Samples from the Samara region possess Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) admixture – shows that the steppe population is primarily West Eurasian

Indo-European migrations

Before the Russians

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics.

According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely related populations ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, Bronze Age Indo-Europeans.

This view is held especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this view is not shared by linguists, as proto-languages generally occupy small geographical areas over a very limited time span, and are generally spoken by close-knit communities such as a single small tribe.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BC. Mainstream scholarship places them in the forest-steppe zone immediately to the north of the western end of the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe. Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the middle Neolithic (5500 to 4500 BCE) or even the early Neolithic (7500 to 5500 BC), and suggest alternative location hypotheses.

The Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop), ca. 3700-3000 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop in the Kuban River valley.

In the south it borders the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500-2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. To the north is the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300-2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent. It is contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia.

The Kuban River is navigable for much of its length and provides an easy water-passage via the Sea of Azov to the territory of the Yamna culture, along the Don and Donets River systems. The Maykop culture was thus well-situated to exploit the trading possibilities with the central Ukraine area.

After the discovery of the Leyla-Tepe culture in the 1980s it was suggested that elements of the Maykop culture migrated to the south-eastern slopes of the Caucasus in modern Azerbaijan. New data revealed the similarity of artifacts from the Maykop culture with those found recently in the course of excavations of the ancient city of Tell Khazneh in northern Syria, the construction of which dates back to 4000 BC.

The work unearthed the remains of hundreds of tombs and ancient settlements from the end of the Copper Age (Chalcolithic or Eneolithic Age, the first half of the 4th millennium BC) right up to the Middle Ages inclusive. These sites were found mainly in what is today Western Azerbaijan, along the middle reaches of the Kur River. From ancient times the favourable geography of the region attracted tribes engaged in agriculture and cattle-breeding.

These finds are evidence of the high development of crafts such as pottery, bone working, stone working, metal working and weaving of the settled agricultural and cattle-breeding tribes. The Soyugbulag barrows, the first barrows of the Copper Age in the whole South Caucasus, are especially important remains of the Leylatepe culture.

Apart from Khojakhan, all the aforementioned Copper Age sites concern the Leylatepe archaeological culture or people. The Leyla Tepe people emerged in the first half of the 4th millennium BC as the result of the migration of the northern Ubaid tribes from Mesopotamia to the South Caucasus, especially Azerbaijan. The Leylatepe people were named after the site of the same name in Agdam District which was excavated in the 1980s.

After inhabiting the Northern Caucasus in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, the Leylatepe people became part of the Maykop people. Therefore, the research into the remains of the Leylatepe culture is of great importance in the study of the cultural, economic and ethnic links of the Caucasus and the Middle East.

The new high dating of the Maikop culture essentially signifies that there is no chronological hiatus separating the collapse of the Chalcolithic Balkan centre of metallurgical production and the appearance of Maikop and the sudden explosion of  Caucasian metallurgical production and use of arsenical copper/bronzes.

More than  forty calibrated radiocarbon dates on Maikop and related materials now support this high  chronology; and the revised dating for the Maikop culture means that the earliest kurgans  occur in the northwestern and southern Caucasus and precede by several centuries those of the Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) cultures of the western Eurasian steppes (cf. Chernykh and Orlovskaya 2004a and b).

The calibrated radiocarbon dates suggest that the Maikop ‘culture’ seems to have had a formative influence on steppe kurgan burial rituals and what now appears to be the later development of the Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) culture on the Eurasian steppes (Chernykh and Orlovskaya 2004a: 97).

In other words, sometime around the middle of the 4th millennium BCE or slightly subsequent to the initial appearance of the Maikop culture of the NW Caucasus, settlements containing proto-Kura-Araxes or early Kura-Araxes materials first appear across a broad area that stretches from the Caspian littoral of the northeastern Caucasus in the north to the Erzurum region of the Anatolian Plateau in the west.

For simplicity’s sake these roughly simultaneous developments across this broad area will be considered as representing the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age or the initial stages of development of the KuraAraxes/Early Transcaucasian culture.

The archaeological record seems to document a movement of peoples north to south across a very extensive part of the Ancient Near East from the end of the 4th to the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Although migrations are notoriously difficult to document on archaeological evidence, these materials constitute one of the best examples of prehistoric movements of peoples available for the Early Bronze Age.

The inhumation practices of the Maikop culture were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments. The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time. The Maykop culture is believed to be one of the first to use the wheel.

The Maykop nobility enjoyed horse riding and probably used horses in warfare. It should be noted that the Maykop people lived sedentary lives, and horses formed a very low percentage of their livestock, which mostly consisted of pigs and cattle.

Archaeologists have discovered a unique form of bronze cheek-pieces, which consists of a bronze rod with a twisted loop in the middle and a thread through her nodes that connects with bridle, halter strap and headband. Notches and bumps on the edges of the cheek-pieces were, apparently, to fix nose and under-lip belts.

The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense.

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, whose views are somewhat controversial, suggest that the Maykop culture (or its ancestor) may have been a way-station for Indo-Europeans migrating from the South Caucasus and/or eastern Anatolia to a secondary Urheimat on the steppe. This would essentially place the Anatolian stock in Anatolia from the beginning, and at least in this instance, agrees with Colin Renfrew’s Anatolian hypothesis.

Considering that some attempt has been made to unite Indo-European with the Northwest Caucasian languages, an earlier Caucasian pre-Urheimat is not out of the question. However, most linguists and archaeologists consider this hypothesis highly unlikely, and prefer the Eurasian steppes as the genuine IE Urheimat.

In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the found artifacts. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles. Attributed to the Maykop culture are petroglyphs which have yet to be deciphered.

The construction of artificial terrace complexes in the mountains is evidence of their sedentary living, high population density, and high levels of agricultural and technical skills. The terraces were built around the fourth millennium BC. They are among the most ancient in the world, but they are little studied. The longevity of the terraces (more than 5000 years) allows us to consider their builders unsurpassed engineers and craftsmen.

By the late third millennium BC, offshoots of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached Anatolia (Hittites), the Aegean (Mycenaean Greece), Western Europe (Corded Ware culture), the edges of Central Asia (Yamna culture), and southern Siberia (Afanasevo culture).

A central challenge in ancient DNA research is that for many bones that contain genuine DNA, the great majority of molecules in sequencing libraries are microbial. Thus, it has been impractical to carry out whole genome analyses of substantial numbers of ancient individuals.

We report a strategy for in-solution capture of ancient DNA from approximately 390,000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) targets, adapting a method of Fu et al. PNAS 2013 who enriched a 40,000 year old DNA sample for the entire chromosome 21. Of the SNPs targets, the vast majority overlap the Affymetrix Human Origins array, allowing us to compare the ancient samples to a database of more than 2,700 present-day humans from 250 groups.

We applied the SNP capture as well as mitochondrial genome enrichment to a series of 65 bones dating to between 3,000-9,000 years ago from the Samara district of Russia in the far east of Europe, a region that has been suggested to be part of the Proto-Indo-European homeland.

We successfully extracted nuclear data from 10-90% of targeted SNPs for more than 40 of the samples, and for all of these samples also obtained complete mitochondrial genomes. We report three key findings:

– Samples from the Samara region possess Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) admixture related to a recently published 24,000 year old Upper Paleolithic Siberian genome. This contrasts with both European agriculturalists and with European hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Iberia who had little such ancestry (Lazaridis et al. arXiv.org 2013). This suggests that European steppe groups may be implicated in the dispersal of ANE ancestry across Europe where it is currently pervasive.

– The mtDNA composition of the steppe population is primarily West Eurasian, in contrast with northwest Russian samples of this period (Der Sarkissian et al. PLoS Genetics 2013) where an East Eurasian presence is evident.

– Samara experienced major population turnovers over time: early samples (>6000 years) belong primarily to mtDNA haplogroups U4 and U5, typical of European hunter-gatherers but later ones include haplogroups W, H, T, I, K, J.

We report modeling analyses showing how the steppe samples may relate to ancient and present-day DNA samples from the rest of Europe, the Caucasus, and South Asia, thereby clarifying the relationship of steppe groups to the genetic, archaeological and linguistic transformations of the late Neolithic and Bronze ages.

Ancient human genomes suggest (more than) three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

The story of R1a: the academics flounder on

Another look at the Lazaridis et al. ancient genomes preprint

First genome of an Upper Paleolithic human (Mal’ta boy)

Ancient human genomes suggest (more than) three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

This study is the first study to fully sequence genomes of Neolithic and Mesolithic Europeans, and report Y-chromosome haplogroups from Mesolithic Europe.

Five out of the five successfully tested Mesolithic Y-chromosomes, one from Luxembourg and four from Motala, Sweden, belonged to haplogroup I. This probably won’t come as a surprise to many people, as this haplogroup was always the main candidate for Europe’s Paleolithic paternal marker. Interestingly, three of the results fell into haplogroup I2a1b, and none into the presently locally more common I1.

What this suggests is that I1 expanded after the Mesolithic and replaced most of the I2a1b across Northwestern Europe. I’d say these were mostly expansions from North-Central Europe, although recent chatter on the web suggests that two distinct I1 lineages might have arrived in North-Central Europe from Eastern Europe at different times.

All of the Mesolithic mtDNA sequences belonged to haplgroups U2 and U5, which is line with past results. The single Neolithic sample, from a 7500 year-old Linearbandkeramik (LBK) site in Stuttgart, Germany, belonged to mtDNA haplogroup T2. Again, not very surprising considering what we’ve seen to date.

However, the genome-wide results are not as straightforward. The basic upshot is that Northern Europeans are mostly of indigenous European hunter-gatherer origin, while Southern Europeans are largely derived from Neolithic farmers of mixed European and Near Eastern origin.

But the authors identify a minimum of three ancestral populations from their stats (WHG, EEF and ANE), and four meta-populations from the available ancient data (WHG, EEF, ANE and SHG). Here are a brief summaries of each of these groups:

Ancient human genomes suggest (more than) three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

The story of R1b: It’s complicated

Ancient DNA is painting a remarkable picture of the period of European prehistory known as the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age. It’s showing that after the collapse of genetically Near Eastern-like farming populations of middle Neolithic Central Europe – probably as a result of climate fluctuations, disease, famine and increasing violence – the vacuum was filled by genetically much more European-like groups from the eastern and western peripheries of Neolithic Europe.

First came the settlers from the east, belonging to the vast archeological horizon known as the Corded Ware Culture (CWC). About three hundred years later they were joined in Central Europe by migrants from the Atlantic Fringe, belonging to the Bell Beaker Culture (BBC). During the early Bronze Age, the CWC disappeared, and was replaced by the Unetice Culture (UC), which briefly overlapped with the late BBC.

Ancient DNA recovered to date suggests that the Bell Beakers were genetically the archetypal Western Europeans, characterized by Western European-specific mtDNA H subclades and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b. Interestingly, R1b has also been found among remains of aboriginals from the Canary Islands, just off the coast of northwest Africa. It might be a stretch to attribute this directly to the Bell Beakers, but they were certainly capable sailors, so perhaps not?

On the other hand, the CWC and UC populations appear to have been Eastern Europeans to the core, carrying relatively low levels of mtDNA H, and showing strong mtDNA affinity to Bronze Age Kurgan groups of Kazakhstan and South Siberia.

The story of R1b: It’s complicated

Haplogroup R1b

Genetic studies

Traces of an BMAC related culture near the town of Sankhast in North Khorasan Province, Iran

Traces of an international culture that is similar to the BMAC – the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex – have been discovered during an archaeological excavation in the prehistoric site of Chalo near the town of Sankhast in North Khorasan Province, Iran.

The BMAC, also known as the Oxus civilization, is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilization of Central Asia. The civilization, which dates to ca. 2300–1700 BC, was located in present day northern Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River).

Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi in 1976. Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu, the capital of which was Merv, in modern-day southeastern Turkmenistan.

“Based on previous studies, the BMAC was only limited to the sites located in Central Asia: in present day northern Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, and some regions in Tajikistan, but the first season of excavation showed that the Chalo site is also part of this great culture,” he added.

“All the artifacts unearthed from the graves have the same characteristics identified for the BMAC in Central Asia,” he added. The artifacts bear designs of dragons, snakes, scorpions, and other animal motifs.

Vahdati said people had inhabited the area before it was converted into a cemetery. “Storage spaces dating back to 3700 BC have been discovered at the site. Large pots which were used for storing grains and other agricultural products have been dug out in the spaces,” he added. “We have found seeds of grain, barley and grapes. The grapes were likely used for production of vinegar or a special drink,” he stated.

Vahdati said, “Chalo reveals details of the BMAC in Iran. Maybe it is better to call it the Greater Khorasan culture, because parts of Merv, Samarkand, and Bukhara were under the influence of Greater Khorasan.”

Archaeologists discover traces of BMAC in northeastern Iran

The Prehistoric Cultures of Turkmenistan and their presence in Khorasan

The Archaeology of East Mazandaran with emphasis on the excavations at Gohar Tappeh

The Bronze Age in Northeastern Iran

Ice Age civilizations – Dancing from Genesis – Fact or fiction?

Expansive from the western Himalayas in the east, to the Caucasus Mountains and the high steppes of southwestern Russia in the west, is the basin of the Caspian and Azov Seas, a huge geographical basin with no outflow for the rivers which flow into it, from the Himalaya mountains in the southeast, the Caucasus mountains to the west, and the Urals in the north, with the Volga flowing into the Caspian Sea from the north; Moscow far upstream.  This huge desert region, looking mostly like central Nevada, was pastureland and forest during the Ice Age (as it was in central Nevada), where now, the few rivers which flow out of the mountains disappear and dry-up in the sands of the dry basin.

To the southeast of the Caspian Sea is Turkmenistan, which shares a border with Iran to the south, separated by the Kopet Dag mountain range, the eastern extension of the Alborz Mountains (along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea), which more or less hooks up with the western edge of the Himalayas, in eastern Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan to the south, where are the Hindu Kush mountains, the western end of the Himalayas.  Into the Kara Kum desert of southern Turkmenistan flow a few streams, from the Kopet Dag range, on its border with northern Iran, but which quickly dry-up flowing out into the sands of the Kara Kum.

And out in those sands have been discovered the building ruins of a big town, Anau, most anciently known as Gathar (Gather in Genesis 10, a grandson of Shem), with clay brick buildings, sumerian figurines, and bronze age tools of war and building, of the ancient mining culture which took ore from the nearby Kopet Dag mountains, the ruins now under sand, built back during the Ice Age, when the area was rife with lakes and streams, pasturelands and forests, when rather than less than 10 inches of rain per year fell, it was more like 30 inches per year, making the terraine look more like that of easthern Kansas than southern Arizona, a completely different place.

The ancient name for this place is Ashkhabad, which means habitation of Ashkenaz, who was a son of Gomer, a son of Japheth, a son of Noah.  And on the other side of the mountains, in Iran, are the ancient ice age ruins of Meshed, also known as Mashhabad, the habitation of Mash, son of Aram, son of Shem, son of Noah.

This also was a mining town, both of which traded with Sumer, Elam, Canaan, and even with the Minoans, probably through Canaanite intermediaries, during the Ice Age, when the climate of the Middle East was not desert, but of grasslands, lakes, streams, and stands of forest, not at all what it looks like today, and so, we can understand why so many ancient ruins are now within vast expanses of desert sand; they flourished during the Ice Age, and then it all began to end circa 1500 BC., when also, the sea level rose a few hundred feet to submerge hundreds of seacoast port towns (see category Submerged Ancient Ruins).

North of Afghanistan, in Uzbekistan, which stretches westward to the Caspian Sea, are also ruins of ice age towns, now out in the desert sands, but then, it was an environment of grasslands and stands of forest; the ruins in the deserts of western Asia reveal advanced clay-brick building techniques, unique in type, but clearly bronze age, with the evidence of such tool making there, the copper and bronze having been mined from the nearby Hindu Kush (Cush, son of Ham) range.  This land, Uzbekistan, was the land of Job, in the kingdom of Uz, who was another son of Aram, a son of Shem, a son of Noah.

Read the Book of Job in the Bible to see what Uzbekistan, there in the Caspian basin, was like during the Ice Age.  And far to the south, also during the Ice Age, the old kingdom Egyptians, instructed by Ham and Kush, were surveying dimensions for the Great Pyramid of Giza by the wobble rate of the earth’s axis, to derive the length for the royal cubit, the same cubit (20.632 inches) with which King Solomon’s Temple was surveyed in Israel over a thousand years later.

Ice Age Civilizations

Dancing from Genesis

Central Asia and the Aryans

Aryan (disambiguation)

The name “Khorasan” is derived from Middle Persian khwar (meaning “sun”) and āsān (or ayan literally meaning “to come” or “coming” or “about to come”), hence meaning “land where the sun rises” the same etymology also having been suggested for Khwarezm. The Persian word Khāvar-zamīn, meaning “the eastern land”, has also been used as an equivalent term.

The territory of Turkmenistan has been populated since ancient times, especially the areas near oasis of Merv, where traces of human settlements have been found. The scant remains point to some sparse settlements in the region, but the region as a whole remains largely unexplored.

Bronze Age and Iron Age finds do support the probability of advanced civilizations in ancient Turkmenistan including finds at Djeitun and Gonur Tepe. Urban civilization, which includes modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BC.

Cultures in the region of Tajikistan have been dated back to at least the 4th millennium BCE, including the Bronze Age Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, the Andronovo cultures and the pro-urban site of Sarazm, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as in ancient and modern times, to have been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions. It is also believed that the region had early trade contacts with Mesopotamia.

Tribes of horse-breeding Iranian Scythians drifted into the territory of Turkmenistan at about 2000 BC, possibly from the Russian steppes and moved along the outskirts of the Karakum Desert into Iran, Syria, and Anatolia.

Between 2000–1200 BC, a branch of Indo-European-speaking tribes known as the Aryans began migrating into the region. This is part of a dispute in regards to the Aryan invasion theory. They appear to have split into old Persian peoples, Nuristani, and Indian groups at an early stage, possibly between 1500 and 1000 BC in what is today Afghanistan or much earlier as eastern remnants of the Indo-Aryans drifted much further west as with the Mitanni. The Aryans dominated the modern day plateau, while the Indo-Aryans ultimately headed towards the Indian subcontinent.

The Avesta is believed to have been composed possibly as early as 1800 BC and written in ancient Ariana (Aryana), the earliest name of Afghanistan which indicates an early link with today’s Iranian tribes to the west, or adjacent regions in Central Asia or northeastern Iran in the 6th century BC.

Due to the similarity between early Avestan and Sanskrit (and other related early Indo-European languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek), it is believed that the split between the old Persians and Indo-Aryan tribes had taken place at least by 1000 BC. There are striking similarities between the Old Afghan language of Avestan and Sanskrit, which may support the notion that the split was contemporary with the Indo-Aryans living in Afghanistan at a very early stage.

Also, the Avesta itself divides into old and new sections and neither mentions the Medes who are known to have ruled Afghanistan starting around 700 BC. This suggests an early time-frame for the Avesta that has yet to be exactly determined as most academics believe it was written over the course of centuries if not millennia.

Much of the archaeological data comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) and Indus Valley Civilization that probably played a key role in early Aryanic civilization in Afghanistan.

Ariana, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Arianē (inhabitants: Ariani; Arianoi), was a general geographical term used by some Greek and Roman authors of the ancient period for a district of wide extent between Central Asia and the Indus River, comprehending the eastern provinces of the Achaemenid Empire that covered entire modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, northwestern Pakistan, most of Tajikistan, most of Turkmenistan and southern Uzbekistan.

The Greek term Arianē (Latin: Ariana) is based upon an Iranian word found in Avestan Airiiana- (especially in Airiianəm Vaēǰō, the name of the Iranian peoples’ mother country). The modern name Iran (which has been used since 1959) represents a different form of the ancient name Ariana and implies that Iran is “the” Ariana itself – a word of Old Iranian origin – a view supported by the traditions of the country preserved in the Muslim writers of the ninth and tenth centuries.

The names Ariana and Aria, and many other ancient titles of which Aria is a component element, are connected with the Sanskrit term Arya-, the Avestan term Airya-, and the Old Persian term Ariya-, a self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran, meaning “noble”, “excellent” and “honourable”.

Aria (Greek: Ar(e)ia, Latin Aria, representing Old Persian. Haraiva, Avestan Haraeuua), inhabitants: Arians (Latin: Arii, Greek: Ar(e)ioi), is the name of a region in the eastern part of the Achaemenid Empire, several times confused with Arianē in the classical sources. Artacoana, Artacana, Articaudna, Chortacana or Artacaena was the name of the capital of Aria, an eastern satrapy of the Persian empire.

The district Aria of the Persian Achaemenid Empire is mentioned in the provincial lists that are included in various royal inscriptions, for instance, in the Behistun inscription of Darius I (ca. 520 BC). Representatives from the district are depicted in reliefs, e.g., at the royal Achaemenid tombs of Naqsh-e Rustam and Persepolis. They are wearing Scythian-style dress (with a tunic and trousers tucked into high boots) and a twisted Bashlyk that covers their head, chin and neck.

The Hari River or Harirud (Persian Harī Rūd, i.e. “Herat River”) is a river flowing 1100 kilometers from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it disappears in the Kara-Kum desert. Rud means “river” in Persian and Pashto. In Turkmenistan it is known as the Tejen or Tedzhen river and passes close to the city of Tedzhen. To the Ancient Greeks it was known as the Arius. In Latin, it was known as the Tarius.

The river originates in the Baba mountain range, part of the Hindu Kush system, and follows a relatively straight course to the west. Still some 200 km (120 mi) upstream from Herat the river meets the Jam River at the site of the Minaret of Jam, the second tallest ancient minaret in the world at 65 meters.

In western Afghanistan the Hari River flows to the south of Herat, the third largest city of Afghanistan. Herat dates back to ancient times, but its exact age remains unknown. During the period of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550-330 BC), the surrounding district was known as Haraiva (in Old Persian), and in classical sources the region was correspondingly known as Aria (Areia) as part of the Achaemenids more eastern regions.

Hari is also a name for Lord Vishnu. Sanskrit Hari is in origin a colour term for yellowish hues, including yellow, golden, yellowish-brown or reddish brown, fallow or khaki, pale yellow, greenish or green-yellow It has important symbolism in the Rigveda and hence in Hinduism; in Rigvedic symbolism, it unites the colours of Soma, the Sun, and bay horses under a single term.

The word Hari is widely used in later Sanskrit and Prakrit literature, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh religions. It appears as 650th name of Vishnu in the Vishnu sahasranama of the Mahabharata and hence rose to special importance in Hindu Vaishnavism.

The Sanskrit word is cognate with Avestan zari, with the same meaning (zari has (dubiously) been identified as the first part of the name of Zarathustra). The English words gold and yellow (from Germanic gulþan, gelwaz) as well as Latin helvus “light-yellow” are from the same Indo-European root, reconstructed as *ǵʰelH-.

Some words in non-Indo-European languages which fell under Hindu dominance during the medieval period also have loanwords derived from the Sanskrit term, including the word for “day” in Malay and Indonesian, and the word for “king” in Tagalog.

In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the district is mentioned as Haroiva. The name of the district and its main town is derived from that of the chief river of the region, the Hari River (Old Iranian Harayu, “Golden Water”), which traverses the district and passes some 5 km (3.1 mi) south of modern Herāt.

Hari is mentioned in Sanskrit as yellow or golden color equivalent to Persian Zar meaning Gold (yellow). The naming of a region and its principal town after the main river is a common feature in this part of the world—compare the adjoining districts/rivers/towns of Arachosia, the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy in the eastern part of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Greco-Bactrian, and Indo-Scythian empires, and Bactria.

Arachosia was centred on Arghandab valley in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended east to as far as the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan. The main river of Arachosia was called Arachōtós, now known as the Arghandab River, a tributary of the Helmand River.

The Greek term “Arachosia” corresponds to the Aryan land of Harauti which was around modern-day Helmand. The Arachosian capital or metropolis was called Alexandria or Alexandropolis and laid in what is today Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Arachosia is the Latinized form of Greek Arachōsíā. The same region appears in the Avestan Vidēvdāt (1.12) under the indigenous dialect form Haraxvaitī- (whose -axva- is typical non-Avestan). In Old Persian inscriptions, the region is referred to as, written h-r-v-u-t-i. This form is the “etymological equivalent” of Vedic Sanskrit Sarasvatī-, the name of a (mythological) river literally meaning “rich in waters/lakes” and derived from sáras- “lake, pond.” (cf. Aredvi Sura Anahita).

Arachosia was named after the name of a river that runs through it, in Greek Arachōtós, today known as the Arghandab, a left bank tributary of the Helmand. The Helmand River (also spelled Helmend, Helmund, Hirmand, Greek: Etýmandros, Latin: Erymandrus) is the longest river in Afghanistan and the primary watershed for the endorheic Sistan Basin.

The name comes from Avestan Haētumant, literally “dammed, having a dam”, cognate with Sanskrit Setumanta “having a dam”, which referred to the Helmand River and the irrigated areas around it. The name was borrowed into Greek and Latin as a compound with Eastern Iranian *raha (cf. Scythian Rha “Volga”), “river”. Helmand Province is named after the river.

The Helmand valley region is mentioned by name in the Avesta (Fargard 1:13) as the Aryan land of Haetumant, one of the early centers of the Zoroastrian faith in pre-Islamic Afghan history. But owing to the preponderance of Hindus and Buddhists (non-Zoroastrians), the Helmand and Kabul regions were also known as “White India” in those days. The Zunbils were also located here.

Some Vedic scholars (e.g. Kochhar 1999) also believe the Helmand valley corresponds to the Sarasvati area mentioned in the Rig Veda as the homeland for the Indo-Aryan migrations into India, ca. 1500 BC.

The Sarasvati River (Sanskrit: sárasvatī nadī) is one of the main Rigvedic rivers mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts. The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert. The goddess Sarasvati was originally a personification of this river, but later developed an independent identity and gained a different meaning.

The identification of the Vedic Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River was accepted by most of scholars already in the 19th and early 20th century, including Christian Lassen, Max Müller, Marc Aurel Stein, C.F. Oldham and Jane Macintosh, while Rajesh Kochhar believes that the Helmand River of southern Afghanistan corresponds to the Sarasvati River. According to proto-historian Michel Danino, in ancient times a mature river flowed into the Ghaghar-Hakra valley and into the Rann of Kutch, which he identifies as the Rig Vedic Sarasvati river.

Sarasvatī is the devi feminine of an adjective sarasvant- (which occurs in the Rigveda as the name of the keeper of the celestial waters), derived from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sáras-vat-ī (and earlier, PIE *séles-u̯n̥t-ih₂), meaning ‘marshy, full of pools’.

Sanskrit sáras means ‘pool, pond’; the feminine sarasī́ means ‘stagnant pool, swamp’. Like its cognates Welsh hêl, heledd ‘river meadow’ and Greek hélos, ‘swamp’, the Rigvedic term refers mostly to stagnant waters, and Mayrhofer considers unlikely a connection with the root *sar- ‘run, flow’.

Sarasvatī is an exact cognate with Avestan Haraxvatī, perhaps originally referring to Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā (modern Ardwisur Anahid), the Zoroastrian mythological world river, which would point to a common Indo-Iranian myth of a cosmic or mystical Sáras-vat-ī river.

In the younger Avesta, Haraxvatī is Arachosia, a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old Persian cognate Harauvati, which gave its name to the present-day Hārūt River in Afghanistan, may have referred to the entire Helmand drainage basin (the center of Arachosia).

Anahita is the Old Persian form of the name of an Iranian goddess and appears in complete and earlier form as Aredvi Sura Anahita (Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā); the Avestan language name of an Indo-Iranian cosmological figure venerated as the divinity of ‘the Waters’ (Aban) and hence associated with fertility, healing and wisdom. Aredvi Sura Anahita is Ardwisur Anahid or Nahid in Middle- and Modern Persian, Anahit or Anaheed in Armenian.

An iconic shrine cult of Aredvi Sura Anahita, was – together with other shrine cults – “introduced apparently in the 4th century BCE and lasted until it was suppressed in the wake of an iconoclastic movement under the Sassanids.”

In the Rigveda, the name Sarasvati already does not always relate to a river and its personification exclusively; in some places, the goddess Saraswati is abstracted from the river. The Sarasvati River is an important river goddess in the Rigveda. The Sanskrit name means “having many pools”.

Saraswati (Sanskrit: Sarasvatī) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, arts, wisdom and nature. She is a part of the trinity of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. All the three forms help the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in the creation, maintenance and destruction of the Universe. The Goddess is also revered by believers of the Jain religion of west and central India.

Saraswati is strongly associated with flowing water in her role as a goddess of knowledge. She is depicted as a beautiful woman to embody the concept of knowledge as supremely alluring. She possesses four arms, and is usually shown wearing a spotless white sari and seated on a white lotus or riding a white swan.

The valley around Herat was historically famous for its fertility and dense cultivation. After Herat, the river turns northwest, then north, forming the northern part of the border between Afghanistan and Iran. Farther north it forms the south-eastern part of the border between Iran and Turkmenistan.

The Rigveda records the Harirud as River Sarayu. The name is the feminine derivative of the Sanskrit root sar “to flow”; as a masculine stem, saráyu- means “air, wind”, i.e. “that which is streaming”. Saraṇyū is the female form of the adjective saraṇyú, meaning “quick, fleet, nimble”, used for rivers and wind in the Rigveda.

Saranya (Saraṇyū) or Saraniya (also known as Saranya, Sanjna, or Sangya), the goddess of clouds in Hindu mythology, and sometimes associated with Demeter, Greek goddess of agriculture, and Helen of Troy, is the wife of Surya (Sanskrit: Sūrya, “the Supreme Light”), also known as Adithya, Suraya, Bhanu, Ravi or Phra Athit is the chief solar deity in Hinduism and generally refers to the Sun.

Surya is the chief of the Navagraha, the nine Indian Classical planets and important elements of Hindu astrology. He is often depicted riding a chariot harnessed by seven horses which might represent the seven colors of the rainbow or the seven chakras in the body. He is also the presiding deity of Sunday. Surya is regarded as the Supreme Deity by Saura sect and Smartas worship him as one of the five primary forms of God.

“Arka” form is worshiped mostly in North India and Eastern parts of India. Surya is also known as “Mitra” (meaning friend) for his life nourishing properties. The Mitra form of Surya had been worshiped mostly in Gujarat, where a clan of Suryawanshi kings was known as Mitrawanshi kshatriyas, also known by its distorted name “Maitrakas”. His Greek counterpart is Helios and his Egyptian counterpart is Ra.

According to Max Müller and A. Kuhn, Demeter is the mythological equivalent of the Sanskrit Saranyu, who, having turned herself into a mare, is pursued by Vivasvat, and becomes the mother of Revanta and the twin Asvins, divine horsemen and physicians to the Devas, the Indian Dioscuri (the Indian and Greek myths being regarded as identical). She is also the mother of Manu (the seventh, i.e. present Manu), the twins Yama (the Lord of Death) and Yami.

According to Farnell, the meaning of the epithet is to be looked for in the original conception of Erinys, which was that of an earth-goddess akin to Gaya, or Ki, thus naturally associated with Demeter, rather than that of a wrathful avenging deity.

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), “she of the Grain”, as the giver of food or grain and Thesmophoros (thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; “phoros”: bringer, bearer), “Law-Bringer,” as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon.

In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of circa 1400–1200 BC found at Pylos, the “two mistresses and the king” may be related with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.

Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubeleyan Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”; Lydian Kuvava; Greek: Kybele, Kybebe, Kybelis) was an originally Anatolian mother goddess; she has a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük (in the Konya region) where the statue of a pregnant goddess seated on a lion throne was found in a granary.

She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its state deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread from there to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies from around the 6th century BCE.

In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the Harvest-Mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following.

Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a transgender or eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.

Etymologically, Saranyu may be related to Helen. In Rigveda 10.17, Saranyu is the daughter of Tvastar, and, like Helen, is abducted, and Vivasvat is given a replacement bride instead.

tváṣṭā duhitré vahatúṃ kṛṇotîtīdáṃ víśvam bhúvanaṃ sám eti. yamásya mātâ paryuhyámānā mahó jāyâ vívasvato nanāśa. ápāgūhann amŕtām mártyebhyaḥ kṛtvî sávarṇām adadur vívasvate. utâśvínāv abharad yát tád âsīd ájahād u dvâ mithunâ saraṇyûḥ.

Tvastar prepares the bridal of his Daughter: all the world hears the tidings and assembles. But Yama’s Mother, Spouse of great Vivasvat, vanished as she was carried to her dwelling. From mortal men they hid the Immortal Lady, made one like her and gave her to Vivasvat. Saranyu brought to him the Asvin brothers, and then deserted both twinned pairs of children.

The river Horayu is also mentioned in the Avesta. A Buddhist monastery hand-carved in the bluff of the river Harirud existed in the first centuries during the prevalence of Buddhism. The artificial caves revealed testimony of daily life of the Buddhist monks. Hari is also a name for Lord Vishnu.

Hyrcania (the wolf) and the great wall of Gorgan

The Great Wall of Gorgan

The Great Wall of Gorgan, also called the Gorgan Defence Wall, Anooshirvan Barrier, Firooz Barrier and sometimes Alexander Dam is an ancient defensive facility located in the Gorgan region of northeastern Iran. It is also known as The Red Snake among archaeologists due to the color of its bricks. It protects the Caspian Gates which in turn gave access for the nomads of the northern steppes to the Iranian heartland, and through which Alexander passed on his hasty march to Hyrcania and the east.

The wall is second only to the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence, but over a thousand years older and of more solid construction than the present form of the Great Wall.

Hyrcania or Verkâna was the name of a satrapy located in the territories of the present day Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan provinces of Iran and part of Turkmenistan, lands south of the Caspian Sea.

Gorgan (Persian: Gorgān‎, also Romanized as Gorgān and Gūrgān; Caspian: Wergen; formerly, Astarabad (Persian: Astarābad‎, also Romanized as Asterābād), is the capital of Golestan Province, Iran.

To the Greeks, the Caspian Sea was the “Hyrcanian Sea”. Verkā means “wolf” in Old Iranian, cf. Avestan vəhrkō, Gilaki and Mazandarani verk, Modern Persian gorg, and Sanskrit vŗka. Consequently, Hyrcania means “Wolf-land”.

Hyrcania is the Greek name for the region in historiographic accounts. It is a calque of the Old Persian Verkâna as recorded in Darius the Great’s Behistun Inscription, as well as in other Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions.

The name was extended to the Caspian Sea and underlies the name of the city Sari (Zadracarta), the first and then-largest city in northern Iran (Mazandaran, Golestan and Gilan) and the capital of ancient Hyrcania.

The capital of Hyrcania was Zadracarta, the largest city and site of the “royal palace” of Hyrcania. According to Arrian, this was the largest city of Hyrcania. The term signifies “the yellow city “; and it was given to it from the great number of oranges, lemons, and other fruit trees which grew in the outskirts of that city. At the time of the Sassanids,Gorgan appeared as the name of a city, province capital, and province.

Hyrcania became part of the Persian Empire during the reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) – the first emperor of the first Persian imperial dynasty, the Achaemenids – or his successor Cambyses (530-522 BC). It maintained its independence as a Zoroastrian state even after Persia was conquered by Arabs in 8th century and by Mongols in the 13th century.

The Great Wall of Gorgan is a series of ancient defensive fortifications located near Gorgan in the Golestān Province of northeastern Iran, at the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea.

The wall is located at a geographic narrowing between the Caspian Sea and the mountains of northeastern Iran. It is one of several Caspian Gates at the eastern part of a region known in antiquity as Hyrcania, on the nomadic route from the northern steppes to the Iranian heartland. The wall is believed to have protected the Sassanian Empire to the south from the peoples to the north.

It is 195 km (121 mi) long and 6–10 m (20–33 ft) wide, and features over 30 fortresses spaced at intervals of between 10 and 50 km (6.2 and 31.1 mi). It is surpassed only by the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence.

Among archaeologists the wall is also known as The Red Snake due to the colour of its bricks. It is also known as the Gorgan Defence Wall, Anushirvân Barrier, Firuz Barrier and Qazal Al’an, and Sadd-i-Iskandar (Persian for dam or barrier of Alexander), as Alexander the Great is said to have passed through the Caspian Gates on his hasty march to Hyrcania and the east.

The Gates of Alexander was a legendary barrier supposedly built by Alexander the Great in the Caucasus to keep the uncivilized barbarians of the north (typically associated with Gog and Magog) from invading the land to the south. The gates were a popular subject in medieval travel literature, starting with the Alexander Romance in a version from perhaps the 6th century. The wall has been frequently identified with the Caspian Gates of Derbent, Russia, and with the Pass of Dariel or Darial.

An alternative theory links it to the so-called “Alexander’s Wall” (the Great Wall of Gorgan) on the south-eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, 180 km of which is still preserved today, albeit in a very poor state of repair.

In reality, both structures were built by Persian monarchs. Derbent (in Persian Darband, meaning “closed gates”), was established in the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century, when the city was refounded by Kavadh I of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia. The Great Wall of Gorgan was built during the Parthian dynasty simultaneously with the construction of the Great Wall of China and it was restored during the Sassanid era (3-7th century).

Tappeh Mill Fire Temple

Tappeh Mill (Pillar Hill) also known as “Bahram Fire Temple” and “Rey Fire Temple” is believed to be the oldest Zoroastrian Fire Temple in Iran, dating back to more than 2000 years ago. It is locates in 11km south east of Tehran in a area of 800x900m, on a hill with 18m height. The overall scheme of the temple was a pillared hall attached to a 4-arched section with some underground tunnels connecting east to west of the complex. Most of the temple was destroyed during Alexander’s raid and two arches are the most significant remnants at the moment. The site of temple was first excavated by French archeologist Jacques De Morgan on 1913 and then by American Erick Schmidt on 1933.

Tappeh Mill Fire Temple

PERSIA, the ancient Iran

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Timeline of Iranian history

This gallery contains different historical remainings of the PERSIA (Ancient Iran),in the individual galleries, belonging not only to Iran and Iranians but also to human civilization.

PERSIA, the ancient Iran

History of pottery

Pottery is the ceramic act of making pottery wares, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural “potteries”). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the manufacture of pottery.

The definition of pottery used by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) is “all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products.” Some archaeologists use a different understanding of this definition by excluding ceramic objects such as figurines which are made by similar processes and of similar materials but are not vessels.

Pottery originates during the Neolithic period. Ceramic objects like the Gravettian culture Venus of Dolní Věstonice figurine discovered in the Czech Republic date back to 29,000–25,000 BC, and pottery vessels discovered in Jiangxi, China date back to 20,000 BP. Early Neolithic pottery has also been found in Jomon Japan (10,500 BC), the Russian Far East (14,000 BC), Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Early pots were made by what is known as the “coiling” method, which worked the clay into a long string that wound to form a shape that later made smooth walls. The potter’s wheel was probably invented in Mesopotamia by the 4th millennium BC, but spread across nearly all Eurasia and much of Africa, though it remained unknown in the New World until the arrival of Europeans. Decoration of the clay by incising and painting is found very widely, and was initially geometric, but often included figurative designs from very early on.

So important is pottery to the archaeology of prehistoric cultures that many are known by names taken from their distinctive, and often very fine, pottery, such as the Linear Pottery culture, Beaker culture, Globular Amphora culture, Corded Ware culture and Funnelbeaker culture, to take examples only from Neolithic Europe (approximately 7000-1800 BCE).

Ceramic art has generated many styles from its own tradition, but is often closely related to contemporary sculpture and metalwork. Many times in its history styles from the usually more prestigious and expensive art of metalworking have been copied in ceramics.

This can be seen in early Chinese ceramics, such as pottery and ceramic-wares of the Shang Dynasty, in Ancient Roman and Iranian pottery, and Rococo European styles, copying contemporary silverware shapes. A common use of ceramics is for “pots” – containers such as bowls, vases and amphorae, as well as other tableware, but figurines have been very widely made.

Although pottery figurines are found from earlier periods in Europe, the oldest pottery vessels come from East Asia, with finds in China and Japan, then still linked by a land bridge, and some in what is now the Russian Far East, providing several from between 20,000 and 10,000 BCE, although the vessels were simple utilitarian objects. Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi province contained pottery fragments that date back to 20,000 years ago.

History of pottery

History of pottery in the Southern Levant

Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

History of pottery in Israel

History of pottery in Palestine

History of pottery in Jordan