As with many places and people, the ancient capital of the Achaemenian kings of Persia is known to us by it's Greek name "Persepolis" meaning Persian City. The Persians themselves called it "Parsa" meaning the city of Persians. The remains of Persepolis are located in the Fars region of what is now southwestern Iran.
Construction of the city was begun under Darius I (Darius the Great - reigned 522–486 B.C.). Persepolis was built in a remote and mountainous region which was quite inconvenient, making it's function as the royal residence and seat of power, somewhat strange. Administration of the Achaemenian Empire was likely still carried on from the traditional power centers of Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana.
Upon the defeat of the Persian Empire by the Macedonian King Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. Persepolis was plundered, and the palace of the then Persian King Xerxes, was burned. According to one legend, it was Thais, a Athenian courtesan who traveled with the army of Alexander, that supposedly persuaded Alexander to set fire to the Achaemenian Palace. In another version, the fire was started when a drunken Thais led a revel that got out of hand. In any event, years later Persepolis was still the capital of Persia, but now as a province of the Macedonian empire. The city gradually declined, and then fell to ruin after the Seleucid period.
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What's left of the palace is marked by a large terrace with its east side leaning on a hill called the Mount of Mercy. The other three sides of the terrace are formed by walls varying in height with the slope of the ground from 13 to 41 feet; on the west side of the terrace is the magnificent double stairs of Apadana. On the top of the terrace are the ruins of several colossal buildings, all constructed of an often polished, dark gray stone. These stones are of great size and were cut with such great precision that mortar was not needed, many of them are still in place today.
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The centerpiece of the terrace was Apadana (the meeting place), the Great audience hall of Darius. Several of the the huge columns that supported the audience hall are still standing. In 1933 two sets of gold and silver plates were found in the foundations of Apadana, they recorded in the cuneiform writing of old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, the boundaries of the Persian Empire.
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A number of inscriptions cut in stone, of the kings Darius I, Xerxes I, and Artaxerxes III, indicate which king built the various buildings. The oldest inscription on the south retaining wall gives Darius' famous prayer for his people: “God protect this country from foe, famine and falsehood" - the Persians believed that the "Lie" was the greatest sin.
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On the great stairways of Apadana, are relief's of Persian, Median, and Elamite officials. Additionally, there are twenty three scenes, separated by cypress trees, depicting representatives from the twenty three vassal kingdoms of the empire. They are being led by a Persian or Mede, as they come to made offerings to the king at the festival of the vernal equinox. The various delegates are shown in great detail, giving insight into the costume and equipment of the various peoples of the Persian Empire in the 5th century B.C. But, there is NO inscription to identify who these people are!
The Babylonian delegation - identified by their Hats. |
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Click here for the reconstructed layout of the Apadana stairway using images like these; Click >>> |
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In Antiquity, Bagastâna/Behistun, which means 'place where the gods dwell', was the name of a village and a remarkable, isolated rock outcrop along the road that connected the capitals of Babylonia and Media, and Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). Many travelers passed along this place, so it was the logical place for the Persian king Darius I (Darius the Great - 522-486) to proclaim his military victories.
The famous Behistun inscription was engraved on a cliff about 100 meters off the ground. Darius tells us how the supreme god Ahuramazda choose him to dethrone an usurper named Gaumâta, how he set out to quell several revolts, and how he defeated his foreign enemies.
The following translation of the Behistun Inscription was made by L.W. King and R.C. Thompson [1]
Where names are quoted in a Greekified or Biblical form, the Persian original sometimes follows in square brackets.
In original Persian words and names, "x"(like cyrilic X) means the "kh" sound as German "ch" in "ach".
(6) King Darius says: These are the countries which are subject unto me, and by the grace of Ahuramazda I became king of them: Persia [Pârsa], Elam [Ûvja], Babylonia [Bâbiruš], Assyria [Athurâ], Arabia [Arabâya], Egypt [Mudrâya], the countries by the Sea, Lydia [Sparda], the Greeks [Yauna], Media [Mâda], Armenia [Armina], Cappadocia [Katpatuka], Parthia [Parthava], Drangiana [Zraka], Aria [Haraiva], Chorasmia [Uvârazmîy], Bactria [Bâxtriš], Sogdia [Suguda], Gandara [Gadâra], Scythia [Saka] (Ghi-mi-ri or Cimmeria in Babylonian version), Sattagydia [Thataguš], Arachosia [Harauvatiš] and Maka [Maka]; twenty-three lands in all.
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About eight miles northeast of Persepolis, on the opposite side of the Pulvar River, rises a cliff-face in a place called Naqsh-e Rostam. Four tombs are carved out of the cliff-face, the first and oldest is the tomb of Darius I, which is identified by inscriptions. The other three tombs have no inscriptions to identify them, but are believed to be the tombs of Achaemenian kings Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II.
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The facade of Darius' tomb is divided into three registers: the bottom register is blank, the middle is sculptured to imitate the front of a palace, and the top shows the monarch at worship on the top of a piece of furniture that is supported by representatives of the nations in his realm.
This top register is adorned with a framed relief panel showing a dais supported by thirty representatives of the nations of the empire. These representatives are identified by cuneiform captions. They are arranged in two tiers of fourteen people with raised arms between the legs, and two people on the outside supporting the feet of the dais.
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The inscriptions on the upper and central registers of his tomb (DNa and DNb) are well-known, but there are several smaller texts on the same monument: two trilingual honorific inscriptions for the courtiers Gobryas and Aspathines, and inscriptions naming the figures supporting Darius' throne. Because inscription DNe mentions Macedonians, it must have been made after 512.
| Persian 1. iyam \ Pârsâ |
English 1. This is the Persian. |
Persian 16. iyam \ Bâbiruš |
English 16. This is the Babylonian. |
It is with the name list, and examination of the relief panel, that researchers must infer the identity of the people on Apadana's stairways: by comparing hats, facial features, clothing etc. Needless to say, the damage done to this cliff-face by two thousand years of weathering, makes inferred identification a very precarious proposition. Additionally, there are thirty peoples represented on the cliff-face, but only twenty-three on the stairway. There is no way to know that the correct twenty-three were extracted.
Upon quick examination, it becomes apparent that Darius' list and the identifications provided by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, (the sites original researchers), do not exactly dovetail. Then there is the unfortunate truth that researchers do not always have an agenda that is purely scientific. Consequently, the identifications provided below for the figures on Apadana's stairways are to be taken with a very large bit of skepticism.
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| Though called Arabian Camels (Dromedaries). The people of ancient Somalia or the Kingdom of Punt first domesticated camels well before 2000 B.C. Camels are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia, Somalia, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and Indian subcontinent. Bactrian camels are native to Central and East Asia. The man below was called an Arab because of the Camel, but comparing with the man above, the man below is "Obviously" not an Arab. Much more likely, he is a Dravidian Indian. |
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The figure supporting Darius's throne is a "Real" Berber Libyan.
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Of course, the man above is NOT a Kushite. History tells us that Persian king Cambyses II, In the three short years of his rule over Egypt, personally led a disastrous campaign up the River Nile into Nubia. There, we are told, his ill-prepared mercenary army was so meagerly supplied with food that they were forced to eat the flesh of their own colleagues as their supplies ran out in the Nubian desert. The Persian army returned northwards in abject humiliation, having failed even to encounter their enemy in battle. Persia NEVER conquered Kush, so how could they be a part of the Persian Empire, or why would Kushites send tribute to Persia? The Greeks also tried to conquer Nubia. A famous episode in the early traditions of Meroë is the coming of Alexander the Great with his forces. According to the legend, confronted with the allegedly brilliant military formation of the army led by Queen Candace of Meroë from atop an elephant, he concluded it would be best to withdraw his forces. The Romans also tried to conquer Nubia. Rome's capture of Egypt led to border clashes and expansion by both Meroë and Rome. It appears that during the skirmishes that ensued, Meroe often came out the better, sacking settlements in and near Aswan, even looting a head from a statue of the emperor Augustus and burying it under their temple steps Back and forth conflict eventually lead to both sides meeting at the Island of Samos, where a peace treaty (that was surprisingly favorable to the Kushites) had been reached through emperor Augustus. Meroe eventually settled down to a healthy trading relationship with Rome and the Mediterranean. However, the kingdom of Meroe began to fade as a power by the first or second century A.D, sapped by the war with Roman Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries. As is always the case when Whites tell Black history, all short haired Blacks are deemed Nubians, Ethiopians or some such nonsense, and facts can be changed to suit the need. Some have suggested that the figure was assumed to be a Kushite because of the animal, which was thought to be a Okapi. But it is not an Okapi, it is the Asian Nilgai. Therefore these men are obviously Asian. Assuming the translators were competent - the word was purposefully changed to Kushite. |
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Whoever these people were, they were long with the Persians, and important to them. As they are always depicted as supporters of the Persian throne. |
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So who are these Black people whom Whites seem desperate to hide by calling them Kushites?They may well be the men of Colchis. Colchis is an ancient region at the eastern end of the Black Sea, south of the Caucasus mountains in the western part of modern Georgia. It consisted of the valley of the Phasis (modern Riuni) River. In Greek mythology Colchis was the home of Medea and the destination of the Argonauts, a land of fabulous wealth and the domain of sorcery. Colchis was later colonized by Milesian Greeks to whom the native Colchians supplied gold, slaves, hides, linen cloth, agricultural produce, and such shipbuilding materials as timber, flax, pitch, and wax. The ethnic composition of the Colchians, as described by Herodotus, was Egyptian. Remnants of the army of Senusret I, (Greek Sesostris), who was the second king of the 12th Dynasty. Herodotus Book 2 - EUTERPE [2.104] There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians (Nubians), are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times.[end quote] Historicially, the Eastern Black Sea region was home to the well-developed bronze age culture, known as the Colchian culture. In at least some parts of Colchis, the process of urbanization seems to have been well advanced by the end of the second millennium B.C, centuries before Greek settlement. The Colchian Late Bronze Age (15th to 8th Centurys B.C.) saw the development of significant skill in the smelting and casting of metals, that began long before this skill was mastered in Europe. Sophisticated farming implements were made, and the fertile, well-watered lowlands with their mild climate, promoted the growth of progressive agricultural techniques. According to Greek mythology, Colchis was a fabulously wealthy land situated on the mysterious periphery of the heroic world. Here in the sacred grove of the war god Ares, King Aeëtes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized by Jason and the Argonauts. Colchis was also the land where the mythological Prometheus was punished by being chained to a mountain while an eagle ate at his liver, for revealing to humanity the secret of fire. The Amazons also were said to be from Colchis. The main mythical characters from Colchis are Aeëtes, Medea, Absyrtus, Chalciope, Circe, Eidyia, Pasiphaë. In about 730 B.C, Colchis was overrun by the White Kurgan tribes called Cimmerians and Scythians. But they appear to have done little permanent damage. In about 600 B.C, the advanced economy of Colchis soon attracted the attention of the Milesian (White) Greeks in Anatolia (Turkey), who colonized the Colchian coast and established trading posts at Phasis, Gyenos, and Sukhumi. In about 580 B.C, the kingdom came under the control of (probably by the dating); King Astyages of the Median Empire. Which would soon become part of the first Persian Empire under Cyrus II, the Great. (The Sassanian was the second Persian Empire). Herodotus in Book 3 says: The tribes living in southern Colchis (the Tibareni, Mossynoeci, Macrones, Moschoi, and Marres) were incorporated in the 19th Satrapy of the Persian King Darius; while the northern tribes submitted “voluntarily” and had to send to the Persian court 100 girls and 100 boys in every 5 years. The Tibareni - Called Tubal by Josephus Flavius (see below) - He identifies them with the (Eastern) Iberians and Cappadocians. The Macrones (Makrones) were an original Colchian tribe. The Moschoi - Josephus Flavius identified the Moschoi with the Biblical Meshech. Meshech is named with Tubal (and Rosh, in certain translations) as principalities of "Gog, prince of Magog" in Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1, and is considered a Japhetite tribe, identified by Flavius Josephus with the Cappadocian Moschoi (Mushki, also associated with Phrygians or Bryges) and their capital Mazaca. Another Meshech is named as a son of Aram in 1 Chronicles 1:17 (corresponding to the form Mash in Genesis 10). In Hippolytus of Rome's chronicle (234 AD), the "Illyrians" were identified as Meshech's offspring. In addition, Georgians have traditions that they, and other Caucasus people including Armenians, share descent from Meshech. The Mossynoeci - (Greek word Mossynoikoi "dwellers in wooden towers"). The Greeks of the Black Sea area applied it to the peoples of Pontus, on the northern Anatolian coast.
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Left: 29. This is the man of Maka. Right: 30. This is the Carian. |
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The figures called Libyans on the "Apadana stairway" are actually more specifically: Cyreneans (known as Putaya to the Persians). These are the Dorian Greeks who invaded and conquered the Berber city of Cyrene during the reign of Egyptian king Wahibre.
