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Coming to terms with the Persian Empire: some concluding remarks and responses

Year: 2015
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The Persian Empire was one of the greatest empires in history, and as such it had a deep impact on history. It encompassed a vast territory reaching from modern Turkey and Egypt in the west to Afghanistan in the east and held the greater part of this area during two full centuries, 539 to 331 b.c.e. In some respects, the empire was a continuation of earlier empires of the Near East, viz. the Neo-Assyrian and the Neo-Babylonian Empires, which had their centers in northern and southern Mesopotamia, respectively, and also encompassed a great part of the Near East. The Persians borrowed much from their predecessors in terms of administration, art, architecture, and the use of royal inscriptions. They borrowed from the diverse civilizations under their sway. Aramaic was to become the major administrative language, and Elamite, Babylonian, and Egyptian (see ch. 9 by Melanie Wasmuth) were regarded as the main languages next to their own Old Persian language, for which a new cuneiform script was developed. It is interesting to see that Greek did not acquire that status, although I assume that a version of the Bīsotūn inscription was available in Greek, which Herodotus could have read or have heard about. In many respects the empire also constituted a break. For the first time, a Near Eastern Empire ruling Mesopotamia had its center outside Mesopotamia, namely in Iran. It did not impose its religion as the royal religion, Akkadian stopped being the language of the empire (a process that had started already under the Assyrians and Babylonians to the benefit of Aramaic), and the resources of empire no longer were arrogated to Mesopotamia, but to Iran. A new god was introduced as an imperial or, in
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2260490470
FWCI:
Cites: 16
Cited by: 2
Related to: 10