Persia is first attested in
Assyrian sources from the third millennium BC in the
Old Assyrian form , meaning "Land of the horses" designating a region belonging to the
Sumerians. The name of this region was adopted by a nomadic
ancient Iranian people who migrated to the region in the west and southwest of
Lake Urmia, eventually becoming known as "the Persians". The ninth-century BC
Neo-Assyrian inscription of the
Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, found at
Nimrud, gives it in the Late Assyrian forms Parsua| and as a region and a people located in the
Zagros Mountains, the latter likely having migrated southward and transferred the name of the region with them to what would become
Persis (Persia proper, i.e., modern-day
Fars), and that is considered to be the earliest attestation to the ancient Persian people. The ancient Persians played a major role in the downfall of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire. The
Medes, another group of ancient Iranian people, unified the region under an empire centered in
Media, which would become the region's leading cultural and political power of the time by 612 BC. Meanwhile, under the
dynasty of the Achaemenids, the Persians formed a vassal state to the central Median power. In 552 BC, the Achaemenid Persians
revolted against the Median monarchy, leading to the victory of
Cyrus the Great over the throne in 550 BC. The Persians spread their influence to the rest of what is considered to be the
Iranian Plateau, and assimilated with the non-Iranian
indigenous groups of the region, including the
Elamites and the
Mannaeans. at its greatest extent At its greatest extent, the
Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of
Eastern Europe in the west to the
Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the establishment of the cities of
Pasargadae and
Persepolis. The empire extended as far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day mainland
Greece, where the Persians and Athenians influenced each other in what is essentially a reciprocal cultural exchange. Its legacy and impact on the kingdom of
Macedon was also notably huge, The
Parthian language, which was used as an official language of the Parthian Empire, left influences on Persian, as well as on the neighboring
Armenian language. depicting the victory of Sasanian ruler
Shapur I over Roman ruler
Valerian and
Philip the Arab The Parthian monarchy was succeeded by the Persian
dynasty of the Sasanians in 224 AD. By the time of the
Sasanian Empire, a national culture that was fully aware of being Iranian took shape, partially motivated by restoration and revival of the wisdom of "the old sages" (). and was greatly diffused among Iranians. Cappadocia in
Late Antiquity, now well into the Roman era, still retained a significant Iranian character; Stephen Mitchell notes in the
Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity: "Many inhabitants of Cappadocia were of Persian descent and Iranian fire worship is attested as late as 465". Following the
Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in the medieval times, the Arab
caliphates established their rule over the region for the next several centuries, during which the long process of the
Islamization of Iran took place. Confronting the cultural and linguistic dominance of the Persians, beginning by the
Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors began to establish Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire, sometimes by force, further confirming the new political reality over the region. The Arabic term Ajam|, denoting "people unable to speak properly", was adopted as a designation for non-Arabs (or non-Arabic speakers), especially the Persians. Although the term had developed a derogatory meaning and implied cultural and ethnic inferiority, it was gradually accepted as a synonym for "Persian" and still remains today as a designation for the Persian-speaking communities native to the modern
Arab states of the Middle East. A series of Muslim Iranian kingdoms were later established on the fringes of the declining
Abbasid Caliphate, including that of the ninth-century
Samanids, under the reign of whom the
Persian language was used officially for the first time after two centuries of no attestation of the language, now having received the Arabic script and a large Arabic vocabulary. Persian language and culture continued to prevail after the invasions and conquests by the Mongols and the Turks (including the
Ilkhanate,
Ghaznavids,
Seljuks,
Khwarazmians, and
Timurids), who were themselves significantly
Persianized, further developing in
Asia Minor,
Central Asia, and
South Asia, where Persian culture flourished by the expansion of the
Persianate societies, particularly those of
Turco-Persian and
Indo-Persian blends. of the
Safavid dynasty was the proclamation of
Twelver Shia Islam as the
official religion of his newly founded
Persian Empire After over eight centuries of foreign rule within the region, the Iranian hegemony was reestablished by the emergence of the
Safavid Empire in the 16th century. Under the Safavid Empire, focus on Persian language and identity was further revived, and the political evolution of the empire once again maintained Persian as the main language of the country. During the times of the
Safavids and subsequent modern Iranian dynasties such as the
Qajars, architectural and iconographic elements from the time of the Sasanian Persian Empire were reincorporated, linking the modern country with its ancient past. Contemporary embracement of the legacy of Iran's ancient empires, with an emphasis on the Achaemenid Persian Empire, developed particularly under the reign of the
Pahlavi dynasty, providing the motive of a modern nationalistic pride. Iran's modern architecture was then inspired by that of the country's classical eras, particularly with the adoption of details from the ancient monuments in the Achaemenid capitals Persepolis and Pasargadae and the Sasanian capital
Ctesiphon. Fars, corresponding to the ancient province of Persia, with its modern capital
Shiraz, became a center of interest, particularly during the annual international
Shiraz Arts Festival and the
2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. The Pahlavi rulers modernized Iran, and ruled it until the
1979 Iranian revolution. ==Anthropology==