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Metallic statue
of a Parthian prince, AD 100
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The Persian Empire is the name used to refer to a number of historic
dynasties that have ruled the country of Persia (Iran). Persia's earliest
known kingdom was the proto-Elamite Empire, followed by the Medes; but it
is the Achaemenid Empire that emerged under Cyrus the Great that is
usually the earliest to be called "Persian." Successive states in Iran
before 1935 are collectively called the Persian Empire by Western
historians.
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The first record of the Persians comes from an Assyrian
inscription from c. 844 BC that calls them the Parsu (Parsuash, Parsumash)
and mentions them in the region of Lake Urmia alongside another group, the
Madai (Medes). For the next two centuries, the Persians and Medes were at
times tributary to the Assyrians. The region of Parsuash was annexed by
Sargon of Assyria around 719 BC. Eventually the Medes came to rule an
independent Median Empire, and the Persians were subject to them. |
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Persia has long been used by the West to describe the
nation of Iran, its people, or its ancient empire. It derives from the
ancient Greek name for Iran, Persis. This in turn comes from a province in
the south of Iran, called Fars in the modern Persian language and Pars in
Middle Persian. Persis is the Hellenized form of Pars, based on which other
European nations termed the area Persia. |
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Persian art and architecture
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This province was the core of the original
Persian
Empire. Westerners referred to the state as Persia until March 21, 1935,
when Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call
the country by its native name.
Some Persian scholars protested this
decision because changing the name separated the country from its past. It
also caused some Westerners to confuse Iran with Iraq; so in 1959 Mohammad
Reza Shah Pahlavi announced that both Persia and Iran can be used
interchangeably. |
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