Iranian and Turanian Religions in Pre-Islamic Iran

Pre-publication of chapter X of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian–Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters VI, VII, VIII, IX and X form Part Three (Turkey and Iran beyond Politics and Geopolitics: Rejection of the Orientalist, Turcologist and Iranologist Fallacies about Achaemenid History) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters.

Until now, 14 chapters have been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the book; the present chapter is therefore the 15th (out of 33). At the end of the present pre-publication, the entire Table of Contents is made available. Pre-published chapters are marked in blue color, and the present chapter is highlighted in gray color. 

In addition, a list of all the already pre-published chapters (with the related links) is made available at the very end, after the Table of Contents.

The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.

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Ahura Mazda, as preached by Zoroaster and as worshipped by the monotheistic Achaemenid dynasty, was heavily impacted by Assur (Ashur), the Sargonid Empire of Assyria, and the Assyrian monotheism, which is at the origin of every Biblical and Islamic concept of monotheism.

History of Religions is a field that was never duly explored by Western Iranologists in their effort to write the History of Ancient Iran and to represent spirituality, cult, mysticism, imperial epiphany, morality and transcendental faith in Pre-Islamic Iran. And for a very good reason! As it had happened in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia and Canaan for millennia before the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty, Iran was also the terrain in which numerous religious conflicts took place.

These spiritual and material clashes lasted long and were at times far more ferocious than a) the Catholic Frankish Crusades undertaken by the Western European rulers, b) the 4th–5th c. Christian massacres of hundreds of thousands of followers of the Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Roman, Greek and other religions, and c) the 4th–17th c. Christian killings of thousands of adepts of any theological-Christological system that happened to be considered as ‘heretical’ by the Roman Church, i.e. the Arians, the Monophysites (Miaphysites), the Nestorians, the Iconoclasts, the Paulicians, the Bogomiles, the Knights Templar, etc.

Although Western Iranologists several times managed to successfully identify the existence of opposite beliefs, concepts, cults and faiths in texts and monuments, they basically ended up with a very confusing and misleading representation of the History of Ancient Iranian religions. More specifically, they failed to systematize the presentation of all these opposite beliefs, faiths and religious systems, which were developed in Ancient Iran, and to denote them by means of independent specific names, which could eventually be merely conventional.

Yet, the existing historical sources reveal to us that without a systematized historical-religious study of the material record, the History of the Achaemenids, the Arsacids and the Sassanids will definitely remain largely incomprehensible. However, fully plunged into their catastrophic materialism, ideological militantism, and obdurate sectarianism, the racist academics of the Anglo-Saxon colonial countries have shown only little interest to accurately assess numerous historical facts on the basis of the existing textual/epigraphic evidence and to identify their reason as due to spiritual polarization, moral conflict, and religious clash.

They insidiously distorted the History of Ancient Iran by attributing socioeconomic causes and imperial motives to all the historical facts and developments that took place, thus projecting their wretched mindsets and perverse opinions onto the historical past that they purportedly wanted to ‘interpret’.

In this regard, we can find a very good example in the well-known case of turmoil that took place at the end of the reign of Kabujiya / Cambyses: the end of the great emperor, who invaded Egypt, Libya and the Sudan (i.e. Cush / Ancient Ethiopia), the pernicious attempt of the Magi to obtain imperial and spiritual power by helping the preposterous impostor Gaumata to usurp the throne, the ensuing chaotic situation, and the final prevalence of Darius I the Great testify to a formidable religious clash between two diametrically opposed and antagonistic priesthoods.

Behistun Inscription and relief, near Hamadan (Ecbatana, NW Iran): Darius I the Great steps on the body of the impostor Gaumata; the conspiracy against the Achaemenid court and the ensuing clash were entirely spiritual and religious of character. The Mithraic Magi never accepted the monotheistic preaching of Zoroaster which was sacrosanct for the Achaemenid court. That’s why in later periods the Mithraic Magi traveled to Rome and imposed their evil polytheism there.

This terrible confrontation reveals an enormous opposition between the irrevocably monotheistic Zoroastrian Achaemenid dynasty, imperial court, administration and the Zoroastrian priests (from one side) and (from the other side) the polytheistic Mithraic Magi, who repeatedly attempted to subvert Iran, control the imperial court, and then corrupt Zoroastrianism. The earliest cosmological myths and mysteries of Mithra (or Mehr), which seem to originate from the wider Khorasan region (today’s Northeastern Iran, Southeastern Uzbekistan, Northwestern Afghanistan, and Tajikistan), recount his exploit to slay the ‘celestial bovines’; much later, following the diffusion of Mithraism across Central and Western Europe, this trait gave birth to the evil religious, spiritual, and cosmological concept of tauroctony.

For the Achaemenid court and the vicars of Zoroastrian monotheism, Mithraism was an abomination. Different mythologization of the same divinity denotes always the existence of very divergent priesthoods, and it therefore testifies to a very dissimilar religion. One should never confuse between a) Mithra (Mehr) as a Zoroastrian divinity subordinated to Ahura Mazda and b) Mithra as the central divinity of Mithraism to which a totally contrasting array of counterfeit mythical themes were ascribed. About:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=tauroctony

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauroctony

Parthian relief from Zahhak Castle in East Azerbaijan province, Iran: a bird (possibly eagle) stands on the back of a ball. This may be the very original mythical narrative and form of Mithraic tauroctony.

A negative consequence of Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Babylonia is the fact that the contact with the millennia-long, spiritually powerful, polytheistic Babylonian priesthood of Marduk strengthened the Mithraic Magi enormously and enriched the Mithraic theology considerably. It was then that numerous polytheistic Babylonian concepts, traits, elements, themes and trends were transferred into the early Iranian Mithraism, notably the motif of the dying and resurrected Tammuz, the concept of ‘ab ovo’ Creation, the narrative of the powerful hero and hunter (with the traits of Gilgamesh / Nimrud being passed onto the Iranian Verethragna), and the theme of the mystical banquet. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumuzid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_cosmogony

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cosmogony-i

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cosmogony-ii

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/bahram-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verethragna

Click to access Henkelman-Gilgamesh.pdf

https://www.livius.org/articles/misc/great-flood/flood3_t-gilgamesh/

https://www.ancient.eu/gilgamesh/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

Above: Terracotta plaque of the Amorite Period (2000-1600 BCE) of Babylonia, depicting the earliest representation of Tammuz (Dumuzid in Sumerian) dead in his coffin, before his resurrection; below: Marduk depicted on a Kudurru stele of the Kassite Babylonian king Meli-Shipak II (1186-1172 BCE), one of the last kings of the Kassite dynasty.

Zoroastrianism stands in firm opposition to the ‘ab ovo creation’ concept (which is the earliest form of the evil and pathetic ‘Big Bang’ theory):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg#Zoroastrianism_mythology

The strong Zoroastrian faith of the Achaemenid rulers, their steadfastness, and their prevalence throughout the empire (xšāça) prevented the evil Magi from controlling spiritually and fanaticizing the masses with the aforementioned mythological topics in the central Iranian provinces, namely the Iranian plateau. However, Mithra and his evil Magi traveled southeastwards to the Indus Delta region and westwards to Anatolia, Caucasus and Scythia (Russia–Ukraine).

Actually, what had happened with the Iranian conquest of Babylonia was that the millennia-long Assyrian monotheistic–Babylonian polytheistic controversy, which had caused a myriad of wars in Mesopotamia and throughout the Orient before the rise of Cyrus the Great, found other means of expression, being reproduced among other nations. In fact, the Mesopotamian spiritual-religious confrontation was simply transplanted within Achaemenid Iran. It was not a matter of mere coincidence that the Achaemenids appeared as the spiritual, intellectual and cultural offspring of Sargonid Nineveh; it was a normal consequence of the fact that Zoroaster had lived in monotheistic Nineveh, was educated there, was initiated into the Assyrian imperial universalism, and later tried to transfer the doctrine among Iranians.  

The first film (movie) in the History of Mankind; the monotheistic Assyrian Emperor Tukulti Ninurta I (1244-1207 BCE) is portrayed twice, standing and then kneeling, in front of the aniconic representation of God as baetylus (betyl, i.e. a meteorite). From the Temple of Ishtar at Assur (Assyria), Iraq; nowadays in Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany

In terms of History of Religion, Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Babylonia (539 BCE) reversed, revenged and canceled the earlier downfall of Assyria and Nineveh (614-612 BCE) to the Babylonian armies of Nabopolassar I. In terms of Imperial History, Cyrus the Great postured as the God-blessed savior and the genuine restorer of the Sumerian – Akkadian – Assyrian-Babylonian universal(ist) monarchy, denouncing (and overthrowing) the Nabonid dynasty of Babylonia (625-539 BCE) in the same manner the Sargonids of Assyria (722-609 BCE) had decried Babylonian polytheism and Elamite insanity for millennia. About:

https://www.livius.org/articles/person/cyrus-the-great/

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/cyrus-cylinder/

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-7-nabonidus-chronicle/

https://www.livius.org/pictures/a/tablets/abc-07-nabonidus-chronicle-obverse/

An Important Source from Babylon: The Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7)

http://www.etana.org/node/6612

https://www.ancient.eu/Cyrus_the_Great/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Babylon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonidus_Chronicle

Assur in symbolic representation

Epiphany of the only God Ashur (Assur) above the Tree of Life, next to it the Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal II (883-858 BCE), represented twice, officiates as emperor and as high priest, under the blessing of Assur. From the throne room of Kalhu (modern Nimrud in North Iraq), capital of Ashurnasirpal II

Of course, despite the evident Assyrian spiritual, intellectual, cultural and artistic impact, Zoroastrian monotheism is an original religious phenomenon and all the therein incorporated Assyrian monotheistic concepts were stated in purely Iranian terms and codes, symbols, connotations and forms. But this fact triggers two very simple questions:

– What did the original Iranian religion before Zoroaster look like?

– Was the original Iranian religion before Zoroaster a religious system that looked closer to Zoroaster’s preaching or to an early form of Mithraism?

Due to the lack of textual evidence antedating the establishment of the Iranian monarchy by Cyrus the Great, it is difficult to respond straightforwardly to these questions. Old Achaemenid cuneiform seems to have been invented by Assyrian imperial scribes only few decades prior to the establishment of the Iranian monarchy; the Iranian imperial scribes were indeed well-educated in Sargonid Nineveh at the time of Assurbanipal (669-625 BCE); that’s why they were also perfectly acquainted with, and very well versed into, Assyrian-Babylonian, Elamite, and (to some extent) Sumerian languages and cuneiform writings (Sumerian was already a dead language for 1500 years before the early Achaemenids; so to them it was like Latin to Western Europeans today).

Assur in Assyria (above) & Ahura Mazda in Iran (below)

Ashurnasirpal II is hunting under the auspices of Ashur

Darius defeated his enemies under the auspices of Ahura Mazda

However, we have several indications that, among the Iranian-Turanian nations, there was a long past of grave religious conflicts that ended with the prevalence of Zoroastrianism under Cyrus the Great.  

First, all posterior sources narrate the ‘mythical’ and ‘heroic’ stages of Iranian Pre-history and Proto-history as reflecting a dual environment of permanent conflict between the Good and the Evil. Negative thought, word, action or deed among humans is indeed of spiritual origin and impact (Ahriman).

Second, the basics of Zoroastrian cosmogony and cosmology, the context of Zoroastrian moral world vision, and the quintessence of Zoroastrian soteriology show a certain number of potential parallels with Tengrism, i.e. the earlier form of Turanian religion. And this is exactly what has been missing until now in every historical-religious research about the Achaemenid Empire: the strong link between the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian–Turanian religious monotheistic system and Tengrism. There are many linguistic affinities in this regard; furthermore, basic Zoroastrian religious terms reflect pre-Zoroastrian monotheistic fundamentals that had evidently Turkic origin. The topic is very vast, but at this point, I will try to place it in a brief diagram:

Zoroastrianism is the religion based on Zoroaster’s preaching, which consists in the systematization of earlier Turanian Tengrism, after a deep spiritual study of Assyrian monotheism, cosmogony, cosmology, mythical worldview, imperial universalism, eschatology and soteriology; it seems that what Zoroaster, the Turanian prophet from Atropatene / Azerbaijan truly did was to contextualize elements of the early Tengrism and Tengri-related concepts within the Mesopotamian spiritual-cultural order, while preserving the Turanian–Iranian terms; he therefore created a new dogma and doctrine.

Supreme symbols of Tengrism: the sacred circle in the interior of the Mongolian yurt

Since the Mithraic Magi of the Achaemenid times were so evidently subversive against the universal empire of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses, we can deduce that the early Iranian Magi, who opposed Zoroaster and his system, defended an earlier, polytheistic system of faith that was in straight clash with the pre-Zoroastrian form of Tengrism, which was the original faith of the Turanians and the Iranians before the establishment of the Achaemenid dynasty. A series of systematic linguistic studies and historical-religious researches about the said topics would lead to impressive results. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashavan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashina_tribe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesha_Spenta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6kt%C3%BCrks

https://www.discovermongolia.mn/blogs/the-ancient-religion-of-tengriism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengrism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra

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FORTHCOMING

Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey

2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists

By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu

(Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CONTENTS

PART ONE. INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I: A World held Captive by the Colonial Gangsters: France, England, the US, and the Delusional History Taught in their Deceitful Universities

A. Examples of fake national names

a) Mongolia (or Mughal) and Deccan – Not India!

b) Tataria – Not Russia!

c) Romania (with the accent on the penultimate syllable) – Not Greece!

d) Kemet or Masr – Not Egypt!

e) Khazaria – not Israel!

f) Abyssinia – not Ethiopia!

B. Earlier Exchange of Messages in Turkish

C. The Preamble to My Response

CHAPTER II: Geopolitics does not exist.

CHAPTER III: Politics does not exist.

CHAPTER IV: Turkey and Iran beyond politics and geopolitics: Orientalism, conceptualization, contextualization, concealment

A. Orientalism

B. Conceptualization

C. Contextualization

D. Concealment

PART TWO. EXAMPLE OF ACADEMICALLY CONCEALED, KEY HISTORICAL TEXT

CHAPTER V: Plutarch and the diffusion of Ancient Egyptian and Iranian Religions and Cultures in Ancient Greece

PART THREE. TURKEY AND IRAN BEYOND POLITICS AND GEOPOLITICS: REJECTION OF THE ORIENTALIST, TURKOLOGIST AND IRANOLOGIST FALLACIES ABOUT ACHAEMENID HISTORY

CHAPTER VI:  The fallacy that Turkic nations were not present in the wider Mesopotamia – Anatolia region in pre-Islamic times

CHAPTER VII: The fallacious representation of Achaemenid Iran by Western Orientalists

CHAPTER VIII: The premeditated disconnection of Atropatene / Adhurbadagan from the History of Azerbaijan

CHAPTER IX: Iranian and Turanian nations in Achaemenid Iran

CHAPTER X: Iranian and Turanian Religions in Pre-Islamic Iran 

PART FOUR. FALLACIES ABOUT THE SO-CALLED HELLENISTIC PERIOD, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, AND THE SELEUCID & THE PARTHIAN ARSACID TIMES

CHAPTER XI: Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

CHAPTER XII: Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty

CHAPTER XIII: Parthian Turan and the Philhellenism of the Arsacids

PART FIVE. FALLACIES ABOUT SASSANID HISTORY, HISTORY OF RELIGIONS, AND THE HISTORY OF MIGRATIONS

CHAPTER XIV: Arsacid & Sassanid Iran, and the wars against the Mithraic – Christian Roman Empire

CHAPTER XV: Sassanid Iran – Turan, Kartir, Roman Empire, Christianity, Mani and Manichaeism

CHAPTER XVI: Iran – Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates

PART SIX. FALLACIES ABOUT THE EARLY EXPANSION OF ISLAM: THE FAKE ARABIZATION OF ISLAM

CHAPTER XVII: Iran – Turan and the Western, Orientalist distortions about the successful, early expansion of Islam during the 7th – 8th c. CE

CHAPTER XVIII: Western Orientalist falsifications of Islamic History: Identification of Islam with only Hejaz at the times of the Prophet

CHAPTER XIX: The fake, Orientalist Arabization of Islam

CHAPTER XX: The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History

PART SEVEN. THE FICTIONAL DIVISION OF ISLAM INTO ‘SUNNI’ AND ‘SHIA’

CHAPTER XXI: The fabrication of the fake divide ‘Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam’

PART EIGHT. THE DISTORTED TERM ‘PERSIANATE’

CHAPTER XXII: The fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate

PART NINE. FALLACIES ABOUT THE GOLDEN ERA OF THE ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

CHAPTER XXIII: From Ferdowsi to the Seljuk Turks, Nizam al Mulk, Nizami Ganjavi, Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Haji Bektash

PART TEN. FALLACIES ABOUT THE TIMES OF TURANIAN (MONGOLIAN) SUPREMACY IN TERMS OF SCIENCES, ARTS, LETTERS, SPIRITUALITY AND IMPERIAL UNIVERSALISM

CHAPTER XXIV: From Genghis Khan, Nasir al-Din al Tusi and Hulagu to Timur

CHAPTER XXV: Timur (Tamerlane) as a Turanian Muslim descendant of the Great Hero Manuchehr, his exploits and triumphs, and the slow rise of the Turanian Safavid Order

CHAPTER XXVI: the Timurid Era as Peak of the Islamic Civilization, Shah Rukh, and Ulugh Beg, the Astronomer Emperor

PART ELEVEN. HOW AND WHY THE OTTOMANS, THE SAFAVIDS AND THE MUGHALS FAILED  

CHAPTER XXVII: Ethnically Turanian Safavids & Culturally Iranian Ottomans: two identical empires that mirrored one another

CHAPTER XXVIII: Spirituality, Religion & Theology: the fallacy of the Safavid conversion of Iran to ‘Shia Islam’

CHAPTER XXIX: Selim I, Ismail I, and Babur

CHAPTER XXX: The Battle of Chaldiran (1514), and how it predestined the Fall of the Islamic World

CHAPTER XXXI: Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals: victims of their sectarianism, tribalism, theology, and wrong evaluation of the colonial West

CHAPTER XXXII: Ottomans, Iranians and Mughals from Nader Shah to Kemal Ataturk

PART TWELVE. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER XXXIII: Turkey and Iran beyond politics and geopolitics: whereto?

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List of the already pre-published chapters of the book

Lines separate chapters that belong to different parts of the book.

CHAPTER XI: Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

https://www.academia.edu/105386978/Alexander_the_Great_as_Iranian_King_of_Kings_the_fallacy_of_Hellenism_and_the_nonexistent_Hellenistic_Period

CHAPTER XII: Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty

https://www.academia.edu/52541355/Parthian_Turan_an_Anti_Persian_dynasty

CHAPTER XIII: Parthian Turan and the Philhellenism of the Arsacids

https://www.academia.edu/105539884/Parthian_Turan_and_the_Philhellenism_of_the_Arsacids

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CHAPTER XIV: Arsacid & Sassanid Iran, and the wars against the Mithraic – Christian Roman Empire

https://www.academia.edu/105053815/Arsacid_and_Sassanid_Iran_and_the_wars_against_the_Mithraic_Christian_Roman_Empire

CHAPTER XV: Sassanid Iran – Turan, Kartir, Roman Empire, Christianity, Mani and Manichaeism

https://www.academia.edu/105117675/Sassanid_Iran_Turan_Kartir_Roman_Empire_Christianity_Mani_and_Manichaeism

CHAPTER XVI: Iran – Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates

https://www.academia.edu/96142922/Iran_Turan_Manichaeism_and_Islam_during_the_Migration_Period_and_the_Early_Caliphates

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CHAPTER XVII: Iran–Turan and the Western, Orientalist distortions about the successful, early expansion of Islam during the 7th-8th c. CE

https://www.academia.edu/105292787/Iran_Turan_and_the_Western_Orientalist_distortions_about_the_successful_early_expansion_of_Islam_during_the_7th_8th_c_CE

CHAPTER XX: The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History

https://www.academia.edu/105565861/The_systematic_dissociation_of_Islam_from_the_Ancient_Oriental_History

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CHAPTER XXI: The fabrication of the fake divide ‘Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam’

https://www.academia.edu/55139916/The_Fabrication_of_the_Fake_Divide_Sunni_Islam_vs_Shia_Islam_

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CHAPTER XXII: The fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate

https://www.academia.edu/61193026/The_Fake_Persianization_of_the_Abbasid_Caliphate

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CHAPTER XXIII: From Ferdowsi to the Seljuk Turks, Nizam al Mulk, Nizami Ganjavi, Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Haji Bektash

https://www.academia.edu/96519269/From_Ferdowsi_to_the_Seljuk_Turks_Nizam_al_Mulk_Nizami_Ganjavi_Jalal_ad_Din_Rumi_and_Haji_Bektash

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CHAPTER XXIV: From Genghis Khan, Nasir al-Din al Tusi and Hulagu to Timur

https://www.academia.edu/104034939/From_Genghis_Khan_Nasir_al_Din_al_Tusi_and_Hulagu_to_Timur_Tamerlane_

CHAPTER XXV: Timur (Tamerlane) as a Turanian Muslim descendant of the Great Hero Manuchehr, his exploits and triumphs, and the slow rise of the Turanian Safavid Order

https://www.academia.edu/105230290/Timur_Tamerlane_as_a_Turanian_Muslim_descendant_of_the_Great_Hero_Manuchehr_his_exploits_and_triumphs_and_the_slow_rise_of_the_Turanian_Safavid_Order

CHAPTER XXVI: The Timurid Era as the Peak of the Islamic Civilization: Shah Rukh, and Ulugh Beg, the Astronomer Emperor

https://www.academia.edu/105267173/The_Timurid_Era_as_the_Peak_of_the_Islamic_Civilization_Shah_Rukh_and_Ulugh_Beg_the_Astronomer_Emperor

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Download the chapter (text only) in PDF:

iranian-and-turanian-religions-in-pre-islamic-iranDownload

Download the chapter (pictures & legends) in PDF:

iranian-and-turanian-religions-in-pre-islamic-iran-pictures-legendsDownload

Parthian Turan and the Philhellenism of the Arsacids

Pre-publication of chapter XIII of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XI, XII, and XIII constitute the Part Four (Fallacies about the so-called Hellenistic Period, Alexander the Great, and the Seleucid & the Parthian Arsacid Times) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapter XI ‘Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period’ and Chapter XII ‘Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty’ have already been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the book; they are currently available online here: https://www.academia.edu/105386978/Alexander_the_Great_as_Iranian_King_of_Kings_the_fallacy_of_Hellenism_and_the_nonexistent_Hellenistic_Period

and

https://www.academia.edu/52541355/Parthian_Turan_an_Anti_Persian_dynasty

The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.

—————————-  

The very long shadow of the Turanian Parthian Arsacids who ruled Iran (250 BCE – 224 CE) longer than the Achaemenids (550-330 BCE) and the Sassanids (224-651 CE); this silver gilt dish was found in Padishkhwargar, an Arsacid province that corresponds to Tabaristan (of Islamic times) or to Mazandaran and Gilan (of Modern times), i.e. the long and narrow region between the Alborz Mountains and the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. The dish dates back to the last decades of Sassanid rule or the very early Islamic period; it apparently follows the Sassanid artistic traditions, but the main person next to whom there is a brief Pahlavi inscription makes with his left hand a particular sign of mystical recognition among initiates. This sign reminds the typical hand gesture of Gray Wolves (a fist with the little finger and index finger raised).

Colonial historiographers and Orientalists expand much about the philhellenism of the Parthian monarchs at least for the first 250 years of the dynasty, down to the very beginning of the 1st c. CE; this is a fact. However, few questioned how functional this Parthian philhellenism was and what important purposes it actually served. It is true that after Alexander the Great’s death (323 BCE) a chaotic situation prevailed across Iran and many battles were fought by his Epigones; the Seleucid Empire, which incorporated the central Iranian satrapies, was constituted only 11 years after Alexander’s death (312 BCE).

At that moment and for a longer period afterwards, the worst hit province of the Achaemenid Empire was still Fars (Persia); Alexander the Great’s invasions did not involve any other destruction of Achaemenid city or site comparable to that of Parsa (Persepolis). Reflecting pre-existing rivalries, several populations of other Iranian – Turanian provinces may have enjoyed both, Alexander’s attitude against Fars and the destruction of Persepolis. Furthermore, the inevitable transfer of the imperial capital to Babylon must have pleased them too; it offered them space to gradually control as long as the Persian Iranians were in disarray.

Parthia was already a province of the short-lived Median Empire

Parthia as an Achaemenid Iranian satrapy

The early period of Arsacid Parthia: 250-200 BCE

The Arsacid Parthian Empire in 94 BCE at its greatest extent, during the reign of Mithridates II (124–91 BCE)

The Arsacid Parthian Empire at the beginning of the first c. CE

Parthia (P-rw-t-i-wꜣ) written in Egyptian hieroglyphic characters: it was one of the 24 subject nations of the Achaemenid Empire (from the Egyptian Statue of Darius I the Great)

Parthian soldier depicted on the façade of Xerxes’ I tomb in Naqsh-e Rustam, ca. 470 BCE

The subsequent transfer of the Seleucid capital to Seleucia in Mesopotamia was a grave mistake of the newly established dynasty, which failed to comprehend the very smart effort of Alexander to favor, befriend and utilize the Babylonians as the principal means to hold his vast empire united. Finally, the Parthians seceded from the Seleucid Empire 60-65 years after its inception. The rise of the Arsacid dynasty meant that, for the first time in History, the central Iranian–Turanian provinces were ruled under a scepter and a throne that were not located in Fars.

It is therefore normal that the Parthians -in their opposition to the Persians (of Fars)- promoted a systematic court philhellenism and contributed to Alexander the Great’s Iranian legitimation and unquestionable incorporation into the imperial identity and history, and to his posterior fame among Iranian–Turanian nations. This stance fully corresponded to their best interests, namely to secure stability across Iran’s central provinces, while facing threats from rivals among the neighboring empires and kingdoms. It is clear that the Turanian attempt was rejected by the Persian Iranians, and of this polarization we attest late echoes that date back to the Islamic times. Accepting Alexander as an Iranian was benediction to the Turanian Parthians and malediction to the Iranian Persians. But the empire (Xšāça) established by Cyrus the Great was indiscriminately Iranian-Turanian. 

Despite the Arsacid–Seleucid wars, one must rather conclude that, with their marked philhellenism, the Turanian rulers of Parthia had good relations with the various Greek and Macedonian colonies, which had been established throughout their territory and in several adjacent lands, notably Bactria.

This fact helps also explain why, despite Alexander the Great’s rather negative portrait in Sassanid and Middle Persian sources of the Islamic times’ Parsis, the conqueror of the Achaemenid Empire enjoyed splendid narratives and majestic descriptions by Ferdowsi, Nizami, and many other Islamic Iranian–Turanian poets, mystics, philosophers and historians.

Although followers of Parsism (the form of Zoroastrianism that survived down to our days) in Iran and India have a very negative perception of Alexander the Great, Iranian and Turanian Muslims very much venerate him. About:    

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire#Hellenism_and_the_Iranian_revival

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_formula_of_Parthian_coinage

https://www.academia.edu/40214555/Khusrow_Parwez_and_Alexander_the_Great_An_Episode_of_imitatio_Alexandri_by_a_Sasanian_King

One must have no doubt that the term ‘Hellene’ (Greek) is ‘Ionian’ for the Oriental languages. Throughout all the ancient Oriental sources, i.e. Assyrian-Babylonian, Old Achaemenid Iranian, Aramaic, Phoenician and Hebrew, there is not one mention of ‘Greeks’ or ‘Hellenes’; the only term used is ‘Ionian’. This means that in any ancient Oriental language, for the word ‘Philhellene” the corresponding term is “friendly to Ionians”.

It is essential at this point to define the ethnic and cultural links that the Arsacid Parthians felt that they connected them with the ‘Ionians’ with whom they entered in contact. The Parthians accepted the imperial concept because they were integral part of Achaemenid Iran; around 200 years later, the Macedonians, the Ionians and the Aeolians became acquainted with this spiritual notion thanks to Alexander the Great and the practices of Orientalization that he introduced for his soldiers.

However, prior to the acceptance of the imperial ideal, both the Parthians and the ‘Ionians’ had their apparently common concept of governorship that was above the fundamental level of Kurultai, which corresponds to the ‘Ionian’ Amphictyony for settled tribes. This was a military type of rule with man exercising absolute power upon condition of general approval. The traditional Turanian ruler was named in Ancient Ionian (‘Greek’) ‘tyrannos’, and it was pronounced as ‘tu-ran-nos’ with the accent on the first syllable. The term designated the typically Turanian ruler and it serves as an indication of the Turanian origin of the Ionians and the Aeolians. It was actually first used among the Lydians of the Mermnadae dynasty, whose members had apparently names of Turanian origin, notably the founder of the dynasty Gyges whose name was written in Assyrian Annals as Gu(g)gu. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurultai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphictyonic_league

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/τύραννος#Etymology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyges_of_Lydia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kings_of_Lydia#Mermnadae

In fact, the Parthian Arsacid philhellenism sheds more light on the inculcation of Turanian populations across Western Anatolia and South Balkans during the first millennium BCE, which is a topic that colonial historians tried systematically to conceal. However, Parthian philhellenism is certainly a form of anti-Persianism, which shows that the Achaemenid times were not a period of peace and concord, as many attempted to depict.

——————— THE GALLERY OF ARSACID RULERS & SOLDIERS —————————

Silver drachma of Arsaces I (247 – 211 BCE) with inscription

Arsaces II (211–191 BCE); coin from the Ray mint

Friyapat/Priapatius (191-176 BCE); coin from the Qumis (Hekatompylos; today’s Saddarvazeh) mint

Coin of Frahat I / Phraates I (176-171 BCE)

Coin of Mehrdat I / Mithridates I (171–138 or 132 BCE), who was the first Arsacid Parthian ruler to be attributed the title ‘King of Kings’, according to Babylonian cuneiform records; the reverse shows Verethragna / Heracles, and the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ “Great King Arsaces, friend of Greeks”.

Parthian relief of Mithridates I of Parthia from Xong-e Ashdar (also known as Hung-i Nauruzi), near the city of Izeh, in Khuzestan, Iran; compared to the Achaemenid reliefs, which were the results of an official imperial art, the Parthian reliefs are relevant of provincial artists and craftsmanship; most of the Parthian reliefs are found in the southern range of Zagros Mountains. Parthian reliefs are rather secular and not religious; and not religious; they depict scenes of resting, drinking, and hunting, also including several animal figures.

Mithradat-kert (literally the city of Mithridates I of Parthia) in today’s Nisa (or Nissa or Nusay) in Eastern Turkmenistan; the entrance to the city and the walls, which had to be covered up to prevent further damage from erosion

Mithradat-kert (Ancient Greek: Νῖσος, Νίσα, Νίσαιον; Turkmen: Nusaý or Parthaunisa)

Mithradat-kert

Mithradat-kert

Frahat II / Phraates II (132–127 BCE); coin from the Seleucia mint (in Mesopotamia)

Ardawan I / Artabanus I (127–124 BCE); coin from the Seleucia mint

Coin of Ardawan II / Artabanus II (126–122 BCE)

Coin (drachma) of Mihrdāt II / Mithridates II of Parthia (124–91 BCE); the clothing is Parthian, while the style is Seleucid (sitting on an omphalos). The Greek inscription reads “King Arsaces, the Philhellene”.

Godarz I / Gotarzes I (95-90 BCE); coin from the Ecbatana mint

Coin of Mihrdat III / Mithridates III (87-80 BCE) from the Ray mint

Tetradrachm of the Parthian monarch Urud I / Orodes I (90-80 BCE) from the Seleucia mint

Coin of Sanatruq I / Sinatruces I (77-70 BCE) from the Ray mint

Frahat III / Phraates III (70–57 BCE); coin from the Ecbatana mint

Coin of Mihrdat IV / Mithridates IV (57-54 BCE)

Coin of Urud II / Orodes II (57-38 BCE) from the Mithradat-kert (Nisa) mint

Frahat IV / Phraates IV (38-2 BCE); coin from the Mithradat-kert mint

During the reign of Frahat IV / Phraates IV, there seems to have been a pacification agreement between Parthia and Rome (after the proclamation of Octavian as Emperor in early 27 BCE). According to Roman sources, the Parthians returned to Romans the standards lost in the Battle of Carrhae (53 BCE); this fact was commemorated and presented by Octavian as a victory: this coin (denarius) was struck in 19 BCE. It depicts the Roman goddess Feronia on the obverse, and on the reverse a Parthian soldier who kneels in submission while returning the Roman military standards. It is apparently a matter of utmost symbolism and not the representation of a historical event.

The decentralized administrative and royal power of the Arsacid Parthians allowed for many small, peripheral and vassals kingdoms to surface (Characene, Adiabene, Osrhoene, etc.); there are many possible interpretations of the phenomenon, which was erroneously viewed as result of military weakness in the past. Elymais (in today’s Khuzestan, SW Iran) was one of those vassal states. Coin of Kamnaskires III, king of Elymais, and his wife Queen Anzaze, 1st century BCE

Coin of Tiridat II / Tiridates II (29-27 BCE)

Coin of Frahat V / Phraates V (2 BCE-4 CE)

Vonun I / Vonones I (8-12 CE); coin from the Seleucia mint

Coin of Ardawan II / Artabanus II (10-38 CE) from the Seleucia mint

Vardan I / Vardanes I (40-47 CE); coin from the Seleucia mint

Tetradrachm of Godarz II / Gotarzes II (40-51 CE) minted in 49 CE

Tetradrachm of the Parthian king Vologases I (50-79 CE), struck at Seleucia; on the obverse, there is a portrait of the king who appears to wear a trouser-suit, bear a diadem, and have beard. The reverse depicts an investiture scene, where the king receives the scepter and the divine authority by Ahura Mazda.

The so-called Indo-Parthian Kingdom (19-226 CE) was another small, vassal and peripheral kingdom that was located east of the Parthian Arsacid Empire; it was founded by king Gondophares (Γονδοφαρης/Υνδοφερρης; 19-46 CE) whose name (Windafarm in Parthian and Gundapar in Middle Persian) means ‘May he find glory’ (Vindafarna in Old Achaemenid Iranian). Gondophares originated from the illustrious House of Suren, one of the most prestigious families in Arsacid Iran. He built his own royal city Gundopharron and this name was gradually altered to Kandahar (which is located in today’s Afghanistan). Gondophares’ coin was found in India and bears witness to a clearly Parthian style.

Roman sestertius issued by the Roman Senate in 116 CE to commemorate Trajan’s Parthian campaign

Drawing representing a Parthian archer as depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome (113 CE)

Relief of the Roman-Parthian wars at the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome (203 CE)

Parthian (right) wearing a Phrygian cap, depicted as a prisoner of war, in chains, held by a Roman (left); Arch of Septimius Severus, Rome, 203 CE

Parthian king making an offering to god Verethragna; from Masjed Soleyman, SW Iran. 2nd–3rd century CE (today in the Louvre Museum)

Silver drachma of the Parthian king Walagash VI / Vologases VI (208-228 CE), penultimate ruler of the Arsacid dynasty. Obverse: King wearing a tiara decorated with deers and ribboned diadem. Reverse: Arsakes I, founder or the Arsacid Parthian dynasty, seating on a throne and holding a bow. From the Ecbatana mint (today’s Hamadan).

Parthian horseman, currently at the Palazzo Madama, Turin

Parthian cataphract fighting a lion, currently at the British Museum

Stucco relief of an infantry soldier, dating back to the Arsacid times (250 BCE – 224 CE); from the Zahhak castle, in Hashtrud, Eastern Azerbaijan, Iran; currently in the Azerbaijan Museum, Tabriz (Iran)

————————————————————————–

Another fact that Western Orientalists tried always to obscure is that the religion of the Arsacids was somewhat divergent from that of the Achaemenids. I don’t mean that the Parthians had a diametrically different or a counterfeit religion; not at all! Simply, in terms of Zoroastrian cosmogony, cosmology, universalism, imperial doctrine, and apocalyptic eschatology, the Arsacids sensibly differed from the Achaemenid Zoroastrian orthodoxy. We have to also bear in mind at this point that the scarcity of the historical sources still prevents us from properly assessing the true dimensions of the religious differentiation.

However, the marked differentiation of the Arsacid monarch from his Achaemenid predecessors suggests another type of royalty, sacrality, spirituality, and morality. As an example for the average readership, I point out here that there has not been even one Old Achaemenid or Imperial Aramaic text -saved down to our days-, which explicitly mentions Zoroaster by name. All the earliest mentions of the name of the founder of the Achaemenid imperial religion are in Middle Persian and in Avestan writings – except for external but largely untrustworthy sources (Ancient Greek and Latin).

All the same, the religious differentiation between the Achaemenid and the Arsacid times did not bring about a drastic religious change, but rather another perception of the divine world; the Parthians continued worshipping Ahura Mazda and keeping themselves far from Ahriman’s attraction. But it appears that, during the Arsacid times, Zoroaster’s preaching was rather perceived as a sacred moral world order; subsequently, the metaphysical terms of the then orally preserved Avesta took a moral dimension and connotation. The spiritual interest seems to have shifted from an imperial order of worldwide salvation to a personal order of moral integrity.

Consequently, examining the nature of this historical-religious change, we may be able to discern that the Achaemenid Zoroastrian orthodoxy, once deprived of its overwhelmingly imperial character, looks rather associated to the moral concepts and the spiritual tenets of Tengrism. For this reason, it is proper not to use the term ‘Zoroastrianism’ for all the historical periods after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, because religiosity differed substantially; it would then be preferable to use the term ‘Zendism’ for the Iranian religion of the Arsacid times, which is in reality a later form of Zoroastrianism in which theological exegesis (Zend Avesta meaning interpretation of Avesta) prevailed over the original faith, and the Avestan text took mainly a moral connotation and value within the socio-religious environment of those days.

The Zend commentaries of the Avestan texts, which definitely originate from the spiritual-religious background of the Arsacid Parthian (and not Sassanid) times, do reflect theological concepts and world views closer associated with Tengrism. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Persian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Persian_literature

Zendism was definitely opposite to Mithraism, although perhaps not in the very strict form for which the Achaemenid emperors became famous. But it was mainly in Arsacid times that Mithraism expanded enormously both, southeastwards (India) and westwards (Caucasus, Anatolia, Syria, Greece, Europe, Rome and the Roman Empire). This does not mean that there were no Mithraic Magi left in Iran; their existence proved to be the main reason for palatial turmoil, sacerdotal plots, social unrest, and internal strives. Undoubtedly, the Magi were the absolute embodiment of Ahriman (: the evil) for the Arsacid rulers, pretty much like they had been an abomination for the Achaemenid monarchs.

In this regard, it is essential to point out that ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) in Zoroastrianism and ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) in Mithraism are two absolutely different divinities – pretty much like Jesus in Manichaeism, Mandaean religion, Gnostic Christianity, Roman & Eastern Roman Christianity, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam is not one being but many divergent entities or forms of divinity, each with dissimilar attributes. It goes without saying that for any concept or aspect of Tengrism, which is also a markedly monotheistic system, Mithra is a religious disgrace.

More specifically, I have to point out that within the context of Zoroastrianism, ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) is a subordinate form of divinity that constitutes merely an expression of the unfathomable benevolence and omnipotence of Ahura Mazda, and as such it bears solar attributes. Contrarily, within the context of Mithraism, this divinity gets emancipated, becomes independent, and turns out to be the central recipient of cult, while a series of abominable and sacrilegious acts are attributed to him, notably the blasphemy of tauroctony which is part of the Mithraic eschatology. Due to the polytheistic nature of Mithraism, Mithra is intrinsically and extensively mythologized; this is so because there cannot be true polytheism without numerous narratives which attract the adoration of the faithful, and in the process, they prevent believers from focusing on the spiritual exercises, the moral principles, and the basic narratives of Cosmogony, Cosmology and Eschatology. In Mithraism, Ahura Mazda still exists as an inactive divinity of the old time, like the Roman dei otiosi.

At this point, it is essential to make one clarification; the well-known, theophoric name ‘Mithridates’, which was used by several Arsacid Parthian rulers, does not directly imply Mithraic affiliation. Certainly, the name means literally ‘given by Mithra’; it was also attested in Pontus, Commagene, Armenia and elsewhere. But every case of use is different. In some cases, it may involve the Zendist / Zoroastrian concept of Mithra; on other occasions, it may reflect a compromise among the Parthian Arsacid Empire’s imperial and the sacerdotal cliques, which were plunged in an endless conflict against one another.

Last, the use of the aforementioned theophoric name can eventually denote the pro-Mithraic tendency and affiliation of a Parthian monarch; there were indeed few Mithraists among the Arsacid rulers. This was an abomination for the monotheistic Parthian Zendist priests, and it appears that some of the pro-Mithraic Arsacid rulers were overthrown. The analysis of the reason(s) that stood behind the selection of a theophoric name in the Antiquity may be very long and complicated a topic, because usually these names heralded the nature of the imperial rule that was to be expected in terms easy to understand for the contemporaneous people and difficult to decode for modern scholarship. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_I_of_Parthia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_II_of_Parthia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_III_of_Parthia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_IV_of_Parthia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_V_of_Parthia

———– A SELECTION OF ARSACID PARTHIAN MONUMENTS ———

Hatra, NW Iraq: a major caravan city on the Silk Roads that prospered during the Arsacid Parthian times, being mainly inhabited by the local Aramaeans

A barrel vaulted iwan at the entrance at the ancient site of Hatra, modern-day Iraq, built c. 50 CE

Statue unearthed in Hatra, currently at the Tokyo National Museum: Aramaean amalgamation of Verethragna and an Aramaean deity into a Mithraic divinity similar to Artagnes, who is known to have been worshipped in Nemrut Dagh and Commagene in general

Temple of the Aramaean divinity Gareus, near Uruk, Southern Mesopotamia – near the borders of the vassal kingdom of Characene

Parthian ceramic oil lamp, from the province of Khuzestan, currently in the National Museum of Iran (Tehran)

Baal temple in Palmyra: a frieze relief

Grave towers in Tadmor / Palmyra / Phoinicopolis; known among Syrians as the ‘Valley of the Tombs’ (Wadi al-Qubur). Majestic funerary monuments bear witness to the extraordinary wealth of the great Aramaean caravan city (1st-3rd c. CE).

Statue of a young Palmyrene Aramaean in fine Parthian trousers; from a funerary stele at Palmyra / Tadmor, early 3rd century CE

Mordechai and Esther. From the Aramaean Synagogue of Dura Europos (near Abu Kemal) on the Western bank of Euphrates River in Syria (right before the Syrian-Iraqi border): wall mural with representation of a story from the Book of Esther (early 3rd c. CE); artistic style known as ‘Parthian frontality’

—————————————————————————————————-

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Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

Pre-publication of chapter XI of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XI, XII, and XIII constitute the Part Four (Fallacies about the so-called Hellenistic Period, Alexander the Great, and the Seleucid & the Parthian Arsacid Times) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapter XII ‘Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty’ has already been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the book; it is currently available online here: https://www.academia.edu/52541355/Parthian_Turan_an_Anti_Persian_dynasty

The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.

—————————-  

When so evidently the so-called Ancient Greeks disregarded politics, philosophers, theaters and agoras, finding solace, wisdom, science and spirituality at the Island of Philae Temple of Isis, no one can further use the fallacious term ‘Hellenism’. Even if theoretically the Ancient Greeks existed as an ethnic group (which is wrong), they ended up as pilgrims in Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Iranian temples, because the Ancient Greek religion was a quackery and the Ancient Greek mythology was a blasphemy. No 143 Ancient Greek graffito from the First Pylon of the Temple of Isis at the Island of Philae (7 BCE); from: https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/219643

Seleucid (312-63 BCE), Ptolemaic (305-30 BCE) and Attalid (282-133 BCE) times have also been distorted enormously by the colonial Latinists, Hellenists, and Orientalists, over the past two centuries; they deliberately undertook a systematic Hellenization of the material record, being Eurocentric in their approach, discriminatory in their efforts of representation and interpretation of the historical past, and oblivious of every text and monument that would eventually refute their preconceived falsehood.

In this case, the fabrication and propagation of the term ‘Hellenistic period’ for this part of Late Antiquity represents only a minor dimension of the colonial academics’ falsifications and a small part of the fallacious Western historiography about the topic. In fact, there was never any ‘Hellenistic period’ anytime anywhere.  

The term ‘Hellenism’ was used indeed in Ancient ‘Greek’ texts about several nations that became familiar with the disorderly Ancient Pelasgian-Philistine-Peleset (which is wrongly called ‘Greek’/’Hellenic’ by colonial academics and intellectuals) lifestyle and culture during the early periods of Late Antiquity. However, this situation was sacrilegious if evaluated on the basis of Achaean and Danaan measures and moral standards that Homer had tried to reinstate, but failed. In fact, ‘Hellenism’ was an explicit form of Anti-Achaean odium that should consequently be defined as ‘Pelasgianism’.  

The familiarization phenomenon was basically attested in the case of the Lydians, the Carians, the Lycians, and the Phrygians; to lesser extent, it concerned the Thracians, the Macedonians, the Illyrians and the Romans. But all these populations, earlier known as Lukka, Kaeftiu, Sherden and Tarwisha/Tarwiya (Troy) in the Ancient Hittite or ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Ancient Egyptian texts, were ethnically, culturally and linguistically associated with the Anti-Achaean and Anti-Danaan Pelasgians-Peleset of the 2nd millennium BCE South Balkans. It was therefore quite easy for them to assimilate with those who had been their allies in the destruction of both, the old Hittite-Achaean (wrongly called ‘Mycenaean’) alliance and the Homeric effort of an Achaean revival.

In fact, what is described as ‘Ancient Greek (or Hellenic) civilization’ by the racist historians of the West is an Anti-Achaean Pelasgian barbarism that constituted a blasphemy for all the ancient civilized nations of the Orient, including the Achaeans who are defined as the first ‘Greeks’ (Hellenes), although this sacrilegious name was abhorred by the Achaeans. During the 2nd millennium BCE, the continuous Achaean – Pelasgian clash had reflected the permanent Hittite-Lukka polarization in Western Anatolia, whereas the Hittite-Achaean alliance triggered the ominous Pelasgian-Trojan ‘conspiracy’ (to use the term employed by the Ancient Egyptian scribes of the Annals of Ramses III), since Troy was a member state of the Lukka confederacy. In short, the prevalence of Anti-Achaean Pelasgian ethos among the divergent ethnic groups of the region (Ionians, Aeolians, Danaans, Cadmeans and Dorian during the 1st millennium BCE s is what the Western historians call ‘Ancient Greece’ (Hellas).

One can easily understand Hellenism/Pelasgianism as an appalling corruption and sheer cultural degradation that was produced in Western Anatolia, the Anatolian Sea and the South Balkans, before being also diffused among the Phoenicians (notably in Cyprus, which is a Phoenician island bearing a Phoenician name) and the Jews (: the ‘cosmopolitan’ Sadducees’ of Alexandria). But this was not true for the Aramaeans, the Iranians and the Turanians, the Egyptians, the Berbers of North Africa, the Meroitic Ethiopians of Ancient Sudan, the Yemenites, and many other civilized nations. They were not ‘Hellenized’ (or Pelasgianized).

Being Hittite of etymology (Alaksandu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaksandu), the name of the Macedonian King was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics; this fact alone stands as a proof of the fact that there was no ‘Hellenization’ of the Oriental nations, but ‘Orientalization’ of the Macedonians and the so-called ‘Greeks’.

Having followed Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, the Pelasgian soldiers (called ‘Greeks’/’Hellenes’) settled in small communities in various locations of Asia and Africa; however, they were mostly reviled by the local people for their absurd way of life.

It goes without saying that, during the Late Antiquity, the term ‘Hellenism’ was never used about these small communities or colonies of Ancient Greeks/Hellenes (: in reality ‘Pelasgians’) that were established in various parts of the dissolved Iranian Empire from Cyrenaica to Bactria, because their inhabitants were already ‘Hellenes’ (Greeks).

Luxor temple; Alexander the Great praying to Amun

At this point, I must make clear that in Ancient Ionian (deliberately named ‘Greek’ by the racist scholars of the West), the nouns ending in –ismos originate from verbs that are formed with an ending in –izein (-ize in English); these forms helped describe the association with or the imitation of someone/something else. They were also used to express the meaning of becoming different from what one had originally been.

Luxor temple: Alexander the Great makes offerings to Min

So, speaking at the grammatical level, ‘Hellenizing’ can be eventually said about anyone except for Hellenes/Greeks (in reality: Pelasgians), because other people imitating the Hellenes can truly be described as ‘Hellenizing’, but the Hellenes, being already who they are, cannot ‘Hellenize’; it would sound nonsensical.

Babylonian astronomical diary written in Babylonian cuneiform (323–322 BCE) mentions the death of Alexander the Great.

IA 17FR

Imperial Aramaic administrative document from Bactria, dating back to the 7th year of Alexander’s reign (324 BCE) from the Khalili Collection; when the name of Alexander the Great is written in Cuneiform Babylonian in Babylon, the capital of his empire, in Egyptian hieroglyphic in Egypt, and in Imperial (: Achaemenid) Aramaic in Iran and Central Asia, we can understand that there was no ‘Hellenization project’ in the Macedonian king’s mind. There was nothing from the so-called Ancient Greek civilization that could possibly be taken seriously and eventually accepted by the highly civilized Asiatic and African nations that accepted Alexander as Iranian king of kings.

Similarly, other people imitating the Ancient Egyptians can indeed be described as ‘Egyptianizing’; but the Egyptians, being already who they are, cannot ‘Egyptianize’. The same is valid for all possible terms: Babylonizing, Iranizing, etc. This is necessary to have in mind, because many ignorant people with evil political motives tend to misinterpret ‘Hellenism’ and pretend that the term denoted an ideology, a national theory or a feeling of national unity; that’s totally wrong.

There was never an Ancient Greek word to describe any feeling of national unity among the Ionians, the Aeolians, the Achaeans, the Dorians, and the other anti-Pelasgian ethnic groups, because such feeling never existed, in spite of Homer’s effort to re-Achaeanize them all. The absurd term ‘Panhellenion’ was coined very late; it was first used by the paranoid Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE), who suffered from an enormous psychological complex of inferiority opposite his great, magnificent and omnipotent father, namely Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE). Being the worthless son of an illustrious and most successful father and failing to inherit the slightest portion of his predecessor’s military skills, the foolish Hadrian wanted to regroup together all the Greek-speaking slaves of the Roman Empire. That is why he fabricated the otherwise useless term; however, even the project failed. About:

https://www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1999_num_25_2_1540

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian#Religious_activities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhellenion

It is essential at this point to underscore two key issues; first, the term ‘Hellenistic period’ is not false only because it describes a secondary and rather marginal phenomenon that concerns only the few nations which imitated the Ancient Greek (Pelasgian) lifestyle after the end of the 4th c. BCE, but also due to the fact that, by focalizing on this event, one distorts the wider picture and definitely misrepresents the major historical developments that took place immediately after the military expedition Alexander the Great and the replacement of the Achaemenid dynasty by him on the throne of Iran.

Actually, it has to be pointed out that the brave Macedonian mystic and king did not undertake ‘many’ military campaigns and expeditions like Assurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, and Darius I the Great; simply, after defeating the ‘Greeks’, he only invaded the ailing and quasi-decomposed Iranian Empire and he tried to rule it as an Iranian king of kings.

The concept behind Alexander the Great’s attempt to supplant the Achaemenid dynasty with his own reign in Iran testifies to a very conscious and truly magnificent effort to Orientalize the Macedonians and all the adjacent nations, ‘Greeks’ included. The real nature of Alexander’s endeavor was apparently not to diffuse the barbarian ethos and the lowly culture of those, whom he had already crushed and submitted (i.e. the petty political leaders of Thebes, Corinth, Athens, Sparta and the rest of the South Balkan ordeal), but to civilize (i.e. Orientalize) the disorderly and uncivil populations of his empire’s western confines.

Alexander put an end to the nonsensical politics of the choleric demagogues and sought to impose imperial rule on those who had failed to realize that there cannot be civilization without an empire and a clear-cut Caesaropapist model of power. The historical context of his time bears therefore witness to the fact that Alexander the Great attempted to do the exact opposite of what the racist academics of England, France and America have fallaciously and persistently tried to credit him with.

Roman mural from Pompeii depicts Alexander & Barsine (Stateira), the eldest daughter of Darius, as Ares & Aphrodite in an allusion to the Susa weddings, which took place in the old Elamite and later Achaemenid capital (324 BCE) in order to formally endorse the Orientalization of Alexander’s soldiers who were married to Iranian princesses after the Achaemenid ritual and fashion. Although the historical sources state details that do not allow us to doubt about the nature of the event, the Roman artist, ca. 400 years later, clearly distorts the historical scene that he wanted to commemorate. More than 1500 years, numerous corrupt Western European painters took the distortion to a higher level.

Alexander’s exemplary substitution of Parsa (Persepolis) with Babylon as capital of Iran demonstrates that 

i. he viewed himself as an Iranian (or Oriental) king of kings (: emperor),

ii. he considered Macedonia and Greece as apparently peripheral and not central parts of the Iranian Empire (thus spearheading an overwhelming, determinant and irreversible Orientalizing process),  

iii. he adopted the Oriental imperial order, discipline and world conceptualization, thus fully rejecting the inhuman paranoia of ‘Greek politics’ and the abomination of the disreputable Athenian state,

iv. he adhered to Oriental spirituality, faith and mysticism, therefore rejecting the childish nonsense of the so-called Ancient Greek philosophers (Aristotle included), and

v. he wanted to shift (and actually he did shift) the center of the vast Empire out of Fars (Persia), thus evidently posturing as an Anti-Persian Iranian.

Second, by focalizing on this development (namely the ‘Hellenizing’ attitude of few Oriental peoples), one distorts the wider picture and definitely misrepresents the major historical developments that took place in the period between Alexander the Great’s death (323 BCE) and the Christianization of the Roman Empire (313–380 CE).

Statue of Buddha: 1st-2nd c. CE, typical sample of Gandhara Art (in today’s NW Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan). When the descendants of some soldiers of Alexander the Great accept Buddhism as their own religion, we have a typical example of Orientalization, since people of Macedonian and/or ‘Greek’ origin accept an Oriental religion. But the racist and paranoid Western European and North American academics describe this phenomenon as ‘Greco-Buddhist art’. There is not a shred of Ancient Greek influence on Gandharan Art; it is an entirely Iranian-Indian amalgamation of patterns and styles.

Alexander medallion from Imperial Rome; if the Romans failed to found a genuine Oriental empire, this is partly due to the fact that they were unable to understand the spiritual means and motives of the Macedonian-Iranian king.

Above: Alexander (Iskander) depicted on the miniature of a 15th c. Iranian manuscript from Herat; below: Alexander sharing his throne with Queen Nushabah, from a 16th c. manuscript of Nizami Ganjavi’s Sharaf-Nama. In the pre-Christian, Christian and Islamic traditions, which are preserved thanks to the so-called Alexander Romance and many Iranian and Turanian epics, a far more original, legendary and mythical, figure of Alexander the Great stands at the epicenter of the narrative.

From the Armenian version of the Alexander Romance: details depicted in the miniature: exiled in Macedonia, the Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo by magic predicts the fall of Egypt to the Iranians. The Alexander Romance is a typically Oriental kind of mythical-eschatological literature that simply could not be produced by any Greek-speaking author in the Late Antiquity. The earliest editions date back to the 4th c., but it is certain that the original narratives must go back to the 3rd c. BCE. Although modern scholars believe that the original edition must have been a now lost Greek text of which we have the Latin, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian translations during the period 4th-6th c. CE, it is more probable that the original edition was in Aramaic or Pahlavi. In any case, newer editions were quite often extensions, revisions and modifications. The highly divergent text is now available in dozens of editions and copies, notably in Syriac, Armenian, Latin, Medieval Greek, Middle Persian, Hebrew, Georgian, Coptic, Ge’ez, Farsi, Arabic, Slavonic and several European languages. This narrative reflects the historical truth more accurately, but it is not easy to correctly interpret the ciphered meaning of the text. But this matter, in its entirety, only highlights the cultural Orientalization of the Macedonians and the Greeks; it also gives a blow to the racist academic dogma about the so-called ‘Hellenistic period’. There is nothing ‘Greek’ (or ‘Hellenic’ or ‘Classical’) in the Alexander Romance: it is purely Oriental. About: https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-8245;jsessionid=882E2ED330872834BEE79E9F6B01A398?rskey=AfLpXv&result=3

The rise of the Christian dogma as official (and later as the only official) religion of the Roman Empire constitutes only one late dimension of the phenomenal diffusion of Oriental cults, mysticisms, concepts of imperial rule and universalism, spiritual sciences, religions, faiths, imperial systems and practices of administration, cultures, and behavioral systems across Balkans (‘Greece’ included), Rome and Europe. This extraordinary development, which irrevocably shaped World History, took place during this period, thus making of the entire European continent a mere annex of the Oriental civilizations. 

Cleopatra VII and Caesarion depicted on the walls of the Temple of Hathor at Denderah as entirely Egyptian pharaohs

As a matter of fact, the Hellenizing attitude of few Oriental peoples was entirely overshadowed by the Orientalizing attitude of all the Western peoples (: ‘Greeks’, Romans, and all the other tribes and ethnic groups on European soil), because they all imitated -extensively, comprehensively and irrevocably- the Ancient Oriental lifestyle (: the true, historical Orientalism) and adopted Oriental concepts, principles, cults, faiths, trends and attitudes during that period (323 BCE – 380 CE). 

Minor facts, such as the diffusion of Ionian language among Lydians and the spread of ‘Ancient Greek art’ among the Carians, were deliberately focused on and strongly underscored by the racist Western academics in order to cause confusion among the average public, distort the educational system of the Western countries, and conceal the historical reality. As an academic endeavor, it was futile and puerile at the same time; actually, the so-called Ancient Greek art was not authentic, as it consisted in an interminable series of adaptations of Hittite, Assyrian and Egyptian patterns, styles, models, and concepts. Indicatively:

From Hittite Bit-Hilani’s to Ancient Greek Temple Pillars

https://blogs brown edu/arch-0760-s01-2019-spring/2019/04/14/the-bit-hilani/

Above: Bit hilani (house of pillars) Mesopotamian typology of sacred architecture (entrance to Kapara palace in Tell Halaf) in the Aleppo National Museum; below: Athens Erechtheion

We can therefore conclusively state that the principal trait of Late Antiquity (i.e. the period stretched from the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus the Great to the death of Prophet Muhammad (539 BCE-632 CE) is the fact that all the Ancient ‘Greeks’, the Romans and the Europeans adopted a great number of Oriental religions, theological doctrines, spiritual exercises, world views, esoteric mysteries, cosmogonies, cosmologies, eschatologies, cults, behavioral systems, and lifestyles.

Ancient Greeks adored Mithras, Horus, Isis, Cybele, Atargatis (‘the Syrian goddess’) and other Oriental deities, but in striking contrast, Ancient Iranians disregarded the sacrilegious Pelasgian (‘Ancient Greek’) narratives about Dionysus/Bacchus, Athena, and Pan. Ancient Greeks stopped having any interest for the lawless, immoral and absurd theories of the paranoid ‘philosopher’ Epicurus and for the shallow, pointless and confusing treatises of the spiritually underdeveloped but opinionated author Aristotle, and they started being concerned with the Chaldean Oracles, seeking magical recipes by Ostanes, and flocking to the mysteries of Ptah.

Nemrut Dagh, the peak sanctuary and mausoleum of Mithridates I of Commagene (near Adiyaman, in SE Turkey); Commagene was an Orientalistic, not ‘Hellenistic’, kingdom.

Relief from the Mithraeum of Neuenheimer (near Heidelberg): representation of the tauroctony, which was the main Mithraic myth, and of several other mythical narratives in the panels around the main theme

Bronze plate with representation of Mithraic tauroctony from Brigetio, Hungary (CIMRM 1727)

Mithraic tauroctony represented on a white marble found south of Monastero, Aquileia in 1888, now in Vienna

White marble relief with representation of the Mithraic theme of tauroctony from Walbrook, London; 180-220 CE

Zurvan represented as a lion-headed being from Ostia

Sol (Sun), Mithras, Luna (Moon), assisted by Cautes and Cautopates represented in the lower part of a two-sided relief from Fiano Romano (2nd-3rd c. CE)

Ancient Romans adored Osiris, Thot (as Hermes Trismegistus), Zervan (as Saturn), and other Oriental concepts of divinity, but in striking contrast, Ancient Egyptians did not bother at all about the insignificant myths of Juno, Venus, Mercury and Vesta. Ancient Romans stopped expressing interest for the childish sermons of their orators and for the republican nonsense of their recent past; quite contrarily and with utmost nostalgia, they were inclined to evoke their remote Antiquity in Anatolia (Aeneid).

All the other European nations of the Roman Empire acted similarly, and to this fact testify the many hundreds of Mithraea (temples of Mithra), Iseia (temples of Isis), and temples of other Oriental divinities that have been unearthed across Europe, within the Roman Empire and beyond its borders, from the Iberian Peninsula to Hungary and from England to Ukraine.

Representation of Isis on a wall painting from Pompeii

Nile god from the Isis and Serapis Temple on the Campus Martius, Rome

Pompeii: wall painting with sacred utensils necessary in the Isiac cults

Sistrum unearthed in Pompeii, currently in the Museum of Napoli (Naples); it was indispensable for the Isiac cults.

Roman buildings depicted on the Haterii tomb in Rome; the arch ‘to Isis’ is the first from the left.

Pompeii fresco with a priest dressed as Anubis and two priestesses of Isis

Roman cup for Isis cult from Pompeii

Serapeum on the Forma Urbis Romae

The Iseum (temple of Isis) at Pompeii

The extreme disgust for the disgraceful political system of Ancient Athens and the total disrespect for the worthless talks of the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers fully characterize this period of Oriental impact on Ancient Greeks, Romans and Europeans. Such was the impact that these underdeveloped nations disappeared, because the followers of Mithra in Rome, Macedonia, Athens and Ephesus had more in common among themselves than one of them with one of his ‘compatriots’ who happened to be an adept of Isis or a devotee of Atargatis, the ‘Syrian goddess’.

Reverse of a coin of the Seleucid king Demetrius III (96-87 BCE) with fish-bodied Atargatis

This situation became then decisively important: affiliation with a mystical order eclipsed ethnic membership and clannish affiliation, at a time no patriotism could subsist anymore but no imperial doctrine and theory had yet been incepted. It is true that the formation of the Roman Empire was very different from the inception of the Oriental empires.

People realized then that politics, theater and philosophy were good for nothing, as they disoriented every human being and member of a society, and distracted all humans from the basics of human life, as these had been spelled out by all major Oriental civilizations. In terms of Eschatology and Soteriology, Ancient Greek philosophy and politics were worthless notions and apathetic practices. As such, they were duly and irreversibly rejected once for all.

The terms ‘Neo-Platonism’ and ‘Neo-Pythagoreanism’ are entirely fake; in fact, they function as a smokescreen for the Oriental spiritual schools, faiths, mysticisms, theologies and religious doctrines that the various so-called ‘Neo-Platonic’ and ‘Neo-Pythagorean’ philosophers stood for and attempted to widely popularize among their various students. The correct terms in replacement of these appellations are ‘Egyptian Heliopolitan’ and ‘Egyptian Memphitic’ respectively; this is so because both thinkers (Plato and Pythagoras) were formed after several years of studies in Egypt and they produced their theoretical systems as subsequent reflections of these two Ancient Egyptian systems of spirituality, world conceptualization, faith and theology.

However, one must never confuse between the low level of a Neo-Platonic pupil in Athens, who was limited in theorizing, and the spiritual potency of an initiate in the mysteries of Isis at the Philae Island temple.

Quite notably, if the racist academics of Western Europe and North America wanted to conceal this paramount reality, this was basically due to the crucial fact that the spiritually inexperienced Neo-Platonic pupil was indeed an Athenian (i.e. a White Guy) whereas the Isis initiate was a Blemmyan or a Nubian Black African. That’s why Hellenism is abhorrent racism.

How could one therefore describe correctly this period, efficiently replacing the fallacious term ‘Hellenistic period’?

The response is very simple: it was an ‘Orientalistic period’.

Ancient ‘Greek’ graffiti on the First Pylon of the Temple of Isis at the Island of Philae

The temple of Isis at the Island of Philae; it was the last throughout the Roman Empire to still offer cults to pre-Christian religions.

Justinian I issued a special edict to close down the Temple of Isis; part of the temple was immediately transformed into a Coptic church.

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