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Immortals (Sasanian Empire)
The Immortals was an elite cavalry unit of the army of the Sasanian Empire with the alleged size of 10,000 men, similar to the Achaemenid " Immortals" described by Herodotus. The name is derived from a term used by Roman historians to refer to the unit. Armenian and Islamic sources also have allusions to elite unit(s) in the Sasanian army. History The "Immortals" (Greek: ''Athanatoi'') is a name used by Roman historians of the Roman-Persian Wars to refer to an elite unit of the army of the Sasanian Empire. Some of these sources claim the unit was composed of 10,000 cavalrymen. The reported Greek name and the size of the force is identical to the " Immortals" infantry unit of the Achaemenid Empire described by Herodotus. The name "Immortals" has been used by Greek-language works of Roman historians Procopius (describing the Battles of Thannuris and Dara), John Malalas (describing the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422), Theophanes, and the lexicographer Hesychius, with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sasanian Army
The Sasanian army was the primary military body of the Sasanian armed forces, serving alongside the Sasanian navy. The birth of the army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I (r. 224–241), the founder of the Sasanian Empire, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from satraps, local princes and nobility. He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained the Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armour and siege warfare techniques. This was the beginning for a military system which served him and his successors for over 400 years, during which the Sasanian Empire was, along with the Roman Empire and later the Eastern Roman Empire, one of the two superpowers of Late Antiquity in Western Eurasia. The Sasanian army protected ''Eranshahr'' ("the realm of Iran") from the East against the in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuirasses
A cuirass ( ; ; ) is a piece of armour Armour (Commonwealth English) or armor (American English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, e ... that covers the torso, formed of one or more pieces of metal or other rigid material. The term probably originates from the original material, leather, from the Old French word and the Latin word . The use of the term ''cuirass'' generally refers to both the breastplate and the backplate pieces; whereas a breastplate protects only the front, a cuirass protects both the front and the back of the wearer. Description In Hellenistic Greece, Hellenistic and ancient Rome, Roman times, the musculature of the male torso was idealized in the form of the muscle cuirass or "heroic cuirass" (in French the ''cuirasse esthétique'') sometimes further embellished with symbolic representation in relief, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nisean Horse
The Nisean horse, or Nisaean horse, is an extinct horse breed, once native to the town of Nisaia, located in the Nisaean plains at the foot of the southern region of the Zagros Mountains, Iran. History The first written reference to the Nisean horse was in around 430 BCE, in Herodotus' ''Histories'': :''"In front of the king went first a thousand horsemen, picked men of the Persian nation then spearmen a thousand, likewise chosen troops, with their spearheads pointing towards the ground – next ten of the sacred horses called Nisaean, all daintily caparisoned. (Now these horses are called Nisaean, because they come from the Nisaean plain, a vast flat in Media, producing horses of unusual size.)"'' They were highly sought after in the ancient world. The Nisean horse was said to have come in several colors, including common colors such as dark bay, chestnut and seal brown, but also rarer colors such as black, roan, palomino, and various spotted patterns. The ancient Nis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iranica Antiqua
''Iranica Antiqua'' is a scholarly journal publishing papers on ancient Iran in its broadest sense. The journal was established by Iranist Roman Ghirshman and Louis Vanden Berghe in 1961. The journal is edited by Prof. Bruno Overlaet, Jan Tavernier, and Elynn Gorris. Articles are in French, English or German. According to its official website, the journal publishes different articles such as preliminary excavation reports, contributions on archaeological problems, studies on different aspects of history, institutions, religion, epigraphy, numismatics and history of art of ancient Iran, as well as on cultural exchanges and relations between Iran and its neighbours. ''Iranica Antiqua'' is abstracted and indexed in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and ''Current Contents''/Arts & Humanities, ''Linguistic Bibliography'', Index Islamicus, Scopus, INIST/CNRS, Crossref, Thomson Scientific links. Supplement series : The aim of this series is to provide an opportunity for publicatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ehsan Yarshater
Ehsan Yarshater (; April 3, 1920 – September 1, 2018) was an Iranian historian and linguist who specialized in Iranology. He was the founder and director of the Center for Iranian Studies, and Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University. He was the first Persian full-time professor at a U.S. university since World War II. He was one of the 40 editors of the '' Encyclopædia Iranica'', with articles by 300 authors from various academic institutions. He also edited the third volume of '' The Cambridge History of Iran'', comprising the history of the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the Sassanians, and a volume entitled ''Persian Literature''. He was also an editor of a sixteen-volume series named ''History of Persian Literature''. He had won several international awards for scholarship, including a UNESCO award in 1959, and the Giorgio Levi Della Vida Medal for Achievement in Islamic Studies from UCLA in 1991. Lecture series in his name have been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Touraj Daryaee
Touraj Daryaee (; 20 July, 1967) is an Iranian Iranologist and historian. He currently works as the Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture and the director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Career Daryaee completed his elementary and secondary schooling in Tehran, Iran and Athens, Greece. He then completed a PhD in history at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999. He has taught at UCLA, and has been a senior research fellow at Oxford University and resident fellow at the École pratique des hautes études. He specializes in the history and culture of Ancient Persia. He is the editor of the ''Name-ye Iran-e Bastan'', ''The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies'', ''DABIR: Digital Ar'', as well as the director of ''Sasanika Project'', a project on the history and culture of Sasanians. His most famous publications include ''Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire'' and ''Sasanian Iran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Persian
Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Persian continued to function as a prestige language. It descended from Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian, the official language of Iran (also known as Persia), Afghanistan ( Dari) and Tajikistan ( Tajik). Name "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects. The middle stage of the Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper, which lies in the south-western Iran highlands on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Al-Qādisiyyah
The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah ( ; ) took place between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sasanian Empire in November 636. It resulted in a decisive victory for the Rashidun army and is considered to be one of the most significant engagements of the Muslim conquest of Persia, and thereby of the early Muslim conquests as a whole. After losing al-Qadisiyyah, the Sasanian army was left unable to defend against the Rashidun siege of Ctesiphon, thus being forced to retreat from all of Mesopotamia. This development enabled further Rashidun offensives into the Persian mainland and culminated in the Sasanian Empire's annexation by 651. It is widely believed that the Rashidun army's advance on al-Qadisiyyah began on 16 November 636 and continued for the next three days. During the battle, Sasanian troops were thrown into disarray following the death of their general Rostam Farrokhzad under uncertain circumstances. The ensuing collapse of their positions marked a cataclysmic defeat that l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Bridge
The Battle of the Bridge or the Battle of al-Jisr (; ) was fought at the bank of the Euphrates river between Arab Muslims led by Abu Ubaid al-Thaqafi, and the Persian Sasanian forces led by Bahman Jaduya. It is traditionally dated to the year 634, and was the only major Sasanian victory over the Rashidun Caliphate army. Context The Muslim forces had already taken Hira and assumed control of the surrounding Arab-inhabited areas of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Euphrates. The fall of Hira shocked the Persians, as the "youthful Yazdgard, began to take the business of the Arabs more seriously." Yazdgard sent forces to the Arab border areas, and looked to be gaining the upper hand, as Al-Muthanna had to call for reinforcements from Medina. The new Caliph, Umar, sent Abu Ubaid to Mesopotamia to take command from Al-Muthanna. He encountered the main Persian force under Bahman Jaduya, near what is the present site of Kufa. The two forces faced each other on opposing banks of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Persia At War
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500, ending with the expansion of Islam in late antiquity. The three-age system periodises ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full progr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaveh Farrokh
Kaveh Farrokh () is a Greek author of several academic books and peer-reviewed publications specializing in Iranian history, and has been a frequent lecturer on Iran-related topics at the University of British Columbia as part of the UBC Continuing Education program. Currently, he is a counselor and learning specialist at Langara College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Life Farrokh was born in Athens, Greece and later attended Institute Chateaubriand in Cannes, France. Farrokh earned his doctorate (PhD) in 2001 from the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where he specialized in the cognitive and linguistic processes of Persian speakers. Previously, he earned his MA in 1988 and BA in 1985 from the same institution. Farrokh has authored four books on the military history of Iran, co-authored two books on the same topic, acted as editor for academic publications, and contributed to a number of articles for peer-review ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jalinus
Jalinus (, also or ) was a 7th-century Sasanian military leader. He may have been of Armenian noble origin. He was reportedly the commander of the ruler's personal guard and was tasked with guarding Khosrow II during the latter's imprisonment. He was one of the commanders of the Sasanian army during the Arab conquest of Iran and was killed at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636. Background and identity The name of Jalinus appears to be the Arabic form of a Greek name. C. E. Bosworth supposes that he was Christian who had adopted a Christian name in addition to his Persian name, which remains unknown. According to Parvaneh Pourshariati, the name was most likely not his personal name but rather a title. In Pourshariati's view, he was probably a member of one of the Armenian noble dynasties that played an important role in the Sasanian Empire at that time. He may have been the same person as Mushegh III Mamikonian or Gregory of Siwnik, who both also served the Sasanians in the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
