[🇵🇰] Historical Land Of Aria ( 𐏃𐎼𐎡𐎺) in 530-323 BCE

[Old School]

Source : https://www.worldhistory.org/aria/

Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE)

Aria (or Areia) was always understood to be the area around the Areios River, today Hari Rud in Afghanistan (Arrian, Anabasis IV.6.6). It was bounded to the north by Margiana and Bactria, where the area of the Margos River begins; to the west by the big Carmanian desert; to the south by Drangiana; and to the east by the mighty Paropamisadai mountains. The Areios was the backbone of the region, flowing across the land: Aria corresponds almost exactly to the modern province of Herat, which shows the importance of the river throughout history.

The productive part of Aria was a rather narrow stretch of land that is some 150 km along both banks of the Areios. At no point along its route was the valley more than 25 km wide, even if some lakes are mentioned in the Avesta (Vendidad, Fargard I.9). Nevertheless, strongly linked to its river, the area was known to be fertile and to produce some of the best wines in the world. Its capital was Alexandria of Aria (modern Herat), the ancient Artacoana. The land was divided, according to Ptolemy (VI.17) between the area near of the river, inhabited by settled Arians in towns and villages, and the nomadic tribes in the surrounding mountains and deserts. Ptolemy listed many towns, confirming the idea that the area was powerful at this time.

History​

Its population was divided between settled people in the numerous towns of the plain and the nomads of the deserts and mountains. Its history reproduced the same outline between Persians, Greeks, Parthians and Sakas. Although little is known of early Aria, the area became a Persian satrapy when it was conquered by Cyrus the Great. Artacoana (modern Herat) became the capital of the region. Aria was, at this time, an important part of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE), and Strabo (XI.10.1) even relates that Drangiana was an administrative part of Aria. It seems that Arians were strongly influenced by northern Scythian peoples, as it is possible to see representations of Arians in Achaemenid art at Susa and Persepolis.

When Alexander the Great invaded Central Asia, he arrived in Aria in 330 BCE and was received by the satrap of the area, called Satibarzanes. Arrian (Anabasis III. 25) tells us that the satrap betrayed Alexander, so the Macedonian was forced to besiege Artacoana. Alexander used siege towers to take Artacoana and captured the city; the inhabitants were killed or sold as slaves. The empty town was rebuilt and called Alexandria. Aria was one of the easternmost parts of the Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE) but was, at least in part, conceded to Chandragupta Maurya after the war between this Indian king and Seleucus I Nicator in 303 BC (Strabo XV.2-9).

When Diodotos made Bactria independent in 250 BCE, Aria became, nevertheless, quickly conquered and administered by the Greco-Bactrian kings. The only battle we know from Greco-Bactrian kings was fought in Aria, between Antiochos III and Euthydemos, during which Euthydemos' cataphracts were crushed by the Seuleucid's cavalry (Polybius, "Histories", X.27-31). Sources are scarce, but the area seems to have remained under Greek control until Parthia invaded the Greco-Bactrian lands in the 140s BCE. In the following decades, groups of Sakas, that were pushed by the northern Yuezhei, began to settle in the area. To what extent those Sakas controlled Aria we do not know, but it seems that the area continued being more or less as a dependancy of the Parthians through most of their history since Mithridates, and then under Kushan rule.

 

[Old School]

Most of the area along the Indus to the northwest Oxus of present-day Pakistan was once part of the ancient land of the Aria. It has a vibrant, rich cultural, economic, and military history that even influenced the rest of the world. It isn't very comfortable to see our people now trying to associate themselves with some cultures who did not even know how to read and write then. Ancient Pakistan had more to do with the greater Persian civilization than with the eastern Gangetic region, the modern-day Republic of India, which has hijacked our original historical Indus identity. Our civilization and cultural history have their roots between the Indus and Oxus, in sharp contrast to Gangetic India, Arabis, Turkey, etc. As part of the Indo-Aryan language family, our closest relatives are the historically greater Persian languages.

 

[Lulldapull]

Most of the area along the Indus to the northwest Oxus of present-day Pakistan was once part of the ancient land of the Aria. It has a vibrant, rich cultural, economic, and military history that even influenced the rest of the world. It isn't very comfortable to see our people now trying to associate themselves with some cultures who did not even know how to read and write then. Ancient Pakistan had more to do with the greater Persian civilization than with the eastern Gangetic region, the modern-day Republic of India, which has hijacked our original historical Indus identity. Our civilization and cultural history have their roots between the Indus and Oxus, in sharp contrast to Gangetic India, Arabis, Turkey, etc. As part of the Indo-Aryan language family, our closest relatives are the historically greater Persian languages.

I took my Japanese wife long ago to see both Taxila and Moenjodaro because the Japanese are taught in primary school that Moenjodaro was one of the oldest settled civilizations in the world. She wanted to see it. Both places are definitely worth a visit. You stand at that great bath in Moenjodaro and you just realize how old that place is. At Taxila in that main bazaar they excavated I seen Zoroastrian temples/ architecture too with those two dragons (Griffons) and the double bulls back to back on their architectural columns. Hard to believe the Irani's were in Taxila 500BC doing business. We have a very old country going back thousands of years.

 

[Old School]

I took my Japanese wife long ago to see both Taxila and Moenjodaro because the Japanese are taught in primary school that Moenjodaro was one of the oldest settled civilizations in the world. She wanted to see it. Both places are definitely worth a visit. You stand at that great bath in Moenjodaro and you just realize how old that place is. At Taxila in that main bazaar they excavated I seen Zoroastrian temples/ architecture too with those two dragons (Griffons) and the double bulls back to back on their architectural columns. Hard to believe the Irani's were in Taxila 500BC doing business. We have a very old country going back thousands of years.

These are later than Mahenjodaro. We had then Avestani Persian as the language. We have older civilizations than most except mesopotemia, China and Egypt. We are actually ethnically Indo-Aryan just like the Persian/ Slavic So, don’t try to become Turkic mongol !!

 

[ThunderCat]

These are later than Mahenjodaro. We had then Avestani Persian as the language. We have older civilizations than most except mesopotemia, China and Egypt. We are actually ethnically Indo-Aryan just like the Persian/ Slavic So, don’t try to become Turkic mongol !!

We are about 3/4 Indo-Aryan and 1/4 Iranic when Pakhtuns, Baloch, Wakhi and other Iranic ethnicities are accounted for.

 

[TheNewb77]

We are about 3/4 Indo-Aryan and 1/4 Iranic when Pakhtuns, Baloch, Wakhi and other Iranic ethnicities are accounted for.

The Pakistani Iranic population is even larger I'd say. But the difference between Pakistani Iranics as compared to other minorities in countries like Arab states, Turkey and Iran is that Pakistani Iranics have huge sway, and political clout. They are part of the general Pakistani population and even though there is suppression of some groups like the Baloch and some Pashtun areas, the clout they have in the political and military sphere are huge.

Turkish Iranics in Turkey (Kurds) have some clout but no where near as Pakistani Iranics in Pakistan. Same thing with Iranian Arabs, they have no clout in Iran but the Iranian Turkic population have mingled with the Persian elite. @Aryobarzan @LegionnairE Am I wrong here?

 

[Old School]

In fact, most mainstream Iranians are also Indo-Aryan like us or simply Aryan as it was essentially the land of Aria, except Turkic and Semitic Iranians, which include both Arabs, and Jews. Now, the present-day Trukey's Anatolia population is more Turkic-Arab than in the north, mixed mainly with the Balkans and South Caucasians. Kurdish are definitely Indo-Aryan with Turko-Iranic flavor.

 

[Lulldapull]

Bhai our pendu were drilled from the 80’s till now that we all Sawdi Judeans…... Now we don’t say it cuz MBS and MBZ sitting in modi’s lap. IK sahb tried to turn us into erthaghrool ghazi, but vo bhee fail ho gya. Talibunny lovers too so disappointed now because talibunny public enemy number 1.

 

[Aryobarzan]

Iranian Turkic population

I am not very educated in the ancsestory domain but as far as I know " Iranian Turkic" population are called "Turkman". Iranian "Azari" population who speak dialectic of turkish language ( I am half Azari myself) were part of original mix of the people that made up Persian dynasties ..racially they have same DNA as Farsi mix .. Historically Indus valley and what is called Aria is where Arian tribes took in their migration towards India..So I am not surprised that many people in Pakistan are the descendants of these Arian tribes that setteled in the valley

 

[Old School]

I am not very educated in the ancsestory domain but as far as I know " Iranian Turkic" population are called "Turkman". Iranian "Azari" population who speak dialectic of turkish language ( I am half Azari myself) were part of original mix of the people that made up Persian dynasties ..racially they have same DNA as Farsi mix .. Historically Indus valley and what is called Aria is where Arian tribes took in their migration towards India..So I am not surprised that many people in Pakistan are the descendants of these Arian tribes that setteled in the valley

It all broke down when some Persians from Ctesiphon ( later known as Baghdad) region invented " Islam as we know today" and became known as the Abbasids in the 9th century A.D after defeating the Umyyads who were mostly secular and had good terms with the Persians. Very Recent research shows that most prominent Umayyad ruler Abdul Malik Marwan originally came from the Marv region of Eastern Persia ( modern Turkmenistan), and his Meccan ancestry is fictitious.

They adopted Syriac- Arabic as their official language. Mind that Syriac was the lingua franca along Koin Greek at that time in the region, and it was already also one of the official languages of the Sassanids.
There are two ancestries—genetic and ethnic. Ethnic ancestry is not scientifically genetic but political with cultural affiliations unless the ethnic group is isolated, like the Amazonian tribes. The Persian empire was among the biggest in history, stretching from the Indus Valley to Egypt and from Central Asia to the Southern Caucasus. It was like the Roman Empire, where people from all over the empire intermingled. Remember that Old empires were not nationalist ( a modern idea) and tribalist, as these traits harm empire-building. Old Persian empires respected local cultures and incorporated those cultures while expanding the empire.

 

[Lulldapull]

Many of the Sassanid parsi fellas say that it was actually Rome/ Byzantium that secretly supported Bedouin Arabians and when Khosraw lost the last major war in 641 AD, Rome armed the Arabs and nudged them to start war with Persia. Bedouin Arabians had no agriculture nor metal foundaries nor metal working skills nor any horses no nothing. And since the stars were all wrong, the Sinuye plague hit the Persians hard and the population thinned out more. Caliph Omar saw his chance and he beat an exhausted and plague hit Sassanid empire already on its knees.

 

[Old School]

Many of the Sassanid parsi fellas say that it was actually Rome/ Byzantium that secretly supported Bedouin Arabians and when Khosraw lost the last major war in 641 AD, Rome armed the Arabs and nudged them to start war with Persia. Bedouin Arabians had no agriculture nor metal foundaries nor metal working skills nor any horses no nothing. And since the stars were all wrong, the Sinuye plague hit the Persians hard and the population thinned out more. Caliph Omar saw his chance and he beat an exhausted and plague hit Sassanid empire already on its knees.

I have been studying research on this subject for the last 15 years. The deal between Byzantine and Ghassanid Arabs was not a secret but open. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius made a deal with their Ghassanid Arab clients: if they helped defeat the Sassanids, then the Byzantines would give them Syria and Palestine ( greater Levant) and leave the area under them. One of the conditions was that Ghassanid Arabs must follow monotheism and condemn paganism. So, the Gassanids converted to monophysite Christianity, which was quite different from the Byzantine orthodoxy. If you look at the coins of the first Ummayad ruler, Muawiya, there is a cross in his coin. It is the oldest coin discovered of any Arab ruler and can be seen at the British Museum. No coin/document was discovered before Muawiya time, which will be very problematic for present-day Muslims. Islam, as we know it today, was an invention of the Abbasids, who wanted to separate themselves from the monophysite Christians and have their own religion/prophet.

 

[Old School]

Arab literally means people of the West, and Bedouins are people from the South. In other words, Arabs were basically people from the Levantine region, aka West Asia. It was later hijacked to the desert by the Abbasids due to internal rivalry with the Jerusalem faction ( Umayyads). However, it was the Umayyads who invented the present Arabic script by adding diacritical marks ( nuktas) to the old Syriac alphabet.

 

[Lulldapull]

I have been studying research on this subject for the last 15 years. The deal between Byzantine and Ghassanid Arabs was not a secret but open. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius made a deal with their Ghassanid Arab clients: if they helped defeat the Sassanids, then the Byzantines would give them Syria and Palestine ( greater Levant) and leave the area under them. One of the conditions was that Ghassanid Arabs must follow monotheism and condemn paganism. So, the Gassanids converted to monophysite Christianity, which was quite different from the Byzantine orthodoxy. If you look at the coins of the first Ummayad ruler, Muawiya, there is a cross in his coin. It is the oldest coin discovered of any Arab ruler and can be seen at the British Museum. No coin/document was discovered before Muawiya time, which will be very problematic for present-day Muslims. Islam, as we know it today, was an invention of the Abbasids, who wanted to separate themselves from the monophysite Christians and have their own religion/prophet.

oh yeah.......over at the Zoroastrian forums they know so much more than regular people about how Sassanid Persia fell and Rome's direct involvement in this event. Very surprised to read all their posts but now it all makes sense. Rome played a key role in the Sassanid defeat. The other issue to highlight here is the white washed history fed to us pendu in Islamiyat class.....lol....no we finding half da stories are highly suspicious or downright fraudulent.

 

[Old School]

oh yeah.......over at the Zoroastrian forums they know so much more than regular people about how Sassanid Persia fell and Rome's direct involvement in this event. Very surprised to read all their posts but now it all makes sense. Rome played a key role in the Sassanid defeat. The other issue to highlight here is the white washed history fed to us pendu in Islamiyat class.....lol....no we finding half da stories are highly suspicious or downright fraudulent.

Abbasids invented many fictitious characters to market their new religion. If you read Ferdowsis Shahnameh, which was written around that time, you will see that he never knew of the many religious characters' names that were invented later. Shahnameh is basically 5000 years of Persian history, and there is no such name as Umar or ALi there.