550 BC - 330 BC

THE ACHAEMENID EMPIRE

​

The Persian Empire began with the migration of Iranians, a group of Indo-Europeans out of central Europe and southern Russia around 1000 BC. Persia is now part of the modern country of Iran, hence the name 'Iranians' for the larger migratory group that lived in this area. The Iranians who migrated to Persia were horse breeders and traveled with large herds of livestock. Their movement into the region was gradual and took part over several generations. Throughout their migration, the Iranians came into frequent contact with nomadic tribes who also lived in the territory.

Like all nomadic peoples lacking police and law courts, a code of honour was central to the Iranian tribes, and their religious beliefs differed from those of farming people. Whereas the farmers of Egypt and Mesopotamia had converted nature gods into city guardians, the Iranians had begun distilling them into a few universal principles. Zoroaster, who lived sometime around 1000 BC, drove this process. For him, the only god was the creator, Ahura Mazda, bringer of asha – light, order, and truth; the law or logic by which the world was structured. Even those who were not practicing Zoroastrians grew up shaped by a culture that valued simple ethical ideas such as telling the truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

 

The Iranians slowly settled into specific regions and began establishing their own societies. Eventually, two groups established themselves as leaders in the region. In the South, the Persians governed the area between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf and began establishing their own society. In the North, the Medes formed a state called Media and united themselves under one king in 710 BC. Once the Medes had established the rule of a central government authority in the form of a monarchy, they began to expand into Persian territory while at the same time allying with the neighboring Babylonian Empire to overthrow the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC.

In some areas, one tribe would manage to gather a collection of other tribes under its leadership. The Medes were one such. They built a capital at Ecbatana (“meeting place”) in the eastern Zagros from where they extended their power. In 612 BC, Cyaxares, King of the Medes, stormed Nineveh with the Chaldeans, after which he pushed into the northwest. In 585 BC, the Medes were fighting the Lydians on the Halys River when a solar eclipse frightened both sides into making peace. Soon afterwards, Cyaxares died leaving an empire of sorts to his son Astyages (585–550 BC).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the regions whose tribes paid tribute to the Medes was Persia, which lay south-east of Ecbatana, beyond Elam. There were around 10 or 15 tribes in Persia, of which one was the Pasargadae. The leader of the Pasargadae always came from the Achaemenid clan, and, in 559 BC, a new leader was chosen: Cyrus II (“the Great”).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 552 BC, he had formed the Persian tribes into a federation and begun a series of uprisings. When the inevitable showdown with his grandfather came in 550 BC, the Medes mutinied and joined Cyrus to march on Ecbatana.

Cyrus took the title “Shah (King) of Persia” and built a capital on the site of his victory, which he called Pasargadae, after his tribe. Winning the Medes over had landed Cyrus with a vague, sprawling empire of countless different peoples, however. He faced cultural diversity, suspicion, and outright hostility. Lydia and Chaldean Babylon had agreements with the Medes; neither felt comfortable about a Persian takeover.

Lydia was won because Cyrus did not play by the rules. After an indecisive battle near the Halys River one autumn, King Croesus (560–546 BC) returned to Sardis, expecting to resume fighting in the spring according to custom. But Cyrus followed him home and captured Sardis itself, Lydia’s capital and richest of the Ionian cities. A century earlier, Lydia had minted the first coins, making Ionia a hub of commerce. Now all this fell to Cyrus.

As for Croesus himself, it seems Cyrus may have spared his life, again against all precedent. Cyrus developed a reputation for sparing conquered rulers so he could ask their advice on how best to govern their lands. 

Cyrus saw cooperation as a strength, particularly when it came to securing the main prize: Babylon. Rather than trying to take the world’s greatest city by force, Cyrus fought a propaganda campaign to exploit the unpopularity of its king, Nabonidus. Babylon’s traditions would be safer with Cyrus, was the message. The gates were opened and palm fronds were laid before him as he entered the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once in Babylon, Cyrus performed the religious ceremonies Nabonidus had neglected and returned confiscated icons to their temples around the country. These acts enabled Cyrus to claim legitimate rule in Babylon; rule sanctioned by the Babylonian gods. He then explained what place this would take in his empire: his would be an empire based, in effect, on a kind of contract between himself and the various peoples in his care. They would pay their tribute and he would ensure all were free to worship their own gods and live according to their customs.

Cyrus’s multiculturalism made an enduring imperial peace a real possibility at last and defined the way later empires sought to achieve stable rule. It was obvious to Cyrus that this was the only way he could hope to hold on to his conquests, but his was a vision only someone from outside the civilizations of the river valleys, with their intense attachments to local gods, could have conceived.

Cyrus’s son and successor Cambyses II (529–522 BC) added Egypt to the Persian Empire, but then a revolt broke out at home, led, it seems, by a Median priest posing as Cambyses’s brother, whom Cambyses had secretly murdered. Cambyses hurried back but died on the way, leaving one of his generals, a distant relative, to step in. His name was Darius. Darius I (“the Great”) killed the pretender to the throne, but uprisings were now breaking out all over and he found himself having to re-establish Cyrus’s conquests. Backed by the army and the noble clans of Persia, grown rich from imperial rule, Darius regained the Empire and extended it into the Indus Valley, a prize worth several times more in tribute than Babylon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darius realized that if the Empire were to work, it needed efficient organization. He divided it into 20 satrapies, or provinces, each paying a fixed rate of tribute to Persia. Each satrapy was run by a centrally appointed satrap, or governor, often related to Darius. To prevent the satrap building a power base, Darius appointed a separate military commander answerable only to him. Imperial spies known as the ‘king’s ears’ kept tabs on both and reported back to Darius through the postal service – the Empire was connected by a network of roads along which couriers could change horses at stations spaced a day’s travel apart.

Darius took much of this structure from the Assyrians, simply applying it on a larger scale, but his use of tribute was something new. Previously, tribute had been essentially protection money paid to avoid trouble, but Darius treated it as tax. He used it to build a navy and embarked on massive public-spending programs, pumping money into irrigation works, mineral exploration, roads, and a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea.

He also established a common currency, which made working far from home much easier. Darius now brought together teams of craftsmen from all over the Empire to build, under the direction of Persian architects, an imperial capital at Persepolis. Here he could keep his gold and silver in a giant vault (which soon became too small) and show off the multi-ethnic scope of his empire. Persepolis became a display case for the artistic styles of just about every culture within the Empire, held in a frame of Persian design. It was a visualization of Cyrus’s idea of empire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Darius never acknowledged Cyrus. He seems to have had a chip on his shoulder about not belonging to Cyrus’s branch of the Achaemenid clan. As he outstripped Cyrus’s achievements, he began to carry himself in an ever more exalted manner, dropping the title Shah for the grander Shahanshah (‘King of Kings’). 

Darius’s later rule saw trouble in the Mediterranean. In 499 BC there was a Greek revolt in Ionia. After eventually quashing it, Darius’s fleet sailed to punish Athens for backing the rebels, only to encounter a surprise defeat. If the Persian administrative machine were not to look dangerously weak, the Greeks would have to be taught a lesson. But when Darius raised taxes to fund a rearmament drive, he provoked unrest in more important areas such as Egypt.

It fell to Darius’s son Xerxes I (486–465 BC) to restore order in Egypt and take up the Greek question. Xerxes carried himself more loftily still than Darius and, with two great empire builders to follow, had even more to prove. But he lacked their cultural sensitivity. When tax increases produced riots in Babylon in 482 BC, Xerxes sacked the city, destroyed the temple, and melted down the solid gold statue of Marduk, three times the size of a man. With it went Babylon’s greatness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marduk’s gold allowed Xerxes to begin assembling his forces to crush the Greeks in 480 BC. Forced into battle too soon, however, he suffered a worse humiliation than his father. After that, Xerxes seems largely to have withdrawn into the luxury of his court and harem. When Cyrus entered Babylon he had imitated the behaviour of a Mesopotamian king for public consumption, but now the private lives of Persian rulers took Mesopotamian form. Shut up in opulent isolation, the later Achaemenids played out an increasingly gaudy pantomime of harem intrigue and palace assassination.

The empire Cyrus and Darius had built was strong enough to weather this slide into decadence for 200 years, but gradually it took its toll. Satraps carved out their own islands of power. Inflation began to bite as taxes kept rising. Even the multiculturalism of the Empire, initially its great strength, had its drawbacks; the huge army was a bewildering ragbag of troops all trained and equipped according to their own traditions, all speaking different languages.

In 401 BC, Cyrus the Younger, Satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia, staged a coup against his brother Artaxerxes II (404–358 BC) with the help of 10,000 Greek mercenaries who returned home when the coup failed. The information they brought back paved the way for the triumphant arrival of Alexander the Great in 334 BC.

Persia had been the first real empire, an empire with an organizational structure developed from a realistic idea of how to govern different subject peoples. It defined the role of an emperor and set a template for future empires from the Romans to the British. When Alexander came to replace the dying Persian Empire with a vision of his own, he held the example of Cyrus in the front of his mind.

​

RELIGION
In the ancient world, most cultures followed a polytheistic religion, or one featuring several deities. The Babylonians had many gods, the Egyptians had many gods, and the Sumerians had many gods. The Persians, however, did not. Around 600 BC, a Persian prophet named Zoroaster began preaching a new ideology, based around a single god called Ahura Mazda. This was one of the world's first monotheistic religions, recognizing only a single deity. His teachings, contained in a series of poems called the Gathas and later the sacred book called the Avesta, spread quickly across Persian society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Zoroaster, and the religion based on his teachings called Zoroastrianism, earthly life was a constant struggle between good and evil. All people suffered, and this suffering was to prepare people for a future life. In the afterlife, humans would have to choose between good and evil in a final judgment. Ultimately, good would triumph over evil. This final judgment, and all of the world, was watched over by Ahura Mazda, who was the very embodiment of goodness and wisdom. If these ideas sound familiar, some scholars believe that Zoroastrians influenced the ancient Hebrews and their concepts of faith.

Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Persian Empire, and was practiced widely by the Persian people. However, it was not the only religion of the empire. Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires forced conquered people to adopt their religions, but the Persians embraced a much more tolerant policy. As long as conquered peoples paid their taxes and recognized Persian control, they would be allowed to practice their own religions. The Persian emperors even rebuilt local temples that had been destroyed in wars to conquer a city. It was the first system of religious tolerance in the world.

Zoroastrianism became the official religion of the Persian Empire, but it virtually disappeared in Persia after the Muslim invasion of 637 CE. Only about 10,000 survive in remote villages in Iran, but over the centuries many sought religious freedom in India. Today, most Zoroastrians are in India, where they are called Parsiis and number about 200,000.

The Achaemenid kings’ religious policy was characterized by tolerance towards their subject peoples’ beliefs and practices. The most famous instance of this is their dealings with the Jewish exiles who they found in Babylon and other Mesopotamian cities after their conquest of that region. Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Darius funded the restoration of the Jewish temple; and Artexerxes I sent the Jewish priest Ezra to Jerusalem to reintroduce temple worship and the old Mosaic Law back into Jewish life. Later he sent a Jew who had risen high in his service, Nehemiah, to enhance the security of the people of Jerusalem by rebuilding the walls of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darius made sure that his officials respected the religious practices of his subjects, as is shown in a letter to his official, Gadatas, ordering him to restore a Greek sanctuary. When in Egypt both Cambyses and Darius were careful to observe traditional Egyptian rites related to kingship.

As for the kings themselves, they held firmly to their devotion to Ahura Mazda, the chief god of the Iranians. Whether the kings were loyal to the ancestral polytheism of the Iranians, or were followers of the newer faith of Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic creed which had grown up in Iran and which worshipped Ahura Mazda alone, is not clear. Some of their expressions seem to contain Zoroastrian sentiments, but there is no mention of Zoroaster (the founder of the religion) himself. Whatever the case, Zoroastrianism certainly spread around their empire, particularly in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Zoroastrian concept of god incorporates elements of both monotheism and dualism. In his visions, Zarathustra was taken up to heaven, where Ahura Mazda revealed that he had an opponent, Aura Mainyu, the spirit and promoter of evil. Ahura Mazda charged Zarathustra with the task of inviting all human beings to choose between him (good) and Aura Mainyu (evil).

Though Zoroastrianism was never as aggressively monotheistic as Judaism or Islam, it does represent an original attempt at unifying under the worship of one supreme god a polytheistic religion comparable to those of the ancient Greeks, Latins, Indians, and other early peoples.

​

Its other salient feature, namely dualism, was never understood in an absolute, rigorous fashion. Good and Evil fight an unequal battle in which the former is assured of triumph. God's omnipotence is thus only temporarily limited.

Zoroaster taught that man must enlist in this cosmic struggle because of his capacity of free choice. Thus Zoroastrianism is a highly ethical religion in which the choice of good over evil has cosmic importance. Zarathustra taught that humans are free to choose between right and wrong, truth and lie, and light and dark, and that their choices would affect their eternal destiny.

The Zoroastrian afterlife is determined by the balance of the good and evil deeds, words, and thoughts of the whole life. For those whose good deeds outweigh the bad, heaven awaits. Those who did more evil than good go to hell (which has several levels corresponding to degrees of wickedness). There is an intermediate stage for those whose deeds weigh out equally.

This general principle is not absolute, however, but allows for human weakness. All faults do not have to be registered or weighed forever on the scales. There are two means of effacing them: confession and the transfer of supererogatory merits (similar to the Roman Catholic "Treasury of Merits"). The latter is the basis for Zoroastrian prayers and ceremonies for the departed.

Zoroaster invoked saviors who, like the dawns of new days, would come to the world. He hoped himself to be one of them. After his death, the belief in coming saviors developed further. He also incorporated belief in angels and demons. Zoroaster's ideas of ethical monotheism, heaven, hell, angelology, the resurrection of the body, and the messiah figure have notable parallels in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The most common symbols of Zoroastrianism are the Faravahar, which was inscribed on ancient temples, and the Adar or sacred fire.

The Faravahar is a symbol of ancient Persia and Zoroastrianism. It can be seen on Zoroastrian (Parsi) fire temples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sacred fire (Adar) symbolizes righteousness and the presence of god. All prayers are to be said in the presence of fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

The ancient Iranian veneration of fire probably has its roots in the hearth fire, which was kept continually burning. Sacred fires have been tended in temples since about the 4th century BC.

A wood fire is kept burning continually in Zoroastrian/Parsi temples, which are known as "fire temples." The sacred temple fire is usually atop a pillar or in a metal container.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CULTURE
Because the Achaemenid Empire embraced many nations and cultures, each with its own distinctive social structure, it is impossible to speak of “society” in the singular. However, there were some trends which were felt throughout the empire.

The first was the spread of a Persian or Iranian landowning class. When the Persians conquered a kingdom, some or all of the vanquished kings’ and nobles’ estates were confiscated and taken over by the Persian king. He kept much for himself and the royal family, but he also distributed much of it to his high officials and the Persian nobility. The extensive estates of the Persian ruling class thus came to be scattered throughout the empire, from Egypt and Asia Minor to Bactria.

Mesopotamia in particular seems to have been the location for vast estates. With its very productive agriculture and comparative proximity to the Iranian homeland, this region must have been regarded as highly attractive for Persian landowners.

Another social development was the expansion, already seen under the late Babylonian kings, of the merchant classes. This was the result of the expansion of trade and banking. Some merchants and bankers became very wealthy, and became large landowners. Linked to this development was the spread of urban settlement outside those regions such as Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor which had experienced this for millennia. Iran itself, the imperial homeland but hitherto on the margins of the civilized world, became much more urbanized than before, as did the lands to its east.

The vast majority of the population of the empire lived by farming, as in all pre-modern societies. It is hard to compare the condition of the peasantry with that in other periods of ancient history. For the most part they were spared the upheavals that war brings, and taxation was probably no heavier than in other periods. In the less settled times of the later Persian empire, however, the irrigation systems of Mesopotamia seem to have experienced some neglect, and this will have led to the condition of the peasantry there deteriorating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

Agriculture provided the economic base of the Persian Empire, and this benefited from improvements under the Achaemenids. The empire was covered with huge estates, owned by the monarchy and Persian nobility, and in some parts, the temples and even business houses. These estates were farmed by tenants, or worked directly by hired labour. In some places gangs of slaves worked the land.

By no means all the land was in the hands of large landowners. Individual peasant farmers also owned much of the land. Their numbers may well have been boosted by time-expired soldiers being allotted land, and some state land was also given over to soldiers serving in military garrisons, to enable them to be self-sufficient.

​

Irrigation, on which much agriculture depended within the empire and especially in Mesopotamia and Iran, received much attention from the government, at least under the early kings. The kings took seriously the Mesopotamian royal tradition of looking after the irrigation system in which agriculture there depended, and this period also seems to have seen a major spread of irrigation in Iran. This largely resulted from the increased use of the qanat, an underground water channel which carried water from hills to plains and which allowed large areas of land in arid landscapes to be irrigated and turned over to productive cultivation. The Achaemenid government encouraged the construction and restoration of qanats through generous tax incentives. Where previously only nomads could graze their herds, sizable farming settlements were now able to develop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

So far as trade was concerned, the Achaemenid Empire probably provided more favourable circumstances than any before it. The huge size of the empire meant that millions of people lived generally in peace together, under one rule. A single legal and administrative framework meant that commercial transactions between members of different nationalities could be undertaken with confidence that, if any disputes arose, they could be dealt with by the same courts operating the same law. International business houses could operate on a larger scale than hitherto. Furthermore, in the Zagros Mountain passes, through which major trade routes passed, brigandage was suppressed to a degree never before achieved, at least under the firm government of the early Achaemenids.

The literature, art and architecture of the Persian Empire is essentially that of its constituent peoples. In Babylonia, for example, traditional Mesopotamian temples and ziggurats were constructed and refurbished, and temple life went on much as before. In fact, the Achaemenid Period saw Babylonian astronomy continue to develop, with new observations being made and calculations refined. In Egypt, temples and statues continued to be erected in the age-old style, and official and priestly texts stood firmly in their ancient tradition. The newly rebuilt temple in Jerusalem was designed to resemble its predecessor which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s army, and the Jews committed much of their scriptures to writing at this time. The Greek cities of Asia Minor participated fully in the cultural developments taking place on the Greek mainland at that time; they produced eminent thinkers such as Heraclitus of Ephesus, who was a major figure in the advancement of Greek philosophy.

Nevertheless there was a distinctive Persian art and architecture which appeared at this time. This was the imperial art of the Achaemenid kings, and was embodied in the magnificent palaces and royal tombs which they ordered to be constructed in their capitals at Pasargadae, Persepolis and Susa. It was solemn and dignified, designed to awe visitors by displaying the mighty power of the kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The early Achaemenid kings in particular, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and Artexerxes I, were prolific builders. Their typical edifices were huge palaces, adorned with giant reliefs typically depicting the king with multitudes of subjects bringing tribute. At the centre of these complex of buildings and courtyards, laid out with a spaciousness not found in Babylonian buildings, lay many-pillared audience halls, still impressive today, even as ruins.
The design of the buildings and the sculptured reliefs are essentially based on Babylonian and Assyrian forms, which themselves were the culmination of thousands of years of Mesopotamian stylistic tradition. However, the Persians added elements of their own. For example, the palace-complexes tended to rest on terraced platforms, a feature not found in traditional Mesopotamian design. Another important architectural feature was the many-pillared hall, which probably derived from the wooden halls of Iranian kings and chiefs but was reproduced on a grand scale in the imperial palaces of Susa and Persepolis.

The fact that these buildings were constructed by teams of skilled craftsmen drawn from all over a multinational empire resulted in them embodying a diversity not seen anywhere else before. Living and working together as they did, these workers introduced new elements into the Babylonian framework, from widely varying traditions. The result was a unique syncretism, in which the influence of Greek masters can be seen in the way the formal style of Babylonian figurative design is modified with a more human, more fluid quality, or the slender columns in the audience halls show Egyptian and Greek motifs.

The overall result is a unique fusion. This is reflected in the range of materials used, which came from all over the empire. One inscription says that, whereas previous buildings had previously been constructed mostly of clay bricks, the new palaces used stone from Elam for the columns, and cedar timber from Lebanon for the roofs; and they incorporated gold from Lydia and Bactria (from opposite ends of the empire), lapis lazuli, carnelian and turquoise from central Asia, silver and ebony from Egypt, dyes for the wall-reliefs from Ionia, and the ivory from Nubia and India. It emphasises that the work of crafting these materials into fine objects was done on the spot, by stonemasons from Asia Minor (Greeks and Lydians), goldsmiths from Medea and Egypt, woodcarvers from Lydia and Egypt, brick layers from Babylonia, and wall-painters from Medea and Egypt. The only fragment of sculpture in the round so far found shows strong Greek influence – was in fact probably the work of a Greek sculptor.

To the northwest of Persepolis are four majestic tombs of Achaemenid kings. These are carved into a rock face in the Zagros Mountains, to exactly the same design. Their huge (22 metres high) fronts depict the sculptured facade of a palace with tall columns, above which the kings are shown before a fire altar. They stand on platforms supported by the representatives of the thirty nations belonging to the empire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One final piece of Achaemenid art must be mentioned, the great relief and inscription which Darius the Great had carved into the rock face at Behistun, high above the road that passes through the Zagros Mountains from Babylon to Ecbatana. This monumental relief, located 66 meters above the road, shows Darius, accompanied by two attendants, with his foot on the body of his rival for the throne, Gaumata. Other rebels are shown with their hands tied behind their backs and a rope around their necks; above the whole is the symbol of the chief god, Ahura Mazda.

Large numbers of beautiful small objects have been found: metal tableware (vessels, plates, cult utensils) in gold and silver, jewelry (earrings, bracelets), weapons (daggers), seals and gems cut in the old Mesopotamian manner but with Iranian figures.

One cultural feature, which the Persians inherited from previous Mesopotamian cultures and spread around their empire, was landscaped gardening. The Assyrians had laid out extensive parks and gardens around their royal palaces, and the famous “Hanging Gardens” of Babylon were probably just such an artifact. In the Persian period, such pleasure grounds were created around their empire. The Greek word for them was the same as our word “paradise”, which aptly sums up their role as places of beauty and relaxation. They were designed to enable Persian kings and nobles could take their ease.

​

MUSIC
Archaeological evidence reveals musical instruments that were used in Iran during the Elamite era around 800 BC. Not much is known about Persian music in the ancient world, especially about the music of the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander the Great is said to have witnessed many melodies and instruments upon his invasion, and music played an important role in religious affairs.

Classical Persian music is an ancient art form and one of the earliest musical traditions known today. Because of the geographic location and sociopolitical role of the ancient Persian Empire, Persian music and culture has contributed enormously to the foundation of many other musical traditions in Central Asia, Asia Minor, China and North India. Since becoming associated with Islamic culture after the Arab invasion (7th century AD), it has traveled throughout the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The classical music of Iran is in some ways similar and analogous to the classical music of the Arabic world, Turkey and even India, but it is also a self-contained system more or less independent of its neighbors. In the twelfth century, a second system, that of Western classical music, has grown up parallel to that of the Persian art, and today the two coexist, largely leaving each other alone but in various ways cross-fertilizing each other.

Persian music is mainly melodic. It makes almost no use of harmony, and its performance is most typically solo, although sometimes a soloist is accompanied by an instrument which echoes and recapitulates each phrase as the artist performs it, a technique also widely used in Arabic, Turkish and Indian music. Its essence is neither the dramatic nor is it the intellectual or cerebral, but rather its quality is mystical and contemplative. Persian musicians recognize this, for in speaking of their music they never fail to relate it to the great lyrical tradition of Persian literature and to Sufism, the mystical movement of Islam whose special home is Iran.

Much of the music has no meter, no beat, but proceeds with a rhythm akin to that of speech. Its rhythmic structure is surely related to the rhythms of Persian poetry. Nevertheless, there is also a great deal of metric music, and this, normally accompanied by a drum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

Improvisation is the most important tenet of classical music of Iran. The musician creates in the moment and simultaneously performs for the audience. The presence and spirit of the audience plays an important role in the feeling and the creative process of the improvisation. The improviser combines creativity and technique with the internalized melodies and rhythms to express his or her individual feelings. To become an improviser is to reach the ultimate stage in the musician's creative development. To reach such a level of mastery the musician must be rich in technique, emotions, innovation, experience and knowledge. The musician becomes a master once he or she has achieved such a level of virtuosity and has cultivated the art of performance and teaching.

Instruments
Under the Achaemenids (550-320 BC), music served an important function in worship as well as in courtly entertainment. Bas-reliefs from the period clearly depict groups of singers, players of trigonal harps (chang), accompanied by large tambourines, as well as long necked lutes and double-flutes. The first written evidence of Persian music is from the Sassanid Period (226-643 CE). Khosrau II was a great patron of music, and his most famous court musician, Barbod, was said to have developed a musical system with seven modal structures (known as the Royal Modes), thirty derivative modes, and 365 melodies, associated with the days of the week, month and year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the advent of Islam in the 7th century AD, Persian music, as well as other Persian cultural elements, became a formative element in what has since become "Islamic civilization". Persian musicians and musicologists overwhelmingly dominated the musical life of the Eastern Islamic Empire. Baghdad became the centre of Persian music, and many musicians who were once considered to be Arabs are actually now known to have been Iranians.

Instruments used in Persian music include the bowed spike-fiddle kamancheh, the goblet drum tombak, the end-blown flute ney, the frame drum daf, the long-necked lutes tar, setar, tanbur, dotar, and the dulcimer santur. The European violin is also used, with an alternative tuning preferred by Persian musicians. Harps were a very important part of music up until the middle of the Safavid Empire. They were probably replaced because of tuning problems or replaced by the qanun (zither) and later the piano which was introduced by the West during the Safavid Dynasty of Iran. Many, if not most of these instruments, originated in Iran. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

 

 

Perhaps the most loved string instrument is the tar. Tar is regularly chosen to function as the primary string instrument in a performance. The setar is also loved for its delicacy and is the favorite among Mystic musicians. Some instruments like the sorna, neyanban, dohol, naghareh, and others, are not used in the classical repertoire but are used in Iranian Folk music. The ghazhak, a type of fiddle, is being re-introduced to the Classical field after many years of exclusion. The instruments used in the Classical field are also used in Iranian Folk Music.

Dance
Persian dance history is characterized by many fascinating and also tragic incidents. It seems to be completely unknown to the outside world, partly because of the present political situation of the country that has toned down the interest for a profound research effort. The other reason is the current archaeological discoveries and excavations in Iran, during the past thirty years. They have made it possible to have access to material and evidence for the origin of Persian dance, ever since the appearance of the cult of Mithra about two thousand years before our calendar.

The origin and rise of Persian dance as an independent and distinctive art form is estimated to be parallel with the birth of Mithraism and its spread. This cult centrally revolves around the ancient Persia's sun and light god, Mithra, who is the main figure in this mystery religion that during the late antique era spread over the entire Roman Empire. Numerous temples and depictions of the legendary Mithra have been located and excavated in the three continents of the ancient world; Asia, Africa and Europe. The latest discovery has been done in London as late as 1954. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

The most important ritual in this cult has been the worship of Mithra, as he is sacrificing a bull. This act was believed to promote the vigour of life. The consecration to this belief was accomplished among other rites through the baptism in the blood of a bull, followed by a ritual dance performed only by men. This ceremonial act is considered as the earliest known form of Iranian dance, and the origin of the magic dance of the antique civilisations. It is typical for sacred Persic (Persian) dance, so called "Danse Persique Sacrée". 

The most significant bases for researching around the ancient Persian dance can be found in the Greek historian from Halikarnassos, Herodotos’ superb work "Nine Books". He describes the old history of Asian empires and Persian wars until 478 BC. 

In several occasions he has indicated and in detail described the cultural and social habits of Persians. He has mentioned the wide cultural exchange that Persians had with the ancient world. "From every corner of the known (antique) world, the most appreciated artists were imported to the imperial court in order to practice their artistic abilities in the presence of the majestic Emperor and his court."

​