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4.0 out of 5 stars
Review of Curtis and Stewart's 'Birth of the Persian Empire', January 7, 2011
This review is from: Birth of the Persian Empire: The Idea of Iran, Volume I (Hardcover)
This is the first in a series of collected essays on different topics in the history of Iran and Iranian identity, with a focus on the rise of the Achaemenids. I found some of the essays interesting, others less so. I did deeply appreciate the heavy influence of archaeological findings in this essays, which is something that is often distant from Persian history.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Birth of the Persian Empire, March 28, 2007
This review is from: Birth of the Persian Empire: The Idea of Iran, Volume I (Hardcover)
The book contains six chapters, written by different scholars .Chapter 5(The history of the idea of Iran) is the most interesting part and it is written by Mr S.Shahbazi and he argues
that the idea of Iran originated in the Avestan period and he bases his argument on 1.text from Avesta 2. Achaemenian inscriptions 3.Greek sources, very convincing and rich text.
Contrary to chapter five, chapter one contains some strange and baseless information about Cyrus the Great.
D.T.Potts bases his discussion on Ur text and Nabonidus text there, Cyrus the Great is called king of Anshan and he believes that all other prominent scholars were wrong to call Cyrus the Great a Persian and Achaemenian and he claims ` Babylonian sources only refer to Anshan, never qualifying it as a Persian domain' and ` the Anshan which Cyrus Cylinder says was ruled by the ancestors of Cyrus the Great , an Anshan that was culturally Elamite, not Persian. But his statement is misleading , Nabonidus chronicle ninths year calls Cyrus the Great `Cyrus king of Persia' and this is absurd to draw conclusions from only parts of chronicle and to ignore rest of the information and Greek sources also confirm that Cyrus was a Persian(Herodotus and Xenophon).
In another strange claim in his paper , he argues `Darius' seizure of power was a Persian coup d'etat which replaced the Anshanite, Teispid family of Cyurs!!!But Bistun inscription shows that his claims are unacceptable:
(1.26-35)Darius the King says: This is what was done by me after I became king. A son of Cyrus, Cambyses by name, of our family -- he was king here of that Cambyses there was a brother, Smerdis by name, having the same mother and the same father as Cambyses
(1.3-6.) Darius the King says: My father was Hystaspes; Hystaspes' father was Arsames; Arsames' father was Ariaramnes; Ariaramnes' father was Teispes; Teispes' father was Achaemenes.
It is sad to see a group of people who are trying to disregard historical documents and base their arguments on guess and fiction.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book but hey Cyrus the Great "was" Persian, August 18, 2011
This review is from: Birth of the Persian Empire: The Idea of Iran, Volume I (Hardcover)
In a promising four volumes series, Dr. Vesta Sarkhosh managed to collect a number of essays pertaining to different periods of Iran's history and publish them to make them public for researchers and ordinary people. Scholars around the world have contributed in this useful series and Dr. Sarkhosh should be lauded. However, I see a serious issue regarding Dr. Daniel Potts's claim on Cyrus the Great origin.
He claimed that Cyrus the Great was not a Persian at all! He was Elamite! His main point was that Cyrus called himself King of Anshan and Cyrus is an Elamite name!!. Unfortunately, Dr. Sarkhosh consented this article and put it in the volume. Fortunately Dr. Touraj Daryaee rejected his claim and argued for three reasons its not a valid claim:
1- Often neglected Indian sources mentions of Persians who were living with them at some point of time before migrating to Iran. There are also mentions of Cambyses and Cyrus indicating these names were common among them,
2- If Cyrus believed he is Emaite he should have title himself "King of Anshan and Susa" as Elamite kings have done so far but he merely used the title "King of Anshan".
3- When later in his life he conquered Babylon, he proclaimed himself "king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world". Then should we conclude he originated from Babylon or Summer?!! Dr. Daryaee stated this was merely Cyrus respect to regional traditions and it does not make him un-Persian.
Dr. Potts anti-Iranian ideas is not limited to this book chapter. He also has written a book titled the fake "A-r-a-b-i-a-n gulf" for Persian Gulf. Seemingly he doesn't like the word "Persian" at all :) See the negative reviews for this Pan-Arab author. I feel for him!
For more on Pan-Arabism please read the article from Dr. Kaveh Farrokh. Easily google and find it.
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