EAN: 9783447108003

MOUNTAIN PEOPLES IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST - SIL...

Since Prehistory  communities principally engaged in herding activities have occupied the
intermontane valleys and plains of the Zagros (Western Iran). Relations  tensions and cultural
exchange between the inhabitants of the mountains and the Mesopotamian plains already occurred
during the Bronze Age. These contacts increased in the course of the 1st millennium BCE  as is
suggested by Near Eastern and subsequently by Greek and Latin sources which provide us with
numerous new names of peoples living in the Zagros. The present volume investigates the social
organisation and life style of the peoples of the Zagros Mountains in the 1st millennium BCE
and deals with their relationships with the surrounding environment and with the political
authorities on the plains. Among these peoples  for example  were the 'fierce' Medes  breeders
and purveyors of fine horses  the Manneans  who inhabited a large territory enclosed between
the two contending powers of Assyria and Urartu  and the 'warlike' Cosseans  who bravely
attempted to resist the attack of Alexander the Great's army. The Southern Zagros Mountains 
inhabited by mixed groups of Elamite and Iranian farmers and pastoralists  were also of key
importance as the home of the Persians and the core area of their empire. Starting from Fars 
the Persians were able to build up the largest empire in the history of the ancient Near East
before Alexander. The interdisciplinary approach adopted in this study  which juxtaposes
historical records with archaeological  zooarchaeological  palaeobotanical and ethnographic
data  provides a new  holistic and multifaceted view on an otherwise little-known topic in
ancient history.

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