopedia was edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams and published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn. Archaeological articles are written by Mallory, linguistic articles are written by Adams, and includes a distinguished Who's).

The Iranian languages The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily, Indo-Iranian. These languages are mainly spoken by the people of Iran. Avestan is the oldest recorded Iranian language form a sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan , Iranian and Nuristani. The term Aryan languages is occasionally still used to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages . The speakers of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, the sub-family, which is a branch of the family of Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It is composed of 449 languages and dialects, according to the 2005 Ethnologue estimate, about half belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch. "Indo&. Having descended from the Proto-Indo-Iranians, the Proto-Iranians separated from the Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they form the majority. They trace their ancestry to a around in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Proto-Iranians are traced to the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, a Bronze Age The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistoric society, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifacts. The Bronze Age also included culture of Central Asia. The area between northern Afghanistan and the Aral Sea The Aral Sea is a landlocked endorheic basin in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzylorda provinces) in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to more than 1,500 islands of one hectare or more that once dotted its is hypothesized to have been the region where the Proto-Iranians first emerged, following the separation of Indo-Iranian tribes.[1]

By the 1st millennium BC, Medes The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area is known as Media (also Medea; Greek Μηδία, Old Persian Māda; the English adjective is Median, antiquated also Medean). They entered this region with the first wave of Iranian tribes, in the late second millennium BC (the Bronze Age, Persians The Persian people are defined by the use of the Persian language as their mother tongue. However, the term Persian has also a supra-ethnic significance and has been historically referred to a part of Iranian peoples. The origin of the Persian people, at least in terms of language, is traced to the ancient Indo-Iranians , who arrived in parts of, Bactrians Bactria (Bactriana , Bākhtar in Persian, بـلـخ (spelled: Bhalakh) and Daxia in Chinese) is a historical region of Greater Iran which includes Afghanistan. Known by the ancient Greeks as "Bactriana", the region is located between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus); in later times, the region became known as and Parthians Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasts, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the 'Parthian Empire' populated the Iranian plateau The Iranian plateau, also known as the Persian plateau is a geological formation in Southwest Asia, Southern Asia and the Caucasus region. It is the part of the Eurasian Plate wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates, situated between the Zagros mountains to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag to the north, the Hormuz Strait and, while others such as the Scythians The Scythians or Scyths were an Ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe throughout Classical Antiquity, at the time known as Scythia. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scyths in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scyths comes from, Sarmatians The Sarmatians, Sarmatæ or Sauromatæ were a people of Ancient Iranian origin. Mentioned by classical authors, they migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C. and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans, Cimmerians The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads who, according to Herodotus, originally inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, in what is now Ukraine and Russia, in the 8th and 7th centuries BC and Alans The various forms of Alan — Greek: Αλανοί, Αλαννοί; Chinese: 阿蘭聊 Alanliao in the 2nd century , 阿蘭 Alan (Pinyin) in the 3rd century — and Iron (a self-designation of the Alans' modern Ossetian descendants, indicating early tribal self-designation) are Iranian dialectical forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan ( populated the steppes north of the Black Sea The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters. The Saka The Sakas resided in and migrated over the plains of Eurasia from Eastern Europe to Xinjiang Province, China. The Sakas were Iranian speaking from the Old Persian Period to the Middle Persian Period but later (only after 1000 AD) they were displaced or integrated with Turkic language speakers during the Turkic migration.[citation needed] and Scythian In Classical Antiquity, Scythia was the area in Eurasia inhabited by the Scythians, from the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on this map. The area known to classical authors as Scythia included: tribes remained mainly in the south and spread as far west as the Balkans The Balkans is a geographic region of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km2 (212,000 sq mi) and a population of about 55 million people and as far east as Xinjiang Xinjiang is an autonomous region (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) of the People's Republic of China. It is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million km2 (larger than the combined area of all the European states from Germany to Spain), which takes up about one sixth of the country's territory. Xinjiang borders the Tibet.

The division of Proto-Iranian into an "Eastern" and a "Western" group is attested in the form of Avestan Avestan is a Eastern Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Iranian languages are part of the Indo-Iranian Language group. The Indo-Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-European language family and Old Persian Categories: Ancient languages | Persian language | Achaemenid Empire | Cuneiform, the two oldest known Iranian languages.

List

Possible Ancient Iranian peoples whose designation is uncertain

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Paleolithic Indo-Europeans" — Panshin.com (retrieved 4 June June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 210 days remaining until the end of the year 2006 2006 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar)
  2. ^ Venkayya 1907, p.219-220
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Mahabharata 2.27.25.
  5. ^ Scholars like V. S. Aggarwala etc locate the Kamboja country in Pamirs and Badakshan (Ref: A Grammatical Dictionary of Sanskrit (Vedic): 700 Complete Reviews.., 1953, p 48, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala, Surya Kanta, Jacob Wackernagel, Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Peggy Melcher - India; India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī, 1963, p 38, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala - India; The North-west India of the Second Century B.C., 1974, p 40, Mehta Vasishtha Dev Mohan - Greeks in India; The Greco-Sunga period of Indian history, or, the North-West India of the second century B.C, 1973, p 40, India) and the Parama Kamboja further north, in the Trans-Pamirian territories (See: The Deeds of Harsha: Being a Cultural Study of Bāṇa's Harshacharita, 1969, p 199, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala).
  6. ^ Dr Michael Witzel also extends Kamboja including Kapisa/Kabul valleys to Arachosia/Kandahar (See: Persica-9, p 92, fn 81. Michael Witzel).
  7. ^ Cf: "Zoroastrian religion had probably originated in Kamboja-land (Bacteria-Badakshan)....and the Kambojas spoke Avestan language" (Ref: Bharatiya Itihaas Ki Rup Rekha, p 229-231, Jaychandra Vidyalankar; Bhartrya Itihaas ki Mimansa, p 229-301, J. C. Vidyalankar; Ancient Kamboja, People and the Country, 1981, p 217, 221, J. L. Kamboj)
  8. ^ "The name Afghan has evidently been derived from Asvakan, the Assakenoi of Arrian..." (Megasthenes and Arrian, p 180. See also: Alexander's Invasion of India, p 38; J. W. McCrindle)
  9. ^ "Even the name Afghan is Aryan being derived from Asvakayana, an important clan of the Asvakas or horsemen who must have derived this title from their handling of celebrated breeds of horses" (See: Imprints of Indian Thought and Culture abroad, p 124, Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan)
  10. ^ "Afghans are Assakani of the Greeks; this word being the Sanskrit Ashvaka meaning 'horsemen" (Ref: Sva, 1915, p 113, Christopher Molesworth Birdwood)

Literature

Categories: Ancient Iranian peoples

 

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