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Do we know anything at all about any contact between the "Sea People" and Persia? e.g. the distance between ancient Persia and Egypt significantly (~50%) large

by wwtrv 2y ago

Do we know anything at all about any contact between the "Sea People" and Persia? e.g. the distance between ancient Persia and Egypt significantly (~50%) larger than between Egypt and the Greek mainland and sea travel was much faster in the first place.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thaumasiotes 2y ago
Well, again, the concept doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as Persia in the time of the Sea Peoples. Distinctively Iranian languages would have existed at the time - in fact, distinctively Indic and Iranian languages are both documented for the period - but there was no polity identified with Persians and there was certainly nothing identified with Persia. Terminology of the region tends to use different ethnic identifiers for different Iranian groups. (Medes / Persians / Parthians etc. etc.) This means that referring to "Persia" is a lot more specific than just a geographical designator. It's kind of weird, since in other historical contexts you do see ethnically similar groups treated as if they were the same. But if you do want to just consider the people broadly construed, you're stuck with the fact that the relevant state in the late Bronze Age was Elam, which isn't Iranian at all, and "Persia" still doesn't apply. If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire, then it included Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the homeland of the Iranian plateau, Afghanistan, and everything in between, and there are indeed lots of records of contact between the Sea Peoples and "Persia" by that definition. But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" in a Bronze Age context. We'd have to stop referring to "Egypt" at all! At the time, there was no relevant concept that would relate to "Persia", the regions were not politically or culturally unified, none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian"...
- wwtrv 2y ago
  > But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" Is it necessarily that much (to an extent it is of course) more absurd than to call the Bronze Age Mycenaeans/Achaeans Greek though? Yes they were a lot more concentrated geographically and the link between them and classical Greeks/Hellenes is strong but still seems like an anachronism. > If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap. > But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" Certainly, that why I wasn't sure why did they mention Persia in the first place. > none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian" Considering that the word is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that?
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Is it necessarily that much (to an extent it is of course) more absurd than to call the Bronze Age Mycenaeans/Achaeans Greek though? If you want to refer to an Iranic group in the Bronze Age as "Persian", that's not what I meant to label as completely absurd. Referring to Anatolia as "Persia" because Persia conquered it many centuries later, and then failed to maintain control, is completely absurd. > Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap. Yes, agreed, but that was the only reason I could think of for the original claim about contact between Bronze Age Greeks and "Persia". > Considering that the word ["Persia"] is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that? To the best of my knowledge, the ancient form is Parsa and "Persia" derives from that, not from the much later form "Fars". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%8E%B1%F0%90%8E%A0%F0%90%8E%BC%F0%90%8E%BF#Old_Persian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%8E%B1%F0%90%8E%A0%F0%9... I don't know when that term originates. It's possible that people living in the region would have used a related term for themselves in the Bronze Age. It would have had nearly no political significance. It's also possible, as far as I know, that the term is more recent than that. I also don't know whether Achaemenid Persians would have referred to themselves by a term of that nature. There's a huge ongoing fight on Wikipedia over what terms are appropriate as Persian endonyms. What appears to be beyond dispute is that the people tended to refer to themselves by a term cognate with Aryan or Iranian. (Though when the Parsees leave for India, a thousand years later, they end up being called Parsees.) If you know more about this, I'd like to hear it.
    - wwtrv 2y ago
      > Referring to Anatolia as "Persia" because Persia conquered Yeah, that was the entire point of my initial comment. To be fair I don't think I was able to contribute much besides that and of course I agree overall with what you're saying.

by wwtrv 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

thaumasiotes 2y ago

Well, again, the concept doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as Persia in the time of the Sea Peoples. Distinctively Iranian languages would have existed at the time - in fact, distinctively Indic and Iranian languages are both documented for the period - but there was no polity identified with Persians and there was certainly nothing identified with Persia. Terminology of the region tends to use different ethnic identifiers for different Iranian groups. (Medes / Persians / Parthians etc. etc.) This means that referring to "Persia" is a lot more specific than just a geographical designator. It's kind of weird, since in other historical contexts you do see ethnically similar groups treated as if they were the same. But if you do want to just consider the people broadly construed, you're stuck with the fact that the relevant state in the late Bronze Age was Elam, which isn't Iranian at all, and "Persia" still doesn't apply. If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire, then it included Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the homeland of the Iranian plateau, Afghanistan, and everything in between, and there are indeed lots of records of contact between the Sea Peoples and "Persia" by that definition. But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" in a Bronze Age context. We'd have to stop referring to "Egypt" at all! At the time, there was no relevant concept that would relate to "Persia", the regions were not politically or culturally unified, none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian"...

wwtrv 2y ago
> But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" Is it necessarily that much (to an extent it is of course) more absurd than to call the Bronze Age Mycenaeans/Achaeans Greek though? Yes they were a lot more concentrated geographically and the link between them and classical Greeks/Hellenes is strong but still seems like an anachronism. > If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap. > But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" Certainly, that why I wasn't sure why did they mention Persia in the first place. > none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian" Considering that the word is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that?
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Is it necessarily that much (to an extent it is of course) more absurd than to call the Bronze Age Mycenaeans/Achaeans Greek though? If you want to refer to an Iranic group in the Bronze Age as "Persian", that's not what I meant to label as completely absurd. Referring to Anatolia as "Persia" because Persia conquered it many centuries later, and then failed to maintain control, is completely absurd. > Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap. Yes, agreed, but that was the only reason I could think of for the original claim about contact between Bronze Age Greeks and "Persia". > Considering that the word ["Persia"] is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that? To the best of my knowledge, the ancient form is Parsa and "Persia" derives from that, not from the much later form "Fars". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%8E%B1%F0%90%8E%A0%F0%90%8E%BC%F0%90%8E%BF#Old_Persian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%8E%B1%F0%90%8E%A0%F0%9... I don't know when that term originates. It's possible that people living in the region would have used a related term for themselves in the Bronze Age. It would have had nearly no political significance. It's also possible, as far as I know, that the term is more recent than that. I also don't know whether Achaemenid Persians would have referred to themselves by a term of that nature. There's a huge ongoing fight on Wikipedia over what terms are appropriate as Persian endonyms. What appears to be beyond dispute is that the people tended to refer to themselves by a term cognate with Aryan or Iranian. (Though when the Parsees leave for India, a thousand years later, they end up being called Parsees.) If you know more about this, I'd like to hear it.
  - wwtrv 2y ago
    > Referring to Anatolia as "Persia" because Persia conquered Yeah, that was the entire point of my initial comment. To be fair I don't think I was able to contribute much besides that and of course I agree overall with what you're saying.