The Persian Prince Pirouz (Pirooz)

By Dr. Kaveh Farrokh

The article “The Persian prince Pirooz“ by Yang Guifei was originally printed in the Tang Dynasty Times. Kindly note that excepting one image, none of the other images, video and accompanying descriptions appear in the version printed below. For more on the Sassanians consult:

The Sassanians (224-651 CE)

Military History and Armies of the Sassanians

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Sometime around the year 670, a shining prince — Pirouz (or Pirooz) the son of the last Sassanid King — arrived in the Tang capital. He was there to beg for protection from the Arab invaders who now occupied his country. Exhausted and covered in dust from the journey, the young prince– who was barely out of boyhood–was led into the Great Hall. It had taken him the best part of a decade to arrive. In fact, he never believed he would actually make it; imagining instead being murdered or perhaps dying from cold and exhaustion somewhere en route over the towering mountains and terrifying deserts through which he had passed on his way East.

A rectangular piece of tapestry coming from the Xingjian Ughur Autonomous Region of China clearly showing Sasanian Persian influences in design and artwork. The physiognomy of the person drawn in the tapestry is Caucasoid as opposed to Asiatic, indicative of the strong Indo-European presence in the region since proto Indo-Europeans (i.e. the Tocharians) first entered the region thousands of years ago (Picture source: Houston Museum of Natural Science). Several Western researchers however suggest that the person depicted above is a Greek.

Somehow, though, he did make it, and arriving at dusk, just before the gates of the great city were secured shut for the night, a regiment of guards from the Chinese Emperor’s Palace arrived to escort him through the city.

And what a city it was.

When he was a child, his father had told him much about the great capital to the East– larger and richer than even Rome or Byzantium. Rome, of course, had been sacked two centuries before, and Byzantium was itself in decline. And then there was his own glorious empire– it still brought tears to his eyes just thinking of it. The Sassanid Empire had been the greatest empire on earth– rivaled only by Byzantium to the West and China to the East, but it now lay in ruins. His family all dead, his heritage scattered like the sands of the desert blown here and there in the wind.

Fresco along the Tarim Basin, China depicting an Iranian-speaking Buddhist monk (Kushan, Soghdian, Persian or Tocharian?) [at left] instructing a Chinese monk [at right] on philosophy (c. 9th-10th Century). Iranian peoples of Central Asia were the link between Asia as a whole and the civilizations of ancient Iran, notably Sassanian and post-Sassanian culture(s). Open and tolerant, the Soghdians, Kushans, Tocharians, etc. established a sophisticated literature and urban culture (Lecture slide from Kaveh Farrokh’s lectures from the course “The Silk Route: origins & History“).

When the Arabs had invaded, he and his family– along with a great entourage of supporters– had fled eastward. Born in 226 a.d. the ancient Persian Sassanid Empire had once stretched from the Levant and Constantinople in the West to the Indian subcontinent in the East and had encompassed all of present-day Iraq, Armenia and Afghanistan; as well as much of Turkey, Syria, Arabia and Pakistan. These lands– as well as the Persian colonies in Central Asia– were all part of the great Persian sphere of influence; whose emperors were held as equals by both the Roman  and the Chinese emperors.

Chinese Admiral Zheng He who was of Persian descent. Zheng He is recognized for having sailed with his giant fleet to Europe and Africa.  (Source: Chris Heller/CORBIS & The Mail).

For 400 years, they had been called Shahanshah– or, the “King of Kings.” And, theirs was the last great Persian empire prior to the invasion of the Arabs and the beginnings of Islam. Zororastrians by religion, it was a Kingdom ruled by a federation of aristocratic families whose splendid cultural achievements would be taken up by their Arab conquerors with gusto. In fact, much of what later came to be known as Islamic culture– from calligraphy and poetry to garden design and architecture– was borrowed largely from the Sassanian empire.

Tang dynasty depiction of foreign merchant in northern China, (7th century CE) housed at Paris’ Musee Guimet (Source: Per Honor et Gloria in Public Domain).

When the Arab conquerers stormed the Persian capital of Ctesiphon in 637, such were their numbers that his Father’s only choice had been to flee. From Ctesiphon, located on the Tigris, just a bit downstream from Baghdad (founded about 150 years later), on horseback they had raced East in the hope of gathering support for their cause. None of the great families, however, had agreed to help them mount an army to oust the Arab invaders, and by the time they had reached Merv, on the Eastern edge of their empire, they were spent.

Tse-Niao (Bird) motif mural painting in Kizil, Sinkiang, 6-7th Centuries AD. (left) and a Pheasant as depicted in late Sassanian arts 6-7th Centuries CE (Slide and caption from Kaveh Farrokh’’s lectures at the University of British Columbia’s Continuing Studies Division and were also presented at Stanford University’s WAIS 2006 Critical World Problems Conference Presentations on July 30-31, 2006).

It was there that the greatest tragedy of all happened. His Father had been murdered– right in front of his own eyes. And what had been perhaps the greatest blow was that he had been murdered by a commoner. Robbed and murdered for his purse, the great Shahanshah, Yazdgerd III, had been killed by a miller. It was 651, and they had been in flight for some 14 years.

So, that had been that. With their cause now dead, the aristocratic and ruling families who had followed them East decided to stay and put down roots in Merv, as well as in the nearby Persian areas of Sogdiana, Tashkent and Khotan. Our young Prince, however, would always live with a price on his head. He, therefore, required protection. He thought and thought, but there seemed nowhere to turn– until he remembered his sister. Before he was born, she had already been married off to the great Tang Emperor to the East. And, so he had set out East–to China.

It was the heyday of the Silk Road, so he had just followed the well-worn path of other Persians before him. First into Sogdiana and then crossing the Pamirs, he had had to make it across the unending stretch of sand of the deserts of inner Asia. Skirting the southern edges of the Taklamakan Desert, first he traveled to Kashgar; then on to Yarkand, Khotan, and all the way to Dunhuang. From there, it had just been a matter of descending down off the plateau and heading East, toward the capital.

Chinese girls of ancient Iranian descent (Source:Iranian People Of China (中国的伊朗人)).

Persian peoples dominated the entire route. The great middle men of the Silk Road, Persian communities (and most notably the Sogdians) had greeted him in every town he passed through along the way. From Merv to Chang’an, whenever he stopped, he had stayed in Persian inns, eaten Persian foods and had spoken in the refined Persian language of the Court– and he was, for the most part– understood.

He would be further stunned to see of his country’s influence in China proper as well. It gave him heart. Yes, theirs had been the greatest civilization of the world– for even the Chinese thought so.

The Chinese capital, though, he had to admit, had surpassed even the Persian capital during its height. As French scholar Michel Beurdeley has noted, “the title of Middle Kingdom was richly deserved by China during the Tang dynasty,” as the high civilization and celebrated cosmopolitanism of the Tang dynasty truly had no precedent anywhere on earth prior to that time– not even Byzantium saw such a rich display of goods and peoples.

The above figure is from a Tang dynasty burial site, now housed now at the museum at Turin, Italy. Curators and scholars continue to debate the figure’s origins; one possibility is that he was of Iranian descent (Picture source: The Wall Street Journal).

While the Tang capital of Chang’an was the largest, most international city in the world of the time, the Second Capital of Loyang was no less impressive. Both cities were inhabited by traders, entertainers and religious teachers and students from places as far-flung as Syria, Oman, Iran, Khotan, Sogdiana, Turkestan, Tibet, India, Champa, Funan, Korea, and Japan, just to name a few. There were Mosques, Jewish, Manichean and Zoroastrian temples, Nestorian churches, as well as Buddhist monasteries of all sects, some of which were great centers of scholarship. Most surprising (considering the inward turn China would take in the coming centuries) was how stunningly exotic and open the city was.

It was a city where wealthy ladies adorned their cheeks with crimson laq from Vietnam and anointed their bodies with perfumed oils of Cambodia; where aristocrats kept falcons from Korea, parrots from the jungles of Java and lapdogs from Samarkand. Sleeping in Turkish felt tents was the latest fashion as were the dance moves from Sogdiana. And, the music. The capital saw glorious performances by dancers from Central Asia and India showing dances of such beauty that the famed Tang poets of the time composed poem after poem about them. Grape wine had also come into fashion and was served in glass ewers from Persia. There were lychees from Canton and those oh-so famous peaches of Samarkand.

Iranian-speaking Tajik women from China. These are mainly clustered in the Karakorum region.

Of all the foreign fashions, the influence of Iran was without a doubt most significant of all. During the Tang, anything Persian– from music and dancing, to clothes, hairstyles and the game of Polo– enjoyed huge popularity at Court and among the aristocracy– indeed, they were considered to be the very height of fashion. This surprising turn in history came about as part of the Tang Dynasty’s political and military incursions further and further West, into Central Asia (to the land of their prized “blood sweating” stallions and jade) as well as into the Middle East (where beautiful glass and the mineral cobalt was secured).

It was the Iranian Sogdian peoples who held the greatest influence. They were the great merchants, traders and entertainers of the legendary silk road. Known in Chinese as hu jen 胡人, their cultural influence among the Chinese aristocrats was remarkable. It is written in the Tang histories that “the food of the aristocrats was hu food, their music hu music, and their women clothed in the most exotic hu robes that money could buy.” Indeed, in the words of one Japanese scholar, the Tang capital of Chang’an was “painted entirely in the colors of hu.”

https://youtu.be/lTuzU5M5Dh0?t=212

Video by Kings & Generals on the history of the last Sassanians and their anti-Caliphate alliance with the Tang dynasty of China (Source: Kings & Generals in YouTube).

And so our Persian Prince was pleasantly surprised. Such was the Chinese Emperor’s great appreciation of the accomplishments of the Persian civilization that upon their first meeting they declared themselves brothers. Born and raised the song of a King, the Prince knew not to make eye-contact with the Son of Heaven, and instead fell to his knees. The great Emperor rose to his feet and stepping off his dais, he bent down to bid the young Prince to his feet.

“You’ve come a long way. Have no more fears. For you are my brother and this is your new home.”

Prince Pirooz was to spend the rest of his days within China. He is said to have learned Kung Fu and then went on to become a general in the army. Sent West to fight their mutual enemies the Arabs, the Persian Prince used his remaining money and resources to make whatever trouble he could. He had probably given up all hope of re-taking his empire– still it must have felt good to win a battle or two. The Tang chronicles state that when the Chinese emperor died, Pirooz and his son Narseh were allowed to be stationed along the western border garrisons by the new Chinese emperor. Immediately, they started clashes against the Umayyad Arabs. Soliciting the aid of Turkish tribes, Prince Pirooz spent the rest of his days fighting the Arabs along China’s Western corridor.

A well-preserved Tang vase (8-9th century CE) housed at the Guimet Museum. This bears distinct Sassanian artistic influences.

He died around 700 in the West, still fighting the Arabs wherever he could. His son– who also became a respected general in the Chinese army, wrote this in his diary (from Frank Wong’s article which is pretty much the only thing around online about Prince Pirooz):

Pirooz requested only a simple burial and the Chinese emperor approved. The entire exiled court was in attendance along with the Chinese emperor. The Chinese emperor held Pirooz’s shaking hands. Pirooz looked west and said: “I have done what I could for my homeland (Persia) and I have no regrets.” Then, he looked east and said: “I am grateful to China, my new homeland.” Then he looked at his immediate family and all the Persians in attendance and said: “Contribute your talents and devote it to the emperor. We are no longer Persians. We are now Chinese.” Then, he died peacefully. A beautiful horse was made to gallop around his coffin 33 times before burial, because this was the number of military victories he had during his lifetime. Pirooz was a great Chinese general and great Persian prince devoted and loyal to his people.

And so our Prince died in one of the most remote regions on earth; fighting his enemies till the very end. He was buried facing West.

There is a tomb and statue in China which bears this inscription: Pirouz, Shah of Iran, crowned in Tang dynasty court: Commander-in-chief of Iranian Army, Martial General of the Right [Flank] Guards, Awe-inspiring General of the Left [Flank] Guards. Peroz asked for Chinese military assistance in 661 CE against the Arabs occupying Iran. Pirouz’s descendants in China adopted the Tang dynasty’s Imperial Family Name of Li. Visitors to the tomb of Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE) and Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) will see that one of the statues guarding the emperor as depicted above has the name of Sassanian prince Pirouz (d. 679 CE) as seen above (Picture source: 猫猫的日记本 in Public Domain). The statue had typical Iranian features, complete with long curly hair and the Parthian style mustache making it likely that this is either Pirouz himself or possibly his son Narseh. Pirouz was crowned in China after the Arab invasion which toppled the Sassanian Empire in 637-651 CE. 

One of Iran’s great contemporary playwrights, Bahram Beyzaie, wrote a very popular play about the murder of the last Sassanian King (Pirouz’s father) called the Death of Yazdgard. Put on just after the Revolution in Iran, it was not well-received by the authorities. Still it was made into a film and has been staged several times outside Iran (as recently as 2006, in fact). The play, which is compared to in significance to that of A Streetcar Named Desire or Death of a Salesman, basically explores issues of invasion (on many levels) and good kingship. This article about the Darvag performance in Berkeley and San Francisco is really interesting, especially about how they had to purge the play for any references about the ancient Arab invasion, because “we didn’t want to cause any misunderstandings — especially after 9-11.“

Related posts:

Pirooz in China: Defeated Persian army takes Refuge

The 1,500-Year-Old Love Story Between a Persian Prince and a Korean Princess that Could Rewrite History

Impact of Iranian Culture On East Asia

Pearls of the Taklamakan

Matteo Compareti: The last Sassanians in China

Dr. Masato Tojo: Zen Buddhism and Persian Culture

An Overview of Iranians in Japan during Earlier Times

Chinese-Iranian Relations in Pre-Islamic Times

The Plurality of the Persian Empire: The Achaemenids to the Sassanians

Marco Polo and the Persian Gulf

By Dr. Kaveh Farrokh|January 3rd, 2024|Central Asia, Culture, Heritage, India and Asia, Iran and Central Asia, Iran and China, Sassanians|Comments Off

On the anniversary of the publication of Machiavelli’s “The Prince”

THE BOOK THAT SHAPED MODERN POLITICS

By Amir Taheri

For over 1500 years, people interested in the political dimension of human existence regarded one book as their ultimate guide to a labyrinthine world that tempted and terrorized them at the same time. The book was Aristotle’s “Politics” that, though originally written as a depiction of political ideals in ancient Greece, appealed to other cultures across centuries and continents. In Europe, Aristotle’s book generated centuries of speculation on and experimentation about the art of government. The Scholastics, notably Saint Thomas Aquinas, used it as a plank in reconciling Christianity with philosophy. Although “Politics” was not fully translated into Arabic and Persian, the two major languages of classical Islam, its partial renditions did inspire numerous treatises on the “behavior of princes” (sirat al-moluk) and the art of good governance in general (Siasatnameh)..

However, Aristotle’s masterpiece was a recipe for ideal government in “the most perfect political community” which the First Teacher described as “one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.” That conjecture was not to be reached until the 20th century when the middle classes established their hold on political power in a number of Western societies. But even then, it did not take long before it became clear that middle class or, as Marx would say bourgeois, rule did not necessarily create “the most perfect political community.”

Aristotle had studied the ideal; but what was needed was to examine the real. That was the task that one retired civil servant set for himself in 1513. The man in question was Niccolo Machiavelli who had been imprisoned and forced into exile as a result of one of the frequent regime changes experienced by his native city Florence. Machiavelli’s project shaped up into a slim book, in most editions just over 100 pages, first published under the title “De Principatibus” (On Rulership) in 1513-14.

Thus, the world is now marking the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli’s work with numerous seminars held by universities and research centers in more than 50 countries. The fifth centenary of “The Prince”, as the little book came to be known after its definitive edition appeared in 1532, has also inspired hundreds of books and many more essays. President Barack Obama prides himself in owning a copy as does North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. “The Prince” is also the bedside book for both Vladimir Putin of Russia and Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe. Over the centuries the term “Machiavellianism” has entered almost every major language often as a synonym for diabolical cunning and absence of principles.

Interest in “The Prince”cuts across ideological barriers.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded the book as a draft for his own social contract.

Voltaire and Diderot regarded “The Prince” as the first major attempt at de-sacralizing political power while David Hume and Adam Smith saw it as a humanist manifesto for a new political system. The English historian Thomas Macaulay read “The Prince” as a recipe for democratic republican government. He wrote: “It is notorious that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republican.. We are acquainted with few writings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so pure and warm zeal for public good, so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens, as those of Machiavelli.”

The Founding Fathers of the United States, the first nation-state created as a shareholding company with a constitution, made much wise, though partial, use of Machiavelli’s ideas on government structures and the role of political institutions.

Hegel believed that Machiavelli wrote “The Prince” as a plea for the creation of a powerful state to forge unity among peoples. Fichte, however, presented Machiavelli as an advocate of “nations” at a time that Europe was moving away from the idea of empire towards the concept of nationhood. In 1803 Hegel, disappointed ion his own dreams of German national unity asserted that “Machiavelli’s voice has dies without effect.”

ISLAMIC BENEVOLENT DESPOT

In the 19th century Islamic reformers, among them Jamaleddin al-Afghani, saw “The Prince” as a treatise on the “benevolent despot” they thought was needed to save the people of Islam from poverty, ignorance and decline.

Giuseppe Manzoni, one of the fathers of Italian nationalism, saw “The Prince” as an idealized depiction of what a future Italian state “inspired by God” should look like. However, he missed one crucial point. Manzoni’s God is universal while Machiavelli’s is quintessentially Italian. While Manzoni wanted to enlist God’s support in Italy’s struggle for independence across the board, Machiavelli was satisfied with a divine blessing for what Italians did themselves. ” God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us,” he wrote.

To Hannah Arendt, Machiavelli was “the spiritual father of revolution in the modern sense.” In the 1920s, Bolshevik theoretician Lev Kamenev described”The Prince” as a “zoological study of power in pre-Communist societies.” Benito Mussolini spoke of “my Machiavelli” and claimed the Florentine as the spiritual father of the fascist movement. Mussolini’s compatriot, Antonio Gramsci, however, insisted the Machiavelli’s “The Prince” should be seen as a metaphor for the Communist Party.

Thus, here is a book that has appealed to and intrigued people from across the ideological spectrum. Some like Marx dismissed it as “unscientific while others, like Leo Strauss described it as “a scientific book, because it conveys a general teaching that is based on reasoning .

At any rate, at the start of 2014, Machiavelli’s little book is still top of best-seller lists in the”politics” category not only in the West but also in such unlikely places as China, Japan and Iran.

Most dictionaries define Machiavellianism as “the political theory of Machiavelli; especially: the view that politics is amoral and that any means however unscrupulous can justifiably be used in achieving political power”.

That definition, however, is based on a superficial reading a text that, may be because of its beguiling simplicity, id often unjustifiably densified. Machiavelli regards politics as amoral, not immoral. For him politics is the art of building a solid state that is capable of ensuring the security of tis subjects and/or citizens within the framework of law.

Since none could feel secure without enjoying basic freedoms, it goes without saying that the politics that Machiavelli talks about is not intended to create a tyranny.

Within Machiavelli’s politics, the individual subject or citizen has the choice of being moral or immoral. In fact, it is to Machiavelli’s credit that he denies the state any claim on defining, let alone trying to impose, any form of morality outside the law of the land. To him politics is a neutral, pragmatic means of organizing the affairs of the community in a way that benefits the largest number possible. Though politics and ethics are separate and distinct domains in Machiavelli this does not mean that politics should not be subjected to ethical critique as any other part of the human condition. In fact, the 18th century English theologian Sir Thomas Browne claimed that “The Prince” establishes a political deontology that subjects every ruler to permanent ethical judgment.

GOOD GOVERNANCE AS SCIENCE

Without saying so, Machiavelli treats governance as science and, thus, could be regarded as father of the modern concept of politics as a science rather than an art. Thus the rules of politics, like those of science, are neither moral nor immoral. Take for example, the law of gravity. If you push a tyrant out of a high window, gravity would operate in the same way as if you pushed a loveable grandmother. The chief task of “The Prince” is to ensure the preservation of the state, that is to say maintaining a measure of law and order needed for people to live and work in peace and harmony. Because chaos is the principal enemy, a bad prince that ensures peace and stability should always be preferred to a good one that leads the ship of state into uncertain stormy waters. “The Prince must learn not to be good when necessary,” he states.

But how does the prince achieve the coveted degree of stability? Machiavelli suggests “good armies” and “good laws” as the necessary ingredients for achieving stability. That, in turn, leads him into acknowledging other necessities. There could be no “good armies” without a good economy to support the machinery needed for ensuring law and order. And, could there be “good laws” without their wiling acceptance by a majority of citizens? The answer is: no. But how would that acceptance be assessed? Machiavelli did not imagine democratic elections as they developed four centuries after he wrote his book. What he did, however, was to urge close and systematic consultations through which “The Prince” is informed of the opinions of his subjects. He uses an intriguing term, “riscontro”, a rough equivalent of the German “Zeitgeist”, which means “the spirit of the time or “the mood of the moment.”

At any given time, regardless of laws and traditions there are things that society does not tolerate. For example, in every society there comes a time when the idea of preventing girls from going to school is no longer acceptable. Thus the “Prince” who tries to impose a ban on schooling for girls would run counter to “rioscontro” wit grave consequences for the stability of the state. At the same time, the fact that the “Prince” might want something does not necessarily mean it could or should be undertaken. If it runs against “riscontro” it should be shelved without much ado. A successful “Prince” moves with his time and his people as defined in time, neither faster nor more slowly.

Having made his distinction between ideology and governance, Machiavelli proceeds to depict the political space as separate from that of religion. This does not mean that Machiavelli should be regarded as the father, or at least grandfather, of modern secularism. In his time, the concept did not yet exist. What he does is to understand that religion is the realm of the ideal while politics is that of the real.

Religion is all about certainty while politics is the province of doubt, second-thoughts, U-turns and compromises. Dragging religion into the mud-swamps of politics is bad for both. In religion, man seeks perfection-a perfection forever beyond his reach. This is how Machiavelli describes men who “are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children when the need is far distant: but when it approaches they turn against you. . . . Men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”

Here is yet another passage: “One can generally say this about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and dissimulators, avoiders of dangers and greedy for gain. While you work for their benefit, they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their sons and their lives, when the need to do so is far away. But when the need draws nearer to you, they turn away.”

To many students of Machiavelli that crucial passage is the most glaring example of his cynicism. However, to those familiar with history and the political realities of our societies across the world , the statement has a ring of truth. The statement may be of interest for another reason. It punctures whatever pretense that we might have about achieving perfection by dissolving the real in the ideal. Admitting that we are full of flaws, that we are not perfect, could bless us with a degree of humility without which we cannot live in peace and harmony with our fellow human beings. Machiavelli could not have imagined the type of politics that Western societies were to develop 200 years after him on their way to democratization. Nevertheless, he did imagine what he called “Civil Principality”. In “The Prince” the whole of Chapter IX is devoted to that topic. Machiavelli defines the subject in this way: “When a private citizen becomes Prince of his native city not through intrigue or any other intolerable violence but with the favor of his fellow citizens, this can be called a civil principality, the acquisition of which neither depends completely upon virtue, nor upon fortune, but on a fortunate astuteness.” Machiavelli does not suggest how that “favor of fellow citizens” could be ascertained. But traditional societies, both in Christendom and Islam, developed a number of devices, including act of allegiance and pledges of fealty (bay’ah) that legitimized the new prince. Interestingly, Machiavelli makes it clear that “ a civil principality founded on people’s support is more stable than one founded on aristocratic support.

THE REDEEMER AND NATIONHOOD

It is not only by foreseeing democratic participation, a culture of secularism, and the search for the lowest common denominator that “The Prince” has helped shape the politics in the modern world. Almost 300 years before the very concept of nationalism stared to dominate European, and later, global thought Machiavelli realized that the imperial forms under which diverse communities had been wrought together for over 1500 years were no longer efficient. It would not be far-fetched to regard Machiavelli as the grandfather, if not the father, of modern nationalism. ” I love my fatherland more than my soul,” he wrote. In fact, successive generations of Italians have regarded Machiavelli’s book as a manifesto for Italy’s resurgence (Risorgimento) as a unified nation. “The Prince” ends with an “Exhortation” that is a clarion call for Italians to throw off the foreign yokes under which they live and create a new independent state.

Many readers find the “Exhortation” chapter as an incongruous afterthought to “The Prince”. Throughout the book we are made to understand that the ideal ruler need not be an extraordinary man.

All he needs to achieve success is good sense, temperance, an ability to understand the mood of his time, and readiness to change his words and policies to ensure the stability ad perennity of the state. In “exhortation” , however, Machiavelli seeks a ” Redeemer”, an exceptional heroic figure that Italy, trampled underfoot by bigger powers such as France, Spain, Austria and even Switzerland, needs to unite and re-emerge as an independent nation-state. To be sure, Machiavelli does not quite tell us where his ideal Italy is actually located. He refers to Rome, Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Naples as constituent blocs of his dream Italy. But he makes no reference to Savoy, Sicily, Sardinia and Veneto among other regions. In reality, Italy had never existed as Italy which designates the boot-like peninsula; it had been a patchwork of mini-states based on two dozen cities or had found expression in the Roman Empire stretching across three continents.

Machiavelli’s knowledge of Roman history is, at times, surprisingly approximative. (For example he puts Emperor Commodus after Severus.)

In any case, Machiavelli names only four “ redeemers” in history, men who freed their nations from subjugation and went on to found new states. The four are Moses for Hebrews, Cyrus for Persians, Theseus for the Greeks and Romulus for Romans. Machiavelli’s “Redeemer” is a prophet armed who embarks on a divine mission to create a new world. He is wise, eloquent and humane, in other words, exceptional. In his Opera Nabucco, in 1842, Verdi offered his immortal Va’ Pensero aria of the slaves inspired by Machiavelli’s idea of a “Redeemer”. But Italy did not get a “Redeemer”, even though it did become independent in 1870. It did get caricatures of the “redeemer”, however, in the form of Mussolini’s Il Duce (The Duke), and more recently, Silvio Berlusconi’s Il Condottiere (The Conductor)

Not all nations could have a “Redeemer” all the time. Most mortals must live under an ordinary “Prince”, hoping he has read Machiavelli and learnt a few tips from him.

The article “Buried for 4,000 years, this ancient culture could expand the ‘Cradle of Civilization’” was originally written by Antonio Ratti and published in the National Geographic on February 25, 2021.

Kindly note that none of the pictures and accompanying captions printed below appear in the original National Geographic report.

Readers further interested in this domain may consult the below sources:

Pleistocene to Pre-Achaemenid Eras

The ancient Civilization of Jiroft

Jiroft: The Forgotten Civilizational Legacy of Ancient Iran –جیرفت زادگاهی از تمدن جهان– (Video)

Jiroft and the Aratta Kingdom

The Jiroft Conference of 2008

Maymand, an Exemplar Manmade-Cave dwelling

The Ziggurat of Jiroft: Largest and Oldest of its Type in the World?

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Flooding in 2001 near Jiroft, Iran, exposed the ruins of an ancient necropolis from a Bronze Age culture that flourished alongside Mesopotamia. In 2001 a flood of archaeological objects began appearing in the antiquities market seemingly out of nowhere. For sale were distinctive pieces of jewelry, weapons, finely crafted ceramics, drinking vessels, and game boards—featuring unusual artistry and magnificent inlays of carnelian and lapis lazuli. These extraordinary pieces featured a complex symbology of animals, both wild and domesticated, depicted fighting among themselves or with human figures, the humans always triumphant. There were beautifully realized bucolic scenes of animals grazing in vast palm groves and architectural reproductions of temples or palaces.

https://youtu.be/S31adtfu8Hw

Data provided by the internet sites and auction houses selling these mysterious pieces was sparse and, at best, vague. Their origins were often listed as “from Central Asia.” At first, it was assumed that the pieces were the work of expert forgers, but as more came on the market in the following months, scholars began to speculate that they could be genuine, deriving from an undocumented site whose location was unknown to them. In 2002 more appeared on the market.

Excavations at Jiroft’s Konar Sandal A, one of the site’s two major mounds, are revealing the base of what may have been one of the world’s largest ziggurats. (Source: Mohammad Eslami-Rad /Gamma in CAIS).

Iranian police solved the mystery later that year. A coordinated investigation led to the arrest of several traffickers and the confiscation of a hoard of artifacts. These objects were being prepared to be shipped from Tehran, Bandar ‘Abbas, and Kerman to buyers around the world. Investigators revealed that most of these distinctive pieces could be traced back to a location in the Halil River Valley, about 25 miles south of Jiroft, a remote and peaceful city in southeastern Iran, not far from the Persian Gulf.

But where did these mystery artifacts come from? At the time, scholars knew of no dig sites in the area, but when they looked closer, they found a simple yet surprising explanation. In early 2001 flooding caused the Halil River to overflow its banks and erode the surrounding lands. Layers of sediment were washed away, and the remains of an ancient cemetery were exposed. Locals and looters quickly recognized the importance of the find and moved to collect and sell the artifacts they were finding.

Chlorite cup from Jiroft, c. 3rd millennium BCE (Source: CAIS). Chlorite vessels similar to the stunning examples recently unearthed at Jiroft in southeastern Iran have been found from the Euphrates to the Indus, as far north as the Amu Darya and as far south as Tarut Island, on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. Iranian-born archeologist Professor Yousef Madjidzadeh speculates that some of these objects were in fact imported from Jiroft, which he is convinced is the legendary third-millennium-BC city of Aratta. Other archeologists, however, dispute this conclusion, maintaining that the vases, bowls and cups from Mesopotamian and Indus Valley sites were manufactured locally. What is clear is that Jiroft traders brought lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and carnelian from the Indus to decorate the ornate vessels they manufactured.

The full import of the discovery became clearer after archaeologists made formal surveys of the area and found that this undocumented culture dated back nearly 5,000 years to the Bronze Age. Looters had ransacked thousands of graves in the necropolis, taking artifacts and damaging the site, but archaeologists were determined to study what remained. They traveled from universities around the world to join an Iranian team to protect as much of the exposed site as possible and excavate nearby areas to learn more about this ancient culture and its people. (History’s first superpower—the Persian Empire—sprang from ancient Iran.)

New Urban Culture

Lasting for several seasons, excavations near Jiroft began in February 2003, under the direction of Iranian archaeologist Yousef Madjidzadeh. Madjidzadeh’s team identified a main necropolis, which they named Mahtoutabad. Most of the initial findings and artifacts are believed to have come from this site despite the looting of grave goods prior to the excavations. Almost a mile to the west of the necropolis, archaeologists targeted for further study two large artificial mounds that rose above the plain.

About a mile apart from each other, the two mounds were named Konar Sandal South and Konar Sandal North. They turned out to contain the remains of two major architectural complexes. The northern mound included a cult building, while in the southern one were the remains of a fortified citadel. At the foot of the mounds, buried under many feet of sediment, were the remains of smaller buildings. It’s believed that the two mounds had once formed part of a unified urban settlement that stretched many miles across the plateau.

“The artists had such a naturalistic way of rendering images,” says Yousef Madjidzadeh, foreground. “It was a style that was not seen anywhere else in that era.” (Source: CAIS). “There must certainly have been a school of stonecarvers, because you see such an aesthetic unity of these objects throughout the kingdom. This high-level artistic quality did not suddenly appear from nowhere,” he maintains. “The traditions must have taken 300 to 400 years to develop.”

Madjidzadeh’s preliminary conclusions from the partial data available made a big impression on the scientific community. Some scholars, most notably American archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella, strongly questioned his findings, sparking furious academic debates. Critics were concerned that the initial looting of the site’s artifacts made it difficult to accurately assess their age and authenticity.

Despite the controversies, work continued at the Iranian site over the course of several seasons with visiting scholars from all over the world, including American archaeologist Holly Pittman from the University of Pennsylvania. The first phase of excavations at the site lasted through 2007.

The initial picture of the Jiroft civilization that existed became clearer. Madjidzadeh published the team’s findings, which suggested that an urban center had been established at the Jiroft site as long ago as the end of the fifth millennium B.C. His optimistic conclusion stated that “the region of Jiroft . . . was a major occupation of urban character in the region during the third millennium B.C. Its center was in the valley of the Halil River where large sites with monumental architecture, sizable craft production areas, domestic quarters, and extensive extramural cemeteries dominated the landscape.”

Archaeologists found distinctive objects—some practical, some decorative, and others sacred—that often featured carved semiprecious stones such as calcite, chlorite, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. The citizens of this city seem to have maintained close contact with cities in Mesopotamia, the region located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (roughly coinciding with present-day Iraq). Painstaking excavation of Konar Sandal South revealed that the citadel there had once been surrounded by a monumental wall of brick and had several rooms that through radiocarbon analysis have been dated to between 2500 and 2200 B.C. (These centuries-old windmills in Iran are still turning.)

Digging at the Jiroft site halted for seven years and began again in 2014 as Iranian archaeologists returned to the site. Scholars from Italy, France, Germany, and other nations have taken part in these new digs, which have been uncovering even more detailed information about the Bronze Age people of Jiroft.

Arts and letters

Archaeologists were thrilled to discover the complexity and beauty of the artworks found at the Jiroft site. The decorative iconography present on hundreds of the vessels is rich with skillfully executed symbolism and shows remarkable similarities with the iconography associated with the Mesopotamian tradition. The scorpion images found at Jiroft echo the scorpion-men depicted in the royal necropolis at Ur (mid-third millennium B.C.). The bull-men of Jiroft call to mind the bull-man Enkidu from the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh. The parallels are so pronounced that it is theorized that the two cultures could share a common cultural heritage. (Here’s how a self-taught scholar discovered Gilgamesh, the world’s first action hero.)

“Handbag” looking artifact with decorative motifs excavated from Jiroft (Source: Iran Atlas). The artefact may have been a weight standard for measurements.

Most striking of all are the recurrent, distinctive images of an inverted bull with an eagle hovering above it and of battles between eagles and snakes. These two motifs appear on many of the vessels found at Jiroft and seem to evoke one of the most famous Mesopotamian myths: that of Etana, the mythical shepherd-king of Kish who is cited on the Sumerian king list, as the first sovereign after the universal flood.

In the myth, one of the most complex and exciting tales from this early period, Etana needs a way to ascend into heaven to attain a magic plant that will allow his wife to give birth to an heir. Meanwhile, an eagle and a serpent struggle; the pair, while once sworn allies, will become mortal enemies after the eagle eats the snake’s offspring. The snake wreaks revenge on the eagle, leaving him to die in a pit. On the advice of the sun god Shamash, Etana saves the eagle, and in gratitude the bird bears Etana up to heaven to retrieve the plant he needs to ensure his succession.

The motif of the universal flood, a central one for the Sumerians and Babylonians, may also appear in some representations from Jiroft. Italian archaeologist Massimo Vidale noted in his work on Jiroft that:

“on a vase, a kneeling character holds two zebu whose heads produce waves. A mountain rises from the waves; another character with the divine symbols of the Sun and the Moon lifts something that looks like a rainbow, beyond which we can see chains of mountains that emerge . . . Although it is essential to be cautious, it is difficult for the writer to leave aside the impression that the image tells an ancient myth about a great flood.” (Explore the ancient water tunnels below Iran’s desert.)

Artifact excavated at Jiroft featuring a scorpion with a human head (Source: Iran Atlas).

In one of the entrances to the citadel of Konar Sandal South, scholars found a fragment from a baked clay tablet inscribed with writing. In another spot, some 500 feet to the north, three other tablets bearing written texts in two different writing systems were found. Whoever these people were, they had a writing system. One of them appears similar to the so-called linear Elamite, a script used in the cities of the kingdom of Elam, on the border with Mesopotamia. The other script was geometric in form and had not been seen before. The obvious inference from the two finds is that the civilization at Jiroft was literate.

Identification ideas

In 2003, after examining the huge collection of confiscated archaeological finds, Madjidzadeh, the director of operations, put forward an intriguing hypothesis. Based on his observations of the site and a study of ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform texts, Madjidzadeh believes that the Jiroft civilization is Aratta, a land that was praised for its wealth in numerous Sumerian poems. An ancient text describes a conflict between Aratta and the Mesopotamian city of Uruk. In the telling, Aratta is a vibrant place:

“battlements are of green lapis lazuli, its walls and its towering brickwork are bright red, their brick clay is made of tinstone dug out in the mountains.”

Jar or vase figure from Jiroft (Source: Iran Atlas).

Madjidzadeh points to the site’s geographical position surrounded by mountains, the abundance of semiprecious stones, and the high degree of civilization as factors in favor of an Aratta identification. Skeptics criticize Madjidzadeh’s theory as lacking in solid evidence. There is no documentary proof to suggest that Aratta existed anywhere outside of the Sumerian poems and that Aratta was just a Bronze Age myth.

Other scholars have theorized that the civilization near Jiroft may correspond to the ancient kingdom of Marhasi. This theory has some textual support. First, there are the inscriptions of the kings of Akkad, a Mesopotamian empire, that describe their glorious Akkadian feats during the fight against a powerful state in the Iranian highlands. In one of these texts, the epilogue of the conflict is narrated in great detail: “Rimush [King of Akkad] defeated Abalgamash King of Marhasi in battle . . . When he conquered Elam and Marhasi he took 30 gold mines, 3,600 silver mines and 300 male and female slaves.” There is firm evidence that the city of Akkad existed between 2350 and 2200 B.C. Since Marhasi was Akkad’s contemporary, Marhasi can also be dated to that time, which lines up with the data from the Jiroft dig sites. Unlike Marhasi, Aratta cannot be identified with a specific period. (Here’s how archaeologists determine the date of ancient sites and artifacts.)

Upright eagle from Jiroft (Source: Iran Atlas).

No one had ever dreamed that from the sands of such a remote and arid region, considered by many to be an unlikely spot for the development of a complex civilization, that a refined culture could emerge. Since excavations began nearly two decades ago, numerous discoveries—once thoroughly analyzed—will make it possible to place Jiroft it in its proper historical perspective. Since 1869, when the remnants of Sumerian culture were uncovered, Mesopotamia has been considered the cradle of civilization. But the remarkable findings at Jiroft demand a reassessment of that interpretation.

Related posts:

The Ancient Civilization of Jiroft

The Ziggurat of Jiroft: Largest and Oldest of its Type in the World?

Jiroft and the Aratta Kingdom

Rock art from unknown ancient civilization in Iran discovered on top of mountain

Excavations Reveal Rare Find of Bronze Age Culture in Iran

Mysterious Script of Biblical Elam Is Deciphered After 5,000 Years

Kaldar cave in Iran estimated to date over 63,000 years

Arctic Mummy from Civilization with Links to Persia

Petroglyphs hold clues to 14,000 years of human life in Iran

An Overview of the Ancient “Shahr-e Sukhte” (Burnt City)

By Dr. Kaveh Farrokh|December 27th, 2023|Ancient: Prehistory – 651 A.D., Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Bronze Age, Jiroft, Pre-Achaemenid|Comments Off

Yalda: the celebration of the sun’s victory and the defeat of darkness.

Click here for Yalda Youtube video

This year, let’s celebrate it globally better than ever.

For thousands of years, on the same day in December and the Persian month of Azar, the shortest day of the year, the people of Iran prepare for a big and nationwide celebration: one without any god or servant inviting them, without any bullying ruler commanding it, without any rich person paying for it, and without the proprietor of any religion or belief promising heaven or companionship. The people of Iran, however, celebrate the victory of the sun, the only vitalizing and life-giving presence of their astute culture, testifying to the undoubted end of all darkness, cruelty, and evil.

This year, the rulers of darkness, along with all their inhumanity and anti-culture, have tried to change the name of Yalda on the first anniversary of the inscription of Yalda on the UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It is as if they do not know that this idea will only bring them nothing but more embarrassment. It makes us believe more than ever in the importance of our national celebrations, those which are based on kindness, wisdom, and charity.

Pasargad Heritage Foundation congratulates everyone on this occasion of Yalda. We hope that this year, we can all globally celebrate Yalda better than ever before, while sitting next to adorned evergreen trees.

Let’s say to the dark thinkers who don’t have the knowledge and capacity to see the light:

“Can you not see and must ask, where is this bright day?

Let the sun shine in your eyes, saying: “Here I am!”

Yalda 2023 (1402)

Pasargad Heritage Foundation

www.savepasargad.com

Yalda, an ancient Persian tradition, is the last night of the autumn and the longest of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It falls on December 21 this year.

Iranians and other people in historically Persian-influenced regions, including Azerbaijan Republic, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, traditionally turn the “longest and darkest night” of the year into a jubilant occasion.

“Yalda Night,” Last year goes on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of the Intangible.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A DNA sample has been extracted from the pelt of a Pacific Northwest Coast Salish woolly dog named Mutton, who had been adopted, perhaps from a Coast Salish community near the town of Chilliwack, British Columbia, by a naturalist and ethnographer working for the U.S. government, according to a Washington Post report. When Mutton died in 1859, his pelt was preserved at the Smithsonian Institution. Although the breed as a whole also disappeared in the nineteenth century, traditional knowledge of Coast Salish people indicates that the fluffy white dogs were raised by women, who fed them a special diet of fish or elk, kept them apart from other dogs, and then used their wool to make blankets and other textiles. Analysis of Mutton’s DNA sample suggests that woolly dogs split from other North American dogs between 1,900 and 4,800 years ago. Only 16 percent of Mutton’s ancestry came from European dogs, while the rest of his ancestry came from precolonial Indigenous dogs, confirming that woolly dogs had been isolated from European dogs shortly before they disappeared. “They were told they couldn’t do their cultural things,” said Rena Point Bolton, an elder from the Stó:lō Nation. “There was the police, the Indian agent, and the priests. The dogs were not allowed,” she explained

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art will repatriate 16 Khmer artifacts obtained through a now-deceased art collector indicted in 2019 for trafficking in looted antiquities. Fourteen of the objects, including a seventh-century sculpture head of Buddha, will be returned to Cambodia, and the other two will be handed over to Thailand. The Cambodian government has stated that dozens of artifacts in the museum’s collections were stolen during periods of civil war and turmoil beginning in the 1970s. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security Investigations have been investigating those claims. “The Met has been diligently working with Cambodia and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for years to resolve questions regarding these works of art, and new information that arose from this process made it clear that we should initiate the return of this group of sculptures,” said Max Hollein, director of the Met. Additional Khmer artifacts in the museum’s collections may be returned to Cambodia as the investigation continues

2023 Theme: the power of collective action: if everyone did

This year, we mark International Volunteer Day (IVD) by recognizing the power of collective action: if everyone did.

If everyone volunteered, the world would be a better place.  Imagine more than eight billion of us volunteering. Limitless possibilities for sustainable development – food and education for everyone, clean environment and good health, inclusive and peaceful societies, and more.

Volunteerism is an enormous renewable resource for social, economic and environmental problem-solving throughout the world. As the world faces mounting challenges, volunteers are often the first to help. Volunteers are at the fore in crises and emergencies, often in very testing and dire situations.

Join us in recognizing volunteers all over the world through our social media campaign, using the hashtags #IfEveryoneDid and #IVD2023. View the IVD 2023 Trello Board for resources.

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Mandated by the UN General Assembly, the International Volunteer Day  is held each year on 5 December. It is viewed as a unique chance for volunteers and organizations to celebrate their efforts, to share their values, and to promote their work among their communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, government authorities and the private sector.

Apart from mobilising thousands of volunteers every year, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme contributes to peace and development by advocating for the recognition of volunteers and working with partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming.

https://www.un.org/en/observances/volunteer-day