C. 8000-7500 BC – Pre-Pottery Neolithic period c. 8000 BC – First settlements on the Iranian plateau; the earliest domestication of sheep and goats in Iran c. 7500-5000 BC – Pottery
Neolithic period c. 6300 BC – First evidence of copper smelting in Iran c. 5000-3500 BC – Chalcolithic period c. 5000 BC – A wine jar discovered at the Hajji Firuz Mound proves to be the world’s oldest evidence of wine-making c. 4000 BC – Sialk Mounds
(pi 65) yield some of the most ancient remains of settled life on the Iranian plateau c. 3500-2000 BC – Early Bronze Age
By the end of the 4th millennium BC, craftsmen had made a great progress in pottery; producing the most vivid and lively painted ceramics, found at the Sialk Mounds and Susa. This pottery is decorated with geometric abstractions, showing a naive but strong expression of the lives of its makers.
Early Civilizations in Iran
Man’s presence on the Iranian plateau during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic ages has not yet been properly studied. Life during the Neolithic period, however, is much better known. Considerable geological and natural evidence has proven that Iran was home to one of mankind’s first major cultures, ahead of every other part of the world except Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. Significant shifts in tool manufacture, settlement patterns, and subsistence methods, including domestication of plants and animals, characterize the Neolithic Iranian settlements, all of which date wholly or in part from the 8th and 7th millennia. Iranians were probably the first to cultivate wheat and dates, and to tame camels and sheep. The existence of rich mines in Iran can be an indication that metal was excavated and processed here since ancient times. One of the recently excavated archaeological sites – Arisman (p201) – has proved to be one of the world’s earliest centers of the metallurgical industry. By approximately the 6th millennium BC, village farming was widespread over much of the Iranian plateau and in lowland Khuzestan. Among others, Sialk [pi65) on the rim of the central salt desert has yielded evidence of fairly sophisticated patterns of agricultural life. Having begun in the Paleolithic era, Iran’s first vigorous growth had developed by the 3rd millennium BC into a civilization of great sophistication – Elam.
C. 2700-1500 BC -Old Elamite period 2348 BC -Year of the Flood, 600 years after the birth of Noah, as will be reckoned by Biblical chronology c. 1700 BC-Judaism is founded by Abraham c. 1500-1000 BC-Middle Elamite period c. 1450-1250 BC – Iron Age I c. 1340-1300 BC – A new capital and religious complex, including a ziggurat, is built by King Untash-Gal at Chogha-Zanbil c. 1250-800 BC – Iron Age II c. 1100 BC – Nebuchadrezzar I of Babylon invades Elam, plundering the countryside and destroying Susa; Zoroaster founds a faith whose sacred literature will be the Zend-Avesta; The Iron Age that began more than 400 years before in the Near East moves to Europe 1000-539 BC – Neo-Elamite period 9th century BC – First mention of the Iranians in Assyrian texts 961-931 BC – Rule of Judea’s King, Prophet Solomon c 800 BC – Hasanlu, a Mandaean fortified city in northwestern Iran is destroyed
800-550 BC – Iron Age III
Elam BC
In the late 4th and early 3rd a brilliant ancient culture came into being on the Iranian territory – Elam, “The Land of Gods”. The origin of the Elamites is unclear. Their earliest kings reigned around 2700 BC. These early rulers were succeeded by the Awan (Shustar) dynasty, which was then replaced by a new ruling house, the Simash dynasty. About the middle of the 19th century BC, power in Elam passed to a new dynasty, that of Eparti.
This Elamite bronze tableau is the only three-dimensional example of worship in progress in the ancient Middle East (now in the Louvre)
These two gold and silver figurines mounted on lumps of copper are almost identical representations of an Elamite king at worship (now in the Louvre).
From a 2nd-millennium-BC tomb at the Elamite city of Susa, this life-size clay head lay next to a skull and may have been a portrait of the dead man (now in the Louvre).
The cemetery of Marlik (c. late 2nd—early 1st millennium BC) in northern Iran near the Caspian Sea, yielded rich tombs with precious metal vessels, glass objects, and ingeniously grotesque terracotta and bronze animal __ figurines in the shape of m. humped 4 bulls.
Died protecting – or stealing – it. The scene shows a storm god goading a bull spewing water onto the land and a boxer fighting a monster.
According to Iranian myths, King Jamshid led his people from lran-Vij (a mythical place, probably the last common motherland oflndo-lranians) to Iran. He is reported to have shoved his sword into the earth three times, and made it expand thrice as big during three periods – the myth that has prompted the scholars that Aryan migrations were held in three major waves.
According to Iranian myths, King Jamshid led his people from lran-Vij (a mythical place, probably the last common motherland of lndo-lranians) to Iran. He is reported to have shoved his sword into the earth three times, and made it expand thrice as big during three periods – the myth that has prompted the scholars that Aryan migrations were held in three major waves.
825 BC – Rise of the Medes
776 BC – Greece’s first recorded Olympic games are held 753 BC – The city of Rome is founded 728 BC – Deioces founds the Median Empire 644 BC – Assyrian king Ashurbanipal sacks Susa, ending Elamite supremacy 633-584 BC – Cyaxares 612-606 BC-Medes and Babylonians overthrow Assyrian Empire; destruction of Nineveh 584-550 BC – Astyages 565 BC – Daoism is founded by the Chinese philosopher Lao Zi 550 BC – Astyages is defeated by his grandson, future Achaemenid king Cyrus II
Parts of the column from Persepolis, a complex of palaces built by Darius the Great and his successors, almost exclusively to stage the ceremonies of the Persian New Year (today in the National Museum in Tehran).
Migrations. The natives of the Iranian plateau enthusiastically greeted the newcomers, who brought with them the technologies that could help them to survive. Among the Aryan tribes in Iran, three major groups are identifiable – the Scythians, the Medes, and the Persians.
The Scythians established themselves in the northern Zagros Mountains and clung to a semi nomadic existence in which raiding was the chief form of economic enterprise.
The Medes settled over a huge area, reaching as far as modern Tabriz in the north and Isfahan in the south. The Persians settled in three areas: to the south of Lake Orumiyeh, on the northern border of the Elamite kingdom, and in the environs of modern Shiraz, where they established their main settlements, to which they gave the name Parsa (or Persia, in Greek). Gradually Iranian tribes, especially under the pressure of constant Assyrian attacks, started to reorganize themselves into kingdoms and then empires. The first-known Iranian empire was that of the Medes.
Median Empire BC
The Median Empire started with Deioces’s rule. He organized his realm into several provinces and created a strong army to stop the Assyrians. The military genius of his son and successor, Phraortes, helped the Medes defeat the Assyrians. After Phraortes, there was a short period of Scythian domination over the Medes until they were overthrown by Cyaxares, who induced Scythian kings to get so drunk that they were then easily slain. Cyaxares, the greatest king of the Medes, reorganized the army and utterly defeated the Assyrians. At his death, the Medes controlled vast territories, stretching from Anatolia in modern Turkey to the area of Tehran as well as all of southwestern Iran. The last king of the Medes, Astyages, was perhaps the first unjust ruler of the country. Moreover, the sim- A sold Mede rhyton is one of the rarest artifacts of the Mede period plastic lire style or tne (today in the Reza Abbasi Museum Aryans that provided in Tehran).
Medes with their amazing conquests, was replaced with an extravagant Mesopotamian court life. The Median Empire started to decline. The Persian Achaemenid dynasty, tracing their origin from Achaemenes, in Greek, were gaining power.
