PERSIA( IRAN) Persian Empire Lost Worlds: Forgotten Empire (Ancient History Documentary) | PERSIA...

Lying in the middle of a plain in modern-day Iran is a forgotten ancient city, Persepolis. Built two and a half thousand years ago, it was known in its day as the richest city under the sun. Persepolis was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever seen, but for over 2,000 years after its destruction, it was largely ignored. The life and achievements of the Persians who built it erased from history. The Persians are still an enigma to us. We don't know them as well as we like to think we know the Greeks or the Romans or the Egyptians. So in a sense, they are one of the remaining mysteries of ancient civilization. It is one of the most undervalued periods of history in antiquity that you can think of. But no longer. Through the archaeology, the ancient texts, and work by a new generation of historians, we can build a picture of this remarkable civilization. And it is this place, Persepolis, which holds the key to this forgotten empire. Until recently, Iran was largely closed to western visitors. The political turmoil of the 1980s made it almost impossible to come here. But in the last few years, this has begun to change. Iran is opening up, you know, it's actually welcoming people from the west. So now is the time that our study of ancient Persia has to go up a gear, I think. We should seize the opportunity. Dr. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has spent 15 years studying ancient Persia, but this is the first time he's been able to visit Persepolis, the heart of Persian civilization. We can, by coming to places like Persepolis, begin to give the Persians a personality, begin to give them an identity. It is incredible. Boy, do you know what they were doing? It's incredible. Amazing. You know, in the stillness now, in the morning, and just with the bird song, it's just remarkable. It really is. Remarkable Persepolis may be, but history has never given it its due. Most of what we know about it, we have gleaned from Greek accounts. The Persians themselves left little written history behind. But the Greeks were the sworn enemies of the Persians. They defeated them in battle, and it's the victors who write the history books. The Greeks like to paint themselves as the creators of all things civilized, and the Persians as cruel, despotic, and backward. We in the West identify with a Greco-Roman tradition. We know the works of Greek and Latin authors, and they are going to downplay the importance of Persia in its historical setting. They're going to say that the Persians are barbarians, and this is the theme that comes over time and time and time again in the sources. Yet the Persians cannot be dismissed so easily. For 250 years, they ruled the largest empire the world had ever seen. It had humble beginnings among the nomadic tribes who lived on the Persian plains. In 550 BC, Cyrus, a tribal leader, set off with his army on a campaign of conquest. With his charisma, and what the Greeks called the fear he inspired and the terror he struck in all men, Cyrus took control of more and more territory. In just 30 years, he laid the foundations of an empire that would stretch from the borders of India in the east, to Greece on the Mediterranean, down to Egypt and Ethiopia, and up to what is now Russia. More than 30 different peoples were brought together under the rule of the man who called himself the King of the World. And at the heart of this empire stood Persepolis, the greatest of all Persian cities, and the key to understanding the achievements of the ancient Persians. Persepolis was begun around 515 BC by Darius the Great, the fourth king in the Persian dynasty known as the Achaemenids. But much of what we can see today lay hidden under the sands for 2,000 years. It was only in the 1930s that many of the wonders of Persepolis were finally uncovered. Whole staircases adorned with perfectly preserved reliefs were seen for the very first time. No one dreamed of the regal splendors which their excavation would reveal to the world. For more than 22 centuries, the capital of the Persian empire lay neglected. As well as the reliefs, archaeologists found some less spectacular artifacts that would prove vital in uncovering the secrets of the ancient Persians. 30,000 fragments of these tiny clay tablets were found among the rubble of Persepolis. They provide one of the few sources of information about the workings of the empire written by the Persians themselves. The marks on the tablets are the ancient Persian script known as cuneiform. Dr. Maria Brosius is one of only a handful of scholars in the world who can decipher what is written on the tablets. What we have here is an example of a clay tablet found in Persepolis. A scribe would pick up a piece of wet clay and he would then hold it in his left hand and that fits perfectly into the shape of your hand really. And then he would inscribe it. It's an extraordinary feeling to know that something like this has survived to tell us about life 2,500 years ago. Information that we otherwise would never have. They tell me something about how people lived and how this empire worked and that's what fascinates me. So what can the tablets tell us about Persepolis? The tablets are the receipts and invoices of the empire including those for the workers who built Persepolis. One records one and a half shekels of silver for carpenters making sculptures. Another details one jug of wine each to the 74 Syrian laborers working on the columned hall. Yet another two and a half shekels for the carrion gold workers. The amount of gold that seems to be used here indicates that again you know the cost of the site must have been immeasurable. From the information on the tablets we can deduce what materials once decorated these massive buildings. For decades we have seen only the stone pillars and walls but now we can recreate the halls and palaces of Persepolis in all their dazzling splendor. As we do so we can see why Persepolis was once known as the richest city under the sun. Access to the complex was through the gate of all nations. Human-headed bulls announced to visitors they were entering the heart of royal Persian power. It was covered with a cedar wood roof, its doors adorned with gold fittings. At the heart of the complex was the Apadana where King Darius received his subjects. Today only 10 of the original columns still stand. In antiquity 36 columns 20 meters high held up another massive cedar wood ceiling. The walls were covered in sumptuous hangings. This enormous hall could accommodate 10,000 people. Something that was built with columns 20 meters high I think it was all inspiring. People were probably looking up and were completely stunned. You can see how each of these columns rear up to the sky and they would have held up an enormous roof of beautiful cedar wood giving us this heady scent of cedar wherever we went as well. King after king added to Darius's creation. Xerxes the Greek's great foe built this the remarkable hall of a hundred columns and finally we can recreate the private quarters of Darius himself. A place that only the king's most intimate advisors would ever have seen. It would have been dimly lit but light would have been streaming through window spaces and in fact we can tell from some of the highly polished stone around here that this would have been gleaming. In fact some people have called this room the hall of mirrors. The building sat on a 15 meter high man-made terrace. In terms of beauty it's difficult to find the right words really. As a feature it's an architectural symphony. Everything is built to harmonize with one another. Each building is synchronized with with another one to make a beautiful harmonized whole. Persepolis is one of the great architectural achievements of the ancient world. Why did the Persian kings go to such lengths? Beyond housing the royal entourage what exactly was the purpose of these extraordinary buildings? Over two and a half thousand years ago the Persians built the greatest city on earth from which they ruled most of the known world. But this was no ordinary city for it was built with a particular purpose in mind. What the city was used for was an integral part of how the Persians maintained their vast empire for 250 years. Clues to the function of Persepolis lie carved into the walls and staircases of the city in the scenes depicted in its stunning stone reliefs. They show the different peoples of the empire coming to Persepolis to give gifts and pay tribute to the great Persian king. Nubians from Africa, Lydians from present-day Turkey, Bactrians from what is now Afghanistan. So what you've got here is a series of depictions of tribute bearers who have come to Persepolis and all of them bringing gifts from different parts of the empire. Fine horses, shaggy mountain goats. It's all the wealth of the empire being brought to tribute here to the great king. Superb depiction of a camel here with so much personality in the face as well. Wonderful curved horned sheep and depicted in such detail and if you look at the very stylized way that they do things like the way that they render curls in the hair and in the beard in a very artificial manner and then as you come down to the shaggy fleece of the sheep you can see that that's echoed again so you get these triangles ending in these perfect little swirls and finally this flick of a tail at the bottom as well. The costumes for all of these foreign delegates are rendered in such detail and it's clear that the Persian artist is fascinated by the variety, the ethnic variety that you get visiting here. So this is what Persepolis was for. It was not a military capital. It was first and foremost a symbolic and ceremonial place. From all over the empire, subject peoples came here to give their gifts to the king. The formal presentation of tribute confirmed the loyalty of the subject nations and the power of the king. The walk to the king followed a specific route through the complex intended to maximize the impact of the architecture. Coming up these stairs would have been an overwhelming experience. If you look at the stairs they are not something that you walk up fast. They're so shallow that you have to walk very very slowly. That all heightened the expectation and it I suppose gave you a sense of the king's power. You can't just walk into a room and there you are. It has all to do with a procession to the king. What you have here are the offering bearers leading their camels, bringing their bowls and their jewellery and all the time you have to imagine an absolute cacophony of noise behind you. So up you go, all the time your heart is beating faster and faster. You're hearing languages you've never heard before, seeing sights you've never seen before and then you get to this spot and I think your knees are about to give way because this is the so-called gate of all nations. This is the welcoming portal for all these visitors and straight away they are faced with this image of kingship. These human-headed bulls, symbols of royal virility and strength and power. He walks into these enormous bull structures and now everything goes dark. Sunlight's taken away from you and you're asked to stand and wait just here and then you turn and you are struck by this amazing imperial platform and you know that somewhere in there you're literally going to meet your maker. You're going to see the great king himself. So you walk forward and you approach. Your heart's really going somehow. It must seem like such a long walk when you're doing this. If you come from the far-flung corners of the empire you will never have seen a structure like this. Every visitor in ancient times who was allowed to come up the royal terrace was in total awe. You have a perfection that they haven't seen anywhere else and people must have been absolutely stunned. And you walk up the imperial staircase and you find yourself in the heart of the complex. Okay in front of you now is the great Apadama. Now this is where the mystery really starts. You can't get any closer to how the Persian kings wanted to present themselves and what they really do here is to show we have conquered the world. We don't need to prove anything anymore. And so your offering bearer begins his journey towards the king. He would have paused and here he would have done a specific act. He would have fallen to his knees in front of the king and then immediately prostrated himself on the ground and then your gifts are given. Your job is done. You back away slowly out of the great throne room and your 15 minutes of fame is over with. Gift giving at Persepolis was how the Persian kings reinforced the loyalty of their subjects. But they had other less benign ways of exercising power. The relief at Bicitun in northwest Iran shows the Persian king at his most ruthless. Here King Darius the Great enslaves those who threaten his throne. It is a public warning to those who might try to resist him. Ancient Greek accounts also suggest that the Persian kings ruled with an iron fist. One tells of how the Persians cut off the limbs and even noses of their prisoners. And yet the reliefs at Persepolis seem to paint a very different picture. There you see these men holding each other's hand or one holding his hand against somebody's shoulder. They talk to each other. They sort of encourage each other. The whole image that is represented here is an image of peace and of harmony. There is absolutely no battle scene. There is no violence depicted here. It is one of a Persian peace. Persian royal inscriptions found at Persepolis reinforce this image of benevolent rule. They declare that the king loves peace not war. And subject peoples are allowed to practice their customs and religions. But is all this mere Persian propaganda? After all these are reliefs commissioned by the king and tablets written by his loyal servants. The Jewish book of Ezra offers an independent account. In chapter 1 the Persians are praised for liberating the Jews and allowing them to practice their religion freely. I think it's fair to say that the Persians are unique in the way that they envisage how an empire should be run. Generally in the ancient world there seems to be an idea of conquer, obliterate and rebuild on our terms. We don't find that with Persia at all. If you paid your tribute, if you paid your taxes to the Persian king that was fine. That was all the king wanted from you. Any other form of life of cultural setting was accepted. By allowing subject nations to live their own lives the Persians ensured that a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual empire flourished in relative peace for 250 years. It is tolerance that has a completely political objective. The Persian king's objective was if I leave people their ethnicity, their religious cults, then they have fewer reasons to resist my power. Yet it took more than tolerance to maintain this vast empire. Empires need an infrastructure. 50 miles outside Persepolis, carved into the side of the hill, is an ancient Persian road leading to Persepolis. The sides of the road are up to 10 meters high. Such engineering feats were repeated across the empire. Being in charge of an empire that stretches about 4,000 kilometers just west to east needed to be controlled. In order to control that you need a fabulous network, a road system that allows you to get information from one corner of the empire to wherever the king is as quickly as possible. Even the critical Greeks could not fail to be impressed by the Persian road system. It stretched from Persepolis up to another Persian city, Susa, and then 1500 miles to the west to Ephesus on the Mediterranean. Roads also went east to India and south into Egypt. The Greeks were particularly amazed by the messengers who traveled along these roads, keeping the Persian kings at Persepolis informed of everything that went on in the empire. The great Greek historian Herodotus wrote at the time that no mortal thing travels faster than the Persian couriers. Such speed was possible because of another Persian innovation, the staging post. What you seem to have here is a system where a messenger rides on one horse, gets to a garrison, quickly changes, straight onto a new horse, a fresh horse, straight off again, and then maybe 20 miles down the road he's onto a new horse again, so that the speed keeps going. It seems that because the messenger has this pioneering spirit as long as he has fresh horses he can do that right the way through. The staging posts, manned by Persian soldiers, also ensured that for the first time in antiquity travelers and traders could move around a vast tract of land, safe from bandits. So from Persepolis the Persian kings managed their immense empire. Tolerant, peaceful, and wealthy, the Achaemenid kings believed they were the masters of all they surveyed. And to prove their power they set out to create nothing short of paradise on earth, the first ever formal gardens in the world. Two and a half thousand years ago the Persians created the largest empire the world had ever seen. The Greeks said they were an uncultured and warlike race, but here at the ancient city of Pasargadae the stones tell a different story. Pasargadae was the palace of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire and first king of the Achaemenid dynasty. And here there is evidence of Persian culture at its most sophisticated and refined. Hidden among the undergrowth are irrigation channels for Pasargadae's most stunning feature. Its royal gardens. It would run all around the garden so that the whole area here in front of Cyrus's residential palace would be irrigated. Imagine that it was gleaming white, it was polished stone, it was glittering in the sun, you would have the water floating through, it would refresh the area, it would cool down the air here. No archaeologist has ever found the legendary gardens of Babylon, so these channels are the earliest known evidence of a formal garden anywhere in the world. King Cyrus called his garden Paradesa. This Persian word meaning a walled garden is one we still use today. Paradise. It was his paradise and it was a perfection of nature where life grew, where water was the essence of life. Cyrus was famous throughout the ancient world for his love of gardens. The Greek historian Xenophon wrote that in all the districts that he resides in, he takes great care that there are paradises full of all the beautiful things that the soil will produce. It was even said that Cyrus gardened himself. He told one Greek visitor, the arrangement is my own work. I swear by the sun god that I never sat down to dinner without first working at some task of gardening. So what actually grew in these Persian gardens? The clay tablets found at the great city of Persepolis list the different trees and plants that were planted here. They show that the composition of the garden was deeply symbolic. The tablets tell us that there were thousands of seedlings for trees, different kind of trees, including olive trees, mulberries, dates, which were collected to be planted in the next spring. These were trees that he imported from all over his empire to reflect the size and the extent of his empire in this garden, in this garden space. Ultimately, the Persian garden was a political statement. By making plants grow in an otherwise barren landscape, the Persian kings showed all who came here that they were the masters of the world. The king was practically the king of the world and the garden reflected the power of the empire. What Cyrus did here was to produce an order in an unordered, in a chaotic, otherwise wild nature. The garden in a way symbolized the king's ability to control life. The Persians may have built great cities and gardens, but they were still essentially a nomadic people. This kind of nomadic feeling always remained with the Persians, despite the fact that they built these vast imperial cities. They were as at home in a city as they were in a tent. For the Greeks, the Persians' nomadic lifestyle was a cause for mockery. Like modern nomads, the ancient Persians spent the winter months tending their herds on the plains and the hot summer months in the cool of the mountains. To the Greeks, this escape from the summer heat was evidence of Persian unmanliness. The Greeks like to criticize the Persians for this softness. They see them as rather hot and moist creatures and the other thing that Greeks see as hot and moist are women. This is the way that women's bodies work. If women are hot and moist and therefore Persians are hot and moist, they must be one and the same thing basically. Persians are not real men because they can't stand the heat. What the Greeks never understood was that traveling was part of the Persian way of life. Even around great centers such as Persepolis, there would have been a city of tents as people came and went. Certainly within these tents, we can imagine that ancient Persian life would not be too dissimilar from the kind of images that you can still see today. So within these tents what you have is of course your whole lifestyle. Everything goes on there from cooking of course, then there's the rearing of animals and the collecting of foodstuffs as well and also weaving carpets, rugs and hangings, the very essence of the tent itself, but also weaving clothing and this is a traditional women's work of course. This is all part of nomadic tradition today and certainly can be reflected back onto ancient Persian tradition. Across the ages, fine colorful textiles have been central to Persian culture. From the most remote nomadic people of ancient Persia to the shoppers and traders in a modern Iranian bazaar, textiles are a way to express status and wealth. I've brought you to a place like the bazaar here at Shiraz just because there is this long legacy of an artistic tradition and a cultural tradition and one thing we know about life in the ancient Near East in general was that they loved color and textiles. These are wonderful turquoises and blues and also wonderful greens as well, so we know that these are the colors that they would have had and the colors that they would have loved. This idea of a room which is completely covered in textiles is very much part of the ancient Near Eastern tradition and certainly something that the Persians would have identified with. Textile hangings on the walls are very much part of the ancient world culture, textiles all over the floors, textiles on couches as well, so you know you are surrounded, you're swamped by this idea of color and luxury and of course warmth as well. Now that's the real McCoy, okay synthetic modern velvet, but perhaps this gives you better than anything else the sort of idea of the luxury that the Persians were renowned for. It's purple which first of all of course is the color of kingship throughout the ancient world because purple is so difficult to get in antiquity, a good solid deep imperial purple dye. You know this is a modern textile but it does the job very well, I think it kind of captures what the Persians are all about for me, a bit of sparkle really. The smells, sounds and sights of this bazaar would be familiar to the ancient Persians. Spices, gold and reams of fine brightly colored cloth. This modern market reflects what the Persians were famed for in the ancient world, their pursuit of luxury. The purpose of luxury at Persepolis is mainly to do with the power and the propaganda of kingship because of course to have superfluous articles of clothing or to have your palace strewn with textiles that are really redundant apart from being you know a lord or something that covers something or a covering that is then covered by another covering. This is all just to do with this idea of power and wealth expressed through material goods. It's not dissimilar to you know the kind of thing that goes on in the West today. The ancient Persians were the greatest power on earth. Their style and fashions were widely copied. Persians take on the aesthetic side of life, on the finer points of living. Everything from how you plant your garden and how you walk in your garden and to how you decorate your walls clearly had an impact on later world civilizations certainly through Greece and into Rome possibly into contemporary Western society as well. The Persian approach to architecture, gardens and textiles has survived to this day but there were those in the ancient world who despised everything the Persians stood for. This hostility would one day lead to the destruction of the Persian Empire and of Persepolis itself. 2,500 years ago Persepolis was the sumptuous capital of the great Persian Empire. But what the Persians saw as luxury, their Greek rivals saw as decadence. One custom that both fascinated and appalled the Greeks was the Persian feast. Most of what we know about Persian feasts of course comes from the Greek sources because the Greeks are so interested or fascinated by this concept of luxury that obviously feasting is going to be an element of the luxurious lifestyle. Persian feasts are going to be opulence, all the kind of things which are always associated with luxury. Drinking was an essential part of the Persian feast. Herodotus wrote the Persians are very fond of wine and no one is allowed to vomit or urinate in the presence of another person. The Persians seem to live by this principle of telling the truth. That's something that actually the Greeks begrudgingly admire and they use drinking as a rather political system. The Persians tend to get very drunk because only in drink do you tell the truth. So you know you have your political discretion, you drink a lot, things get said, everybody goes to bed and mulls it over, wakes up the next day with a hangover and then everybody comes back together again to have the same conversation to see if they still have those kind of ideas. Like many Persian traditions, feasting was not luxury for luxury's sake, it had an important social role. Feasting brings you together as a community, they are all partaking of the same food and of the same experience so it's a great uniting thing. Yet to the Greeks it was another example of why the Persians were an inferior race. Alexander the Great warned his own soldiers that gluttony and opulence lead to much unmanliness. Those that eat such enormous meals are far too quickly beaten in battles. What the Greek sources like to play at is this idea that the Persians are luxurious, effeminized, luxury loving, effeminizing, a race of no-gooders really, who are over there somewhere in the east and they are corrupting us and our morals and all that we stand for. And it was Alexander the Great who was determined to end the corrupting influence of the Persians once and for all. In 334 BC he began a campaign to take over the empire that had ruled the known world for the previous 250 years. At the first pitched battle between the two armies at Issus in Turkey, Alexander's Macedonian army scored a resounding victory over the forces of King Darius III of Persia, despite being greatly outnumbered. A lot probably has to do with different military tactics that the Macedonian army used against the Persians. The Persians were used to fighting in a plane, they were using chariots which were not used in the Macedonian army, but it was also the Macedonian idea of immediate surprise attack that helped. Over the next two years Alexander's superior military tactics allowed him to take over lands that were once under Persian control. In 331 BC he reached Persia itself. By the time he arrived in Persepolis, the Persian armies had been routed. The twelfth and last Persian king, Darius III, was dead. Alexander entered the undefended city unopposed. The ceremonial center that for nearly two centuries had embodied Persian dominance of the world was finally in Greek hands. Alexander told his soldiers they were now in the most hateful of cities. You've got to remember where Alexander actually comes from, Macedonia, okay? These are thugs, mountain thugs. This is what Alexander's stock is all about. And suddenly he comes to this place, which after all, the Persians have been accused for centuries of being a feat, luxury lovers. Now this stuff is anathema to Alexander's Macedonian and Greek followers. Alexander, triumphant, held a banquet for some of his troops at Persepolis. According to the Greek accounts, it was here that the city's fate was sealed. There's a lot of drinking going on, a lot of bad things get said. Alexander's got in his company, according to some Greek and later Latin sources, a couple of courtesans, one of whom is called Face, who is supposed to be one of the most beautiful courtesans in Greece. She, I dare say, is a little bit drunk and perhaps a little bit emotional, we don't know. But she decides to ask Alexander would it be okay if she burns down Persepolis. Alexander, in his drunken state, says, sure, go ahead. Alexander fully understood the symbolic importance of Persepolis as the very heart of the Persian Empire. It had to be destroyed. Alexander will destroy everything that could be a potential source of resistance and opposition to him. Persepolis was that. He wanted to make a point of destroying Persian power. And so Alexander's soldiers began burning and looting. The city itself is described by ancient authors as being unprotected, there was no military guard here to defend the population. Some people say that what he did was to pile up flammable material, furniture, curtains, and from there the fire started and then, of course, spread through the whole terrace. It just burned. I dare say this night, there must have been chaos here. So the carnage, the chaos, must have been horrific. Alexander's soldiers just ransacked the city, they looted everything that was there, they burned the houses. I think Alexander is the first recorded hooligan in history. He used brutal force, violence, needlessly, destroying a site that had no military function, that was indeed unprotected when he came here. It was totally needless to burn it down, to destroy and kill the population of Persepolis. The Greeks, who claimed to be the founders of civilization, who called the Persians barbarians, had committed a gross act of vandalism. They had destroyed the greatest city on earth. It's a sad death of this remarkable imperial city, this seat of culture and this seat of ceremony. At the time it was the most magnificent city in the non-ancient world and that Alexander had destroyed. And with that an era came to an end. But by burning down the city, Alexander ironically helped preserve it. Much of it remained buried under the ashes produced by the fire, protected from the elements for the next 2,000 years. It was not until the excavations of the 1930s that many of the reliefs and clay tablets that tell us so much about Persian life could be studied for the first time. And although the city had been destroyed, the legacy of the Persians survived. Their formal gardens, their ceremonial architecture and their sense of luxury were copied by other civilizations, even the Greeks. But their greatest achievement of all was the empire itself. The first global empire in history was built on a model of tolerance and respect for other cultures that few great powers have ever matched. Perhaps now at last the Persians will take their rightful place as one of the great civilizations of antiquity.