Semitic languages have dominated the Near East since the dawn of recorded history. As early as 2900 BC Akkadian names are attested on Sumerian clay tablets and around the same time Canaanite snake spells were written down in Saqqara, which indicates that Semitic languages had spread to both Egypt and Mesopotamia by 3000 BC. Later Semitic speakers founded the world’s first empire, which would guarantee the political dominance of Akkadian speaking groups over the Near East for millennia to come. Semitic speakers are also found throughout Arabia and as far south as Ethiopia. In this article I will attempt to identify the original homeland of the proto-Semitic speakers and reconstruct the routes by which the Semitic languages descendants spread.
Month: August 2016
The Assassination of Caesar
We all know the story of Caesar’s death. After increasing concerns about Caesar’s royal ambitions a large number of senators, led by Cassius and Brutus, conspired to have Caesar killed. On the Ides of March 44 BC they found the opportunity to lure Caesar to a senate meeting at the theater of Pompey, where he was stabbed to death. Among the conspirators were many friends of Caesar, including his distant cousin Decimus Junius Brutus, who fought alongside him in Gaul, and of course Caesar’s adoptive son Marcus Junius “Et tu” Brutus. The assassination of Caesar was a pivotal moment in Roman history and should therefore be seen in its historical context. The same goes for the written sources on this event, most of which were written over 100 years after the events. What do we really know about Caesar’s death? Which information from the sources may be discarded?
The proto-Afro-Asiatic Homeland
Most languages of North Africa, East Africa and the Near East are descended from a common ancestor known as proto-Afro-Asiatic. According to linguists this proto-language was spoken no earlier than 9500 years before present, which makes it one of the oldest identified proto-languages. The original homeland of proto-Afro-Asiatic has not yet been identified with certainty. In order to do this we need to know how the various branches of Afro-Asiatic languages spread, which is difficult because these developments mostly took place in prehistoric times. Moreover, because the proto-language is so old the extant branches, like Cushitic, Chadic, Semitic, Berber and Egyptian, are highly divergent. This makes it difficult to group these branches into subgroups. To illustrate the problems I will give an overview of the scholarly concensus on this issue.
Yama: The First Man
Yama is one of the most enigmatic gods known to man. He is venerated in various religious traditions across the Asian continent, from Iran all the way to Japan. To Hindus he is king of the Underworld. According to Buddhists he judges the dead. The Persians know him as one of their first kings and the Nuristani people see him as the Creator of the world and mankind. Who is this mysterious Yama? In this post I will highlight the role of Yama in various religious traditions in an attempt to trace the ultimate origin of this deity.
The Bantu migrations
All across southern Africa, from Mt. Cameroon to the Kilimanjaro and from the Great Lakes to the Cape, live people who refer to themselves as ‘Bantu’. These Bantu people speak closely related languages sharing a common ancestor that was spoken no longer than 4000 years ago. Obviously there must have been a series of massive migration waves that brought the Bantu people and their languages to the far southern and eastern edges of the African continent.
History of the Nuristani people
Some 1000 years ago all of Afghanistan was under muslim control. All of Afghanistan? No! One region resisted the conquerors…
To the troops of sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (971-1030), who invaded the region in 1014, the area was known as Kafiristan (land of the infidels). The inhabitants of Kafiristan, known as ‘Kafirs’, followed a polytheistic religion and had a remarkable European look. The Kafirs lived in remote parts of the Hindu Kush mountain range, which had allowed them to maintain their original language and culture for centuries. According to local legend the Kafirs were descended from the troops of Alexander the Great, but the true story of their origins is even more interesting.
The Graeco-Persian wars in context
Who hasn’t heard of the Graeco-Persian wars? The wars in which the freedom-loving Greek city states, home to a highly sophisticated culture, bravely resisted the expansionist policy of the despotic Persian kings. That clash of civilizations. That collision between east and west, between tyranny and freedom. Had the Persians won, western culture as we know it would not have been able to develop. At least, that is what some scholars believe and is still taught at many high schools today. The reality is more complex.
Were the Achaemenids Zoroastrians?
Before the arrival of Islam Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of Greater Iran. Because of the predominance of Zoroastrianism it has often been assumed that all pre-Islamc Iranian dynasties had been Zoroastrians. This notion, however, has been called into doubt by recent scholarship. Scholars see too many contradictions between the religion of the Achaemenids (the first Persian dynasty, r. 550-330 BC) and ‘true’ Zoroastrianism. In order to settle the matter, we need to determine what exactly ‘true Zoroastrianism’ is.
Pirates of the Aegean
Today the ancient Greeks are mainly remembered as a highly sophisticated people who lived in prosperous city states inhabited by great philosophers, scientists and artists. This golden age, however, forms only a small part of Greek history and culture. To their contemporaries the Greek were mainly known as fearsome warriors, cunning traders and even pirates. These military and commercial endeavors did eventually pave the way for the blossoming of classical Greek culture. In this post I will highlight the role that archaic Greek pirates, traders and mercenaries played in the ancient world. Credit goes to Nino Luraghi, on whose article Traders, Pirates, Warriors I base much of my information.
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh
During the tenth century AD a Persian dynasty known as the Samanids ruled over much of Khorasan and Transoxiana. By that time the very survival of the Persian language was threatened by the expansion of Arabic and Iran’s pre-Islamic past was generally seen as a period of ignorance (Jahiliyya). The Samanids, however, sought to change all that. They reinstated Persian as the official language of the empire and they rehabilitated Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage. They also financed various poets to compose a national epic on the pre-Islamic history of Iran. The most successful poet was Abolqasem Ferdowsi (940-1020), whose Shahnameh (Book of Kings) became the most famous of these epics. The Shahnameh contains over 50.000 verses and describes Iran’s history from the creation of the world up to the Arab Conquests in poetic form.