Dahae
Information about Dahae
The Dahae (Latin; Greek Δάοι, Δάαι Dáoi, Dáai) were a confederacy of three tribes who lived in the region to the immediate east of the Caspian Sea. They spoke an Eastern Iranian language.
The first dateable mention of this nomad confederacy appears in the list of nations of Xerxes' Daeva inscription. In this list of the peoples and provinces of the Achaemenid Empire, the Dahae are identified in Old Persian as Dāha and are immediately followed by a "Saka" group, who are listed as being neighbors of the Dāha. Unclear is however whether the Dahae are also the *Dāha people (or *Dåŋha, only attested in the feminine Dahi) of the Avestan Yasht 13.144. An etymological relationship "is not proof that the two names refer to the same ethnic group."[1]
In the 1st century BCE Strabo (Geographika 11.8.1) refers to the Dahae explicitly as the "Scythian Dahae" ("Scythian" is in Strabo not necessarily an equation with the "Sacae"). The historiographer further places the Dahae in the approximate vicinity of present-day Turkmenistan.
The Dahae, together with the Saka tribes, are known to have fought in the Achaemenid armies at the Battle of Gaugamela. Following the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, they joined Alexander of Macedon in his quest to India. Saka coins from the Seleucid era are sometimes specifically attributed to the Dahae.
In the third century, a branch of Dahae called the Parni would rise to prominence under their chief Arsaces. They invaded Parthia, which had just previously declared independence from the Seleucids, deposed the reigning monarch, and Arsaces crowned himself king. His successors, who all named themselves Arsaces and are thus referred to as the Arsacids, would eventually assert military control over the entire the Iranian plateau. By then, they would be indistinguishable from the Parthians, and would also be called by that name.
While 'Dahae' was preserved in the toponym 'Dahestan'/'Dihistan' - a district "on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea" - "an urban center of the ancient Dahae (if indeed they possessed one) is quite unknown."[2]
The Dahae should not by default be equated with Vedic Sanskrit's dasa. While the two are etymologically related, there is no directly transferable functional equivalence. In the Vedas, dasa is an ambiguous term that could mean any number of things, including - but not limited to - being a reference to a tribe. Even in this latter case, it only may refer to the same tribe as the Dahae; "man", which is probably the literal meaning of the root of the name, appears in the name of many tribes and individuals. If the Iranic and Indic terms were all - in addition to being etymologically related - also functionally equivalent, it would be enormously difficult to explain how the Avestan tribe that is exalted alongside the Aryans could simultaneously be vilified as the Daxiiu, the Anti-Aryans.[1]
The first dateable mention of this nomad confederacy appears in the list of nations of Xerxes' Daeva inscription. In this list of the peoples and provinces of the Achaemenid Empire, the Dahae are identified in Old Persian as Dāha and are immediately followed by a "Saka" group, who are listed as being neighbors of the Dāha. Unclear is however whether the Dahae are also the *Dāha people (or *Dåŋha, only attested in the feminine Dahi) of the Avestan Yasht 13.144. An etymological relationship "is not proof that the two names refer to the same ethnic group."[1]
In the 1st century BCE Strabo (Geographika 11.8.1) refers to the Dahae explicitly as the "Scythian Dahae" ("Scythian" is in Strabo not necessarily an equation with the "Sacae"). The historiographer further places the Dahae in the approximate vicinity of present-day Turkmenistan.
The Dahae, together with the Saka tribes, are known to have fought in the Achaemenid armies at the Battle of Gaugamela. Following the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, they joined Alexander of Macedon in his quest to India. Saka coins from the Seleucid era are sometimes specifically attributed to the Dahae.
In the third century, a branch of Dahae called the Parni would rise to prominence under their chief Arsaces. They invaded Parthia, which had just previously declared independence from the Seleucids, deposed the reigning monarch, and Arsaces crowned himself king. His successors, who all named themselves Arsaces and are thus referred to as the Arsacids, would eventually assert military control over the entire the Iranian plateau. By then, they would be indistinguishable from the Parthians, and would also be called by that name.
While 'Dahae' was preserved in the toponym 'Dahestan'/'Dihistan' - a district "on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea" - "an urban center of the ancient Dahae (if indeed they possessed one) is quite unknown."[2]
The Dahae should not by default be equated with Vedic Sanskrit's dasa. While the two are etymologically related, there is no directly transferable functional equivalence. In the Vedas, dasa is an ambiguous term that could mean any number of things, including - but not limited to - being a reference to a tribe. Even in this latter case, it only may refer to the same tribe as the Dahae; "man", which is probably the literal meaning of the root of the name, appears in the name of many tribes and individuals. If the Iranic and Indic terms were all - in addition to being etymologically related - also functionally equivalent, it would be enormously difficult to explain how the Avestan tribe that is exalted alongside the Aryans could simultaneously be vilified as the Daxiiu, the Anti-Aryans.[1]
References
Bibliography
-
id="CITEREFBivar1993">Bivar, A.D.H. (1993), "The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids", in Fischer, W.B. & Ilya Gershevitch, Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3.1, London: Cambridge UP, pp. 21-99
- id="CITEREFde Blois1993">de Blois, François (1993), "Dahae I: Etymology", Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 6, Cosa Mesa: Mazda, pp. 581
| Provinces of the Achaemenid Empire (Behistun and Daiva inscriptions) | ){kind=small} |
|---|---|
| Persia | Elam | Babylonia | Media | Sacae | Yauna | Macedon | Pamphylia | Paphlagonia | Cappadocia | Caria | Lydia | Thrace | Armenia | Cilicia | Taxila | Egypt | Gandara | Sattagydia | Gedrosia | Carmania | Maka | Drangiana | Arachosia | Bactria | Parthia | Aria | Chorasmia | Sogdia | Kush | Arabia | Hyrcania | Margu | Dahae | Libya | Eber-Nari
By district (Herodotus) | |
| District I | District II | District III | District IV | District V | District VI | District VII | District VIII | District IX | District X | District XI | District XII | District XIII | District XIV | District XV | District XVI | District XVII | District XVIII | District XIX | District XX | |
| align="right"| | |
Coordinates
Lake type Endorheic
Saline
Permanent
Natural
Primary sources Volga River
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Lake type Endorheic
Saline
Permanent
Natural
Primary sources Volga River
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Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca. the 4th century BC) The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian, but this is uncertain.
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Xerxes I of Persia, the Great
Great King (Shah) of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt
Relief of an Achaemenid king, possibly Xerxes or Darius, on the wall of Persepolis Palace[1]
Reign 485 BC to 465 BC
Coronation October 485 BC
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Great King (Shah) of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt
Relief of an Achaemenid king, possibly Xerxes or Darius, on the wall of Persepolis Palace[1]
Reign 485 BC to 465 BC
Coronation October 485 BC
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Achaemenid Empire (Persian: هخامنشیان IPA: [haχɒmaneʃijɒn]) (559 BC–330 BC), or
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Old Persian}}}
Writing system: Old Persian Cuneiform
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: peo
ISO 639-3: peo
Old Persian is one of the two attested forms of Old Iranian languages.
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Writing system: Old Persian Cuneiform
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: peo
ISO 639-3: peo
Old Persian is one of the two attested forms of Old Iranian languages.
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Sakas were the Scythians who lived in the eastern part of Central Asia. They are considered to be of north-eastern Iranian people by modern scholars.[1][2][3]
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Avestan}}}
Writing system: Avestan alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ae
ISO 639-2: ave
ISO 639-3: ave
Avestan
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Writing system: Avestan alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ae
ISO 639-2: ave
ISO 639-3: ave
Avestan
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The Yashts (Yašts) are a collection of twenty-one hymns in Younger Avestan. Each of these hymns invokes a specific Zoroastrian divinity or concept.
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Strabo[1] (Greek: Στράβων; 63/64 BC – ca. AD 24) was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. He is mostly famous for his 17-volume work Geographica
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Scythians (/'sɪθɪən/, also /'sɪðɪən/) or Scyths (/'sɪθs/
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Sakas were the Scythians who lived in the eastern part of Central Asia. They are considered to be of north-eastern Iranian people by modern scholars.[1][2][3]
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Anthem
Independent, Neutral, Turkmenistan State Anthem
Capital Ashgabat
Largest city Ashgabat
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Independent, Neutral, Turkmenistan State Anthem
Capital Ashgabat
Largest city Ashgabat
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Sakas were the Scythians who lived in the eastern part of Central Asia. They are considered to be of north-eastern Iranian people by modern scholars.[1][2][3]
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Achaemenid Empire (Persian: هخامنشیان IPA: [haχɒmaneʃijɒn]) (559 BC–330 BC), or
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Battle of Gaugamela (IPA: /ˌgɔgəˈmilə/) took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great of Macedonia and Darius III of Achaemenid Persia.
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Alexander of Macedon is the name of several kings of Macedon :
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- Alexander I of Macedon is king of Macedon from 500 BC or 498 BC to 450 BC,
- Alexander II of Macedon is king of Macedon from 370 BC to 368 BC,
- Alexander III of Macedon
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The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic successor state of Alexander the Great's dominion. At its greatest extent, the Empire comprised central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, Turkmenistan, Pamir and the Indus valley (Pakistan).
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The Parni (Latin, alt Aparni; from Greek Aparnoi/Parnoi) were an "east Iranian people"[1] of the Ochos/Ochus[1][3] (Tajen/Tajend) River valley, south-east of the Caspian Sea. The Parni were one of the three tribes of the Dahae confederacy.
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Arsaces I of Parthia was the chief of the Parni, one of the nomadic Scythian or Dahan tribes in the desert east of the Caspian Sea. A later tradition, preserved by Arrian, derives Arsaces I and his brother Tiridates from the Achaemenian king Artaxerxes II, but this has evidently no
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Parthia (Old Persian Parthava), before it became the Parthian Empire, was a satrapy (province) of the Achaemenid Empire. The borders of Parthia were the Kopet Dag mountain range in the north (today the border between Iran and Turkmenistan) and the Dasht-e-Kavir desert in the south.
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The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic successor state of Alexander the Great's dominion. At its greatest extent, the Empire comprised central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, Turkmenistan, Pamir and the Indus valley (Pakistan).
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Parthia[1] was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeast of modern Iran, but at its height covering all of Iran proper, as well as regions of the modern countries of Armenia, Iraq, Georgia, eastern Turkey, eastern Syria, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan,
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Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian, attested during the period between roughly 1700 BCE (early Rigveda) and 600
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Ārya is a Sanskrit (आर्य) and Avestan word used by Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists. It has a variety of positive meanings, usually in spiritual contexts.
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Aniran is an ethno-linguistic term that signifies "non-Iranian" or "non-Iran." Thus, in a general sense, 'Aniran' signifies lands where Iranian languages are not spoken. In a pejorative sense, it denotes "a political and religious enemy of Iran and Zoroastrianism.
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Achaemenid Empire (Persian: هخامنشیان IPA: [haχɒmaneʃijɒn]) (559 BC–330 BC), or
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BCE Zayandeh River Civilization Sialk civilization 7500–1000 Jiroft civilization (Aratta) Proto-Elamite civilization Bactria-Margiana Complex Elamite dynasties 2800–550 Kingdom of Mannai Median Empire 728–550 Achaemenid Empire Seleucid Empire Greco-Bactrian
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Sakas were the Scythians who lived in the eastern part of Central Asia. They are considered to be of north-eastern Iranian people by modern scholars.[1][2][3]
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Yauna (The old Persian name for the Greeks, derived from Iones, the name of the Greeks living along the coasts of Asia Minor) or Ionia, was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire. The first mention of the Yauna is at the Behistun inscription.
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