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Ancient Persian culture flourished between the reign of Cyrus II (The Great, r. c. 550-530 BCE), founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the fall of the Sassanian Empire in 651 CE. Even so, the foundations of Persian culture were already set prior to the 3rd millennium BCE.

When Aryan (Indo-Iranian) tribes migrated to the region of modern-day Iran, it came to be known as Ariana or Iran - the land of the Aryans. The Persians were only one of these tribes who settled in the territory of Persis (also Parsa, modern-day Fars) which would give them their name.

Initially, the Persians were subject to another Aryan tribe, the Medes, who had helped topple the Assyrian Empire of Mesopotamia in 612 BCE and extended their reach to form their own empire. The Medes were overthrown by their vassal Cyrus the Great in c. 550 BCE and, with the rise of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian culture began to develop fully. It should be noted, however, that many of the cultural advancements Cyrus II is regularly credited for were actually developed by earlier Persians and Medes (such as the system of irrigation, the yakhchal, and military organization). Cyrus II's brilliance - which would be mirrored by many of his successors - was in recognizing worthwhile concepts and adapting them on a large scale.

Persian culture influenced the Greeks & many other civilizations, & its effects still resonate around the world in the present day.

His vision of an all-inclusive empire whose citizens could live and worship as they pleased - as long as they paid their taxes and caused no problems for their neighbors or the king - provided the basis for one of the most vital and influential cultures of the ancient world.

Much has been made of the Greek influence on the Persians after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire to Alexander the Great in 330 BCE but, long before and long after Alexander and the succeeding Hellenistic Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE), Persian culture influenced the Greeks and many other civilizations, and its effects still resonate around the world in the present day.

The Aryan tribes who settled in the Iranian Plateau and environs brought with them a polytheistic religion whose supreme being was Ahura Mazda (Lord of Wisdom) with many other lesser gods and spirits under his dominion. Among these, the most popular were Mithra ( god of covenants and the rising sun), Anahita (goddess of fertility, health, water, and wisdom, Atar, (god of fire), and Hvar Khsata (sun god/god of the full sun). These forces of good stood in opposition to the evil spirit of chaos.

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Ahura Mazda, source of all good, was both invoked and worshipped through a ritual known as the yazna (a meal to which the deity is invited). At the yazna, a drink called hauma was prepared from the juices of a plant (which has not been identified) and consumed, altering the participants' minds and allowing an apprehension of the divine. Fire, kindled at the yazna, was both a sacred element in itself and a manifestation of the divine presence in the form of Atar.

At some point between 1500-1000 BCE, the Persian prophet Zoroaster (also given as Zarathustra), claimed to receive a revelation from Ahura Mazda and preached a new religion - known as Zoroastrianism - which developed the concepts of the earlier religion in a monotheistic framework. Zoroaster recognized Ahura Mazda as the supreme being but claimed he was the only god - requiring no others - engaged in an eternal struggle with Angra Mainyu (also given as Ahriman), the eternal spirit of evil.

The purpose of human life was to choose which deity one would follow, and this choice would inform and direct all of one's actions as well as one's final destination. One who chose Ahura Mazda would live a life devoted to Asha (truth and order) and would adhere to the practice of Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. One who chose Angra Mainyu would live a life attached to Druj (lies and chaos), evident by self-indulgence, faithlessness, and cruelty.

After death, all souls would cross the Chinvat Bridge and those who had been righteous would go to the House of Song (paradise) while those who had followed Angra Mainyu's path were dropped into the House of Lies, a vision of hell in which one feels eternally alone - no matter how many other souls are near - while suffering various torments. At some point in the future, a messiah would come - the Saoshyant ("One Who Brings Benefit") and linear time would end in the event known as Frashokereti when all would be reunited with Ahura Mazda in paradise, even those who had been led astray by evil. Zoroaster kept the ritual of the yazna and the concept of fire as a divine element, only now it was a manifestation of Ahura Mazda instead of Atar.

Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of Zoroastrianism, the (Zoroastrian scripture) strongly suggests it is a monotheistic religion whose dualistic characteristics were exaggerated later in a movement known as Zorvanism (popular during the Sassanian Empire, 224-615 CE). Zoroastrianism, with its focus on a single, uncreated, supreme being, the importance of human free will and choice in living a good life, judgment after death, a messiah, and final account at the end of time would become important elements of the later religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and influence still other faiths.

Social Hierarchy & Women

It is unclear how much, if at all, Zoroastrianism influenced Cyrus the Great since his inscriptions mentioning Ahura Mazda could as easily be referencing the old religion as the new. The same could be said for later Achaemenid rulers in different eras although it seems Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE) and Xerxes I (r. 486-465 BCE) were Zoroastrians. The social hierarchy of Persian culture was informed by religious belief with the king at the top and all others following after since the king was considered to have been divinely appointed. Scholar Homa Katouzian explains:

Even if he was the first son of the previous [king], which he often was not, [the king's] fundamental legitimacy was not due to that fact or even to his belonging to the ruling dynasty: it came directly from God, His Grace or Divine Effulgence, called Farrah in Middle Persian and farr in New Persian...the Persian kings did not draw their legitimacy from an aristocratic and/or priestly class but directly from God by possessing the farr or divine grace. (5)

A king ( shah) was supported only as long as he held the farr and, when a king was deposed, he was thought to have lost the favor of God. As long as he ruled, however, he was supported (at least in theory) by the social hierarchy which ran, top to bottom:

The king and the royal family

Nobles (aristocrats and satraps)

Military commanders and elite forces (such as the Persian Immortals)

Merchants

Artisans and craftspeople

Slaves

Within each class, there were also hierarchies. After the king came the king's mother and then the queen (mother of the king's chosen successor), followed by the king's sons, then daughters, then brothers and sisters with other relatives coming last. In the priestly class, there was a high priest and then lesser priests and the same paradigm applied all the way down to slaves as there were some slaves who supervised others.

Men and women often worked the same jobs and women were highly respected. Early evidence of this is seen in the goddess Anahita who not only presided over fertility and health but water - the vital life-giving element - and wisdom - the ability to discern rightly in making any given choice. Specifics on women's roles, jobs, and general treatment come from the Persians themselves through the so-called Fortification and Treasury Texts found at Persepolis, the capital of the empire commissioned by Darius I, which list rations, payments, and job titles among other information.

Women served as supervisors and especially skilled and powerful women held the title of arashshara (great chief). Female artisans and craftspeople often supervised shops creating goods not only for daily use but for trade. They were paid the same as their male counterparts, as evidenced by statements showing the same rations of grain and wine for female and male workers. Pregnant women and those who had recently given birth received higher pay and, if a woman gave birth to a son, she was rewarded (as was the attending physician) with extra rations for a month, but this is the only discrepancy in pay between the sexes. Women could own land, conduct business, and there is even evidence that women served in the military.

The king was the ultimate authority and responsible for running the Persian government, initiating various reforms, and overseeing military campaigns. He was assisted by the magi, members of his family, and nobles who counseled him. The magi were responsible for religious rituals, divination, and banking. Unlike Mesopotamia or Egypt, which raised grand temples to their gods, the Persians believed the divine should be recognized and worshipped out of doors in the natural world and so built altars on which the sacred fire would be lighted and sacrifices made.

The concept of a temple bureaucracy, however, was observed with a high priest employing lesser priests and, eventually, taking on the role of bankers. Magi offered loans with an interest rate of 20 percent but could, and did, waive interest at various times for whatever reason. Homes, land, livestock, businesses, and slaves could be bought on credit offered by the priests who would expect a return on their investment.

The satraps (governors) were the king's representatives in the provinces (satrapies) of the empire. As long as they pleased the king, they reigned for life and lived well in their own palaces with their own retinue. Each satrap was expected to levy and collect taxes as well as raise soldiers for military campaigns which they were also expected to participate in. Satraps were therefore indistinguishable as a class from military commanders in many cases.

Merchants - who could be male or female - engaged in short and long-distance trade while also supervising production and acquisition of raw materials. Merchants who succeeded could become quite wealthy, and female merchants were as free to spend their money as they pleased as males. Artisans and craftspeople, fundamentally important to the merchant as well as many others, were employed in a number of different occupations from sculpting reliefs on homes, buildings, and palaces, to fashioning statues, creating jewelry, forging weaponry and armor, making tack for horses, and providing people with plates, jars, and bowls. Artisans could also be entertainers such as musicians, dancers, and mimes.

In Persian culture, slaves were treated as paid servants were elsewhere.

Peasants were, as usual, the backbone of the economy as they were largely farmers and either skilled or unskilled laborers. The peasant class was in no way considered inferior, however, and could even own their own land (which not even the peasants of so advanced a culture as ancient Egypt could do). Peasants either farmed or herded livestock of sheep, goats, and cattle and also worked on the king's building projects. When called upon by the satrap, the peasants participated in Persian warfare either as soldiers or as baggage handlers, cooks, or in other capacities of support.

In Persian culture, slaves were treated as paid servants were elsewhere. Slaves could not be beaten or killed indiscriminately, and Darius I, in fact, made it law that a master who mistreated a slave was subject to the same penalties as if a free person had been injured. Slaves received compensation for their labor, shelter, and clothing, and lived better under the Persians, whether the Achaemenid or Sassanian, than slaves anywhere else in the ancient world.

The economy was based on agriculture and crops grown and traded included barley, lentils, beans, figs, grapes, sesame seeds, and flax. Trade was conducted from one end of the Achaemenid and Sassanian empires to the other - roughly from the borders of modern-day India across to the coast of Turkey and down through the Levant and Egypt. Under Darius I, a network of roads was built which made trade easier and maritime trade also flourished. Darius I even built a canal in Egypt (c. 500 BCE) connecting the Nile River to the Red Sea to further enhance trade (though a number of Greek historians claim the canal was never completed).

The many different subject nations were able to trade confidently with each other because they all operated under a single government which ensured fair trade practices, standard weights and measures, and protection from robbers. Darius I also standardized the currency throughout the empire in the form of the Daric. Subject nations minted their own coins and used their own monetary systems, but these were brought in line with the value of the Persian Daric.

Sports & Leisure

Athletic accomplishment was especially important to the Persians who enjoyed archery, boxing, fencing, horsemanship, hunting, polo, javelin-throwing, swimming, and wrestling. The sons of nobles were trained for military service from the age of five and encouraged to excel in all of these sports but girls and boys of all classes were equally expected to participate and remain physically fit. It is unclear when the sport of polo was developed by the Persians but it was sometime prior to 330 BCE as it is said that representatives of Darius III gave Alexander the Great a polo mallet as a gift following his victory.

In their leisure time, when not participating in or watching sporting events, Persians enjoyed board games, banquets (which included drinking significant amounts of wine), music, mime, dance and, especially, storytelling. Mime was a popular form of entertainment because it combined elements of dance to dramatically present a story. The most popular stories featured epic heroes such as those from the later ( The Book of Kings) written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi in the late 10th century CE or the tales which make up the famous One Thousand and One Nights (popularly known as The Arabian Nights). Both of these works are based on a long oral tradition of Persian storytelling. One Thousand and One Nights is based on the earlier Persian work One Thousand Tales which was written down during the Sassanian Period but reflects a much older oral history.

Cultural Advances

Among the many inventions of the Persians were the board games backgammon and chess (although the Persian origin of chess has been repeatedly challenged). They also invented the musical instrument known as the cartar (popularly known as a tar) and the sestar, precursor of the modern-day guitar, and developed the art of mime because mimes could tell a story in any of the subject nations without worrying about language barriers. A Persian mime could perform as easily in Egypt as in Bactria.

As part of their banquet entertainment, the Persians also seem to have invented the art of animation as evidenced by a cup which, when turned quickly, shows a goat leaping up to eat the leaves from a tree. For their comfort while eating or relaxing in their homes, the Persian carpet was created and the tradition of dessert after a meal is also a Persian innovation. In order to have cool drinks and ice at their meal or afterwards, the Persians developed the first refrigerators - the yakhchal - a tall, ceramic, domed structure with a subterranean storage space which produced ice and kept food cold.

The crops which provided that food, and kept the economy stable, were irrigated by a system known as the qanat, a sloping channel in the earth with vertical shafts at intervals which brought subterranean waters up to ground level. The qanat was also utilized in the creation of elaborate gardens which adorned the grounds of palaces and private homes alike. These magnificent gardens were known as pairi-daeza; the origin of the concept and word paradise in English.

The enormous expanse of the empire and the different cities ( Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, Persepolis) used as important administrative centers had necessitated the road system of Darius I for rapid communication and this led to another Persian invention: the postal service. The Persian postal system, in fact, has served as the model for others down through history and up to the present day. The motto of the United States of America's postal service comes from Herodotus' description of the Persian messengers.

Persians also invented sulfuric acid, their own alphabets, and developed the craft of perfumery as well as the concept of the hospital. The later Persian polymath Avicenna (l. c. 980-1037 CE) would advance the medicinal arts through his Canon of Medicine and the mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (l. c. 780 - c. 850 CE) invented algebra. According to some interpretations, Cyrus the Great also established the first written document concerning human rights through the Cyrus Cylinder which mandated tolerance of other's beliefs throughout the empire.

Cyrus' belief in the importance of accepting and embracing others, fostered a culture founded on recognition of and appreciation for different beliefs, customs, and values. Herodotus noted that "the Persians adopt more foreign customs than anyone else" (I.135) and his observation is borne out in the Persian practice of adapting the best aspects of other cultures for their own use and improving upon them. After the fall of the Sassanian Persian Empire to the invading Muslim Arabs in 651 CE, Persian culture spread to other regions and then, through trade along routes such as the Silk Road, toward the West. From ancient times to the present day, in fact, Persian culture, inventions, and innovations have, and continue to, inform the lives of people around the world.

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Ancient Persian culture flourished between the reign of Cyrus II (The Great, r. c. 550-530 BCE), founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the fall of the Sassanian Empire in 651 CE. Even so, the foundations of Persian culture were already set prior to the 3rd millennium BCE.

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Kids learn about the history of the First Persian Empire. Also known as the Achaemenid Empire, they ruled the Middle East before the Greeks arrived.

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Resource

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Before Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire existed as one of the most powerful and complex empires of the ancient world.

Subjects

Anthropology, Archaeology, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Image

Persian

This relief of two figures can be seen in the ancient Achaemenid capital of Persepolis, in what is now Shiraz, Iran. In 1979, UNESCO declared the ruins of Persepolis a World Heritage Site.

Photograph by Paul Biris

The Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, lasted from approximately 559 B.C.E. to 331 B.C.E. At its height, it encompassed the areas of modern-day Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Persian Empire emerged under the leadership of Cyrus II, who conquered the neighboring Median Empire ruled by his grandfather. From then on Cyrus was called the "shah," or king, of Persia. Eventually he was known as Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was unlike other emperors because he showed mercy toward the cities and kingdoms he conquered. He was known to spare the life of a defeated king so that the king could guide Cyrus in successfully ruling over the captives' subjects. Cyrus also practiced religious and cultural tolerance toward conquered people.

Cyrus's relative Darius I (known as Darius the Great) took the throne after him and built the empire to its greatest height. Darius recognized that such a large area needed to be properly structured and organized in order to function efficiently. He set up a system of provinces and governors, and a postal service that spanned the empire in order to establish widespread communication. Darius also used the tribute money paid to him from each province to fund public works, such as roads and canals.

The Persian Empire began to decline under the reign of Darius's son, Xerxes. Xerxes depleted the royal treasury with an unsuccessful campaign to invade Greece and continued with irresponsible spending upon returning home. Persia was eventually conquered by Alexander the Great in 334 B.C.E.

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Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society

Author

National Geographic Society

Production Managers

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Program Specialists

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Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

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Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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Before Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire existed as one of the most powerful and complex empires of the ancient world.

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The Ancient Celts were various tribal groups living in parts of western and central Europe in the Late Bronze Age and through the Iron Age (c. 700 BCE to c. 400 CE). Given the name Celts by ancient writers, these tribes and their culture migrated and so they established a presence in territories from Portugal to Turkey.

Although diverse tribes and never a single unified state, the ancient Celts were connected by the Celtic language and marked similarities in art, modes of warfare, religion, and burial practices. Although the Celtic culture was absorbed within the Roman Empire from the 1st century BCE, Celtic people continued to thrive in more remote parts of Europe like Ireland and northern Britain where Celtic languages are still spoken today.

The 'Celts' - Definition & Problems

The term 'Celts' is commonly used to refer to peoples who lived in Iron Age Europe north of the Mediterranean region prior to the Roman conquest after ancient writers gave them that name. However, it is a problematic label. This is because these peoples were not part of a unified state but, rather, belonged to a multitude of tribes, many of which had no direct contact with each other. The term remains useful for its convenience but it does disguise the complex relations between different western and central European tribes, the overlapping of some cultural features in time and space, and the isolation and uniqueness of other such features. The European Iron Age was certainly a vibrant period of cultural interaction, trade relations, warfare, and migrations.

Iron replaced bronze as the metal of choice to make stronger & more durable tools & weapons.

Origins: Urnfield, Hallstatt & La Tène

Most scholars agree that the origins of Celtic culture can be traced back to three earlier, closely-related, and overlapping cultural groups. The first of these is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture present around the upper Danube from c. 1300 BCE. The name of this culture derives from the common practice of interring the cremated remains of the deceased in urns and burying them. These peoples remain obscure for lack of archaeological evidence. From the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE and over the next two or three centuries, ironworking technology spread across Europe. As a consequence, iron replaced bronze as the metal of choice to make stronger and more durable tools and weapons.

The second proto-Celtic group was the Hallstatt culture, named after the site of that name in Upper Austria, which existed from c. 1200 to c. 450 BCE but was at its peak in the 8th to 6th century BCE. The Hallstatt culture spread to cover what is today western Austria, southern Germany, Switzerland, and eastern France on the one side, and eastern Austria, Bohemia, and parts of the Balkans on the other. It was the western side of this area that would eventually develop into what we might today call the ancient Celts. The Hallstatt culture likely spread via various means such as trade, tribal alliances, intermarriages, imitation, and migration. These peoples prospered thanks to local deposits of salt, iron, and copper; commodities which could be traded along waterways. That trade reached as far south as the Mediterranean cultures (the Etruscans in Italy and the Greek colonies in southern France) is evidenced by the presence of imported goods in Hallstatt burial mounds and precious goods such as gold and amber jewellery. The Hallstatt culture went into decline in the 5th century BCE, likely due to local resources running out, increased tribal competition, and the shift of trade routes elsewhere.

La Tène centres were particularly successful around major river points such as the Loire, Marne, Moselle & Elbe.

The third group significant in the formation of Celtic culture proper is the La Tène culture (c. 450 - c. 50 BCE), named after the site of that name on the northern shores of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Perhaps best identified as a group of diverse tribes unified by common features in art and religion, the La Tène culture was eventually present in a wide arc covering western and central Europe, spanning from Ireland to Romania. Cultural features include ironworking, making votive offerings in water sources, depositing weapons in tombs, and art which is stylised with swirling, geometrical, and vegetal designs. Once again, there is a multitude of evidence for trade with the Mediterranean states. La Tène centres were particularly successful around major river points such as the Loire, Marne, Moselle, and Elbe. The La Tène culture does not exactly correspond to the Celtic peoples since it existed in non-Celtic areas, for example in Germanic-speaking Denmark. Nevertheless, the term La Tène, one originally coined by archaeologists to classify artefacts, is still commonly (if imprecisely) used as a synonym for Celtic culture in Europe during the second half of the first millennium BCE.

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Celtic Language

One of the striking points of connection between many of the peoples of Iron Age Europe is their common language: Celtic. The Celtic language is a branch of the Indo-European language family. Scholars have divided Celtic languages into two groups: Insular Celtic and Continental Celtic. The latter group was no longer widely spoken after the Roman imperial period, and, unfortunately, the only surviving examples of it are mentions in the works of Greek and Roman writers and some short epigraphic remains such as pottery graffiti and votive and funerary stelae. The best documented of this group is Gaulish.

The Insular Celtic group of languages are two: British or Brittonic (Breton, Cornish, and Welsh) and Goidelic (Irish and its medieval derivatives, Scots Gaelic, and Manx). Brittonic was spoken in all of Britain in the Roman period. From it evolved Cumbrian (extinct since medieval times), Cornish (no longer spoken after the 18th century CE but recently revived), Breton (likely introduced by 5th-century CE British settlers and not connected directly to Gaulish), and Welsh, which is still spoken today. The earliest evidence of Goidelic-Irish dates to the 5th century CE, and it later evolved into Middle Irish (c. 950-1200 CE) and, thereafter, morphed again into Modern Irish, which is still spoken today.

The second common characteristic of those people we call ancient Celts is their religion. This was a polytheistic religion with a multitude of gods, although our knowledge of them is limited to classical authors given the lack of written works by the Celts themselves. Variations existed across regions and the centuries, but common features of the ancient Celtic religion include:

the reverence for sacred groves and other natural sites like rivers and springs.

the dedication of votive offerings to gods such as foodstuffs, weapons, animal and (more rarely) human sacrifice.

the depositing of valuable and everyday goods with the deceased in tombs, indicating a belief in an afterlife.

a belief in the protective power of totems, particularly animals like the stag and boar.

a reverence for the human head, which was considered the location of the soul.

the use of taboos to ensure compliance with religious and community rules.

ceremonies led by druids.

With druids loath to commit their knowledge to writing, there are no surviving sacred texts, hymns, or prayers for the Celtic religion. Key gods were given all-embracing powers or characteristics, and these include Cernunnos, 'the horned god' who likely represented nature and fertility. Another major figure is Lugus (known as Lugh in later periods), perhaps the only universally worshipped god in the Celtic world, who represented the sun and who was regarded as all-wise and all-seeing. There were many female goddesses associated with healing springs and rivers such as Sequana, a personification of the River Seine, and Epona, who was linked with horses.

An unusual feature of Celtic gods was that some were viewed as a trio, perhaps representing three different aspects of the same divinity. One trinity example is the three mother goddesses, the Matronae who represent individually the similar concepts of strength, power, and fertility. Of the numerous local and regional gods, many were associated with those things of primary concern to everyday life such as warfare, sovereignty, tribal identity, healing, hunting, and the protection of specific groups like mothers and children. There was a Greek and Roman influence on the Celtic religion from the 2nd century BCE when Celtic sacred sites, which had previously been mere clearings surrounded by earthworks, began to use larger stone temples. So, too, some Greco-Roman gods were incorporated into the Celtic pantheon.

Celtic Society

Once again, without first-hand written records it is difficult to reconstruct the intricacies of ancient Celtic society. Nevertheless, we do know that society in many Celtic tribes was hierarchical. At the top were rulers and elite warriors, then there were the religious leaders and repositories of the community's collected knowledge, the druids, who were exempt from taxes and military service. Then there were specialised craftworkers, traders, slaves, and farmers - the largest group by far in societies that were rural and agrarian.

Celtic societies were led first by monarchs and then by elected chiefs or, alternatively, a small council of elders. Over time, many tribes joined together for mutual assistance or became dependent on another, more powerful one and so paid some kind of tribute. By the end of the period, there were large confederations of tribes, joined to meet the common threat from the Romans. We know that some women were chiefs in Celtic Britain, for example, Cartimandua, ruler of the Brigantes tribe in the north of England in the mid-1st century CE, and Boudicca (d. 61 CE), queen of the Iceni tribe, who led a revolt of several tribes against the Roman occupation in 60 CE. There is also evidence that some women were treated as equally as men in terms of burial with precious goods, for example, in the 6th-5th century BCE Vix burial near Châtillon-sur-Seine in northeast France.

There was a strong kinship system where rulers and their extended family dominated the society through their ownership of land and revenue from trade. Rulers maintained the loyalty of their followers through gift-giving, organising Celtic feasts, and social display. Ties were reinforced between families by fostering children with other aristocratic families, a method also used to bind different tribes together in alliances. There was also a system where the elite undertook the welfare and protection of those who gave some sort of service in return, much like feudalism in the Middle Ages.

Except for slaves, there is no evidence of any barriers for the child of one of the social groups to eventually enter another group provided they acquired the necessary wealth (through valour in war, for example) or went through the required education or apprenticeship, which for a druid lasted some 20 years. Julius Caesar (c. 100-44 BCE) noted in his Gallic Wars that Celtic women in Gaul brought to their husbands a dowry and that this could be inherited by the woman if her partner died before her. Caesar also noted that husbands had the power of life and death over their wives and their children. Whether these assessments are accurate and whether they applied to Celts elsewhere is much debated by scholars.

Alongside language and religious practices, another common feature of Celts throughout Europe is the art they produced. Celtic art was influenced by that of the earlier indigenous Iron Age cultures mentioned above and by neighbouring cultures or trading partners like the Thracians, Scythians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, and through these peoples, ideas from the Near East. Materials used include pottery, stone, iron, bronze, and gold with extra decoration achieved using imported exotic materials like glass, coral, and amber. Metals were cast, engraved, punched, traced, inlaid, and worked on using repoussé (grooving the material from behind to create a relief on the other side). Typical art objects include ornate cauldrons, sandstone or wooden human figures, Celtic bronze shields, gold torcs, penannular brooches (composed of a pin and ring), and animal figurines to be used as votive offerings.

Prominent features of Celtic art include:

a love of flowing forms.

depictions of gods and warriors, particularly the heads of these.

depictions of animals (real or imagined), especially stags, boars, horses, and hunting dogs.

a love of complex vegetal designs, abstract patterns, and swirling interlocking lines.

a desire to beautify even functional everyday items.

a desire to convey messages of power and religious ideas.

Trade in the Celtic World

As noted above, the proto-Celtic cultures in western and central Europe had already established trade links with the Mediterranean cultures, and this continued with the Celts. Tin from Britain, amber from the Baltic, and horses from eastern Europe and the Balkans were also imported and used or passed on southwards. Celtic resources which were traded included salt, slaves, iron, gold, wool cloth, and furs. These goods were exchanged for wine (in huge quantities), silver, luxury manufactured goods (like bronze flagons, fine Greek pottery, and Etruscan bronze kraters), silk, and the precious materials for use in art objects and jewellery mentioned in the previous section.

Trade had secondary consequences besides giving access to scarce resources. Ideas in art, religion, and technology were passed on. The Celts adopted flat grave burials and minted their own coins, for example. There was, too, an increase in the competition between Celtic tribes to acquire the resources needed for trade. The Celtic world was expanding its horizons and the creation of an ever-growing rich elite would have consequences for the wider continent as the Celts began to enviously eye the very heartlands of their rich trading partners and vice-versa.

That warfare was a major part of Celtic culture is clear from the number of gods in the ancient Celtic pantheon associated with war and the great number of weapons deposited in tombs. Courage and prowess on the battlefield were also important in determining status within society. Celtic warriors in Gaul are described as bleaching their long hair using lime-water, while in Britain, they painted designs on their bodies. Several classical authors also comment on the strange fact that Celtic warriors could enter battle naked and that they collected the heads of their victims. Many Celtic warriors wore a torc necklace, and these were likely a symbol of status and rank within the community. There is evidence that Celtic women participated in warfare.

Celtic warriors used spears, long swords, and distinctive large rectangular or oval shields. Celtic armies employed slingers, chariots, and cavalry, while organization on the battlefield was achieved through the use of standards and war horns. Celtic armies did cause quite a few problems for their neighbours from the 4th century BCE onwards as tribes moved west, south, and eastwards in waves to find new wealth opportunities in what is sometimes called the Celtic Migration. Brennus, chief of the Gallic Senones tribe, famously sacked Rome in 390 BCE, and the Celts again caused havoc when they looted Delphi in 279 BCE as they passed through Greece on their way to Asia where they became known as the Galatians. The Celtic collection of tribes attacked the Romans again in 225 BCE and were frequent mercenary allies of Carthage during the Punic Wars (264-146 BCE). In the longer term, though, Celtic armies were no match for more disciplined and better-equipped enemies like the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Romans in large-scale battles. However, once conquered, Celtic warriors, who had always been recognised for their bravery, did subsequently fight successfully as mercenaries in many Greek and Roman armies.

Decline & Legacy

The first real sign of trouble in the Celtic world was a marked increase in local competition for resources and trade opportunities, and this manifested itself in the building of in the 2nd and 1st century BCE. An was the Roman name for larger settlements which we now apply specifically to fortified sites, usually located on high points in the landscape or on plains at naturally defensible points like river bends. The fortifications usually consisted of an earthworks circuit wall, sometimes with outer ditches. Oppida were used as a point of refuge in war and otherwise as a safe place to concentrate manufacturing workshops and store the community's resources.

This hostile environment deteriorated further when the Romans became intent on revenge for the havoc caused by the migrating Celtic tribes in the two previous centuries and, lured by the promise of gold and other resources, total conquest. In 125 BCE the Romans attacked the Arverni tribe in Gaul and, less than a century later, Julius Caesar attacked and conquered Gaul, despite stiff resistance from such tribal leaders as Vercingetorix (82-46 BCE). The Roman Empire kept on expanding, direct attacks were made on such important community figures as the druids, and so the continental Celts and those in southern Britain were eventually assimilated into Roman culture. The Celts did continue to thrive in more isolated places like Ireland and northern Britain. It is from these areas that Celtic culture would continue into the medieval period and express itself most visibly in the epic poems of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish medieval literature and in art, now Christianized. The old Celtic traditions lived on in these epic poems and in the form of complex curvilinear designs within illuminated manuscripts, in the ubiquitous penannular brooches, and in the sophisticated vegetal motifs on imposing stone crosses in churchyards.

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The Ancient Celts were various tribal groups living in parts of western and central Europe in the Late Bronze Age and through the Iron Age (c. 700 BCE to c. 400 CE). Given the name Celts by ancient writers, these tribes and their culture migrated and so they established a presence in territories from Portugal to Turkey.

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Babylon is the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia whose ruins lie in modern-day Iraq 59 miles (94 kilometres) southwest of Baghdad. The name is thought to derive from or bav-ilim which, in the Akkadian language of the time, meant 'Gate of God' or 'Gate of the Gods' and 'Babylon' coming from Greek.

The city owes its fame (or infamy) to the many references the Bible makes to it; all of which are unfavourable. In the Book of Genesis, chapter 11, Babylon is featured in the story of The Tower of Babel and the Hebrews claimed the city was named for the confusion which ensued after God caused the people to begin speaking in different languages so they would not be able to complete their great tower to the heavens (the Hebrew word bavel means 'confusion').

Babylon also appears prominently in the biblical books of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, among others, and, most notably, The Book of Revelation. It was these biblical references which sparked interest in Mesopotamian archaeology and the expedition by the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey who first excavated the ruins of Babylon in 1899 CE.

Outside of the sinful reputation given it by the Bible, the city is known for its impressive walls and buildings, its reputation as a great seat of learning and culture, the formation of a code of law which pre-dates the Mosaic Law, and for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which were man-made terraces of flora and fauna, watered by machinery, which were cited by ancient writers as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Babylon was founded at some point prior to the reign of Sargon of Akkad (also known as Sargon the Great) who ruled from 2334-2279 BCE and claimed to have built temples at Babylon (other ancient sources seem to indicate that Sargon himself founded the city). At that time, Babylon seems to have been a minor city or perhaps a large port town on the Euphrates River at the point where it runs closest to the river Tigris.

The known history of Babylon begins with its most famous king: Hammurabi.

Whatever early role the city played in the ancient world is lost to modern-day scholars because the water level in the region has risen steadily over the centuries and the ruins of Old Babylon have become inaccessible. The ruins which were excavated by Koldewey, and are visible today, date only to well over one thousand years after the city was founded.

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The historian Paul Kriwaczek, among other scholars, claims it was established by the Amorites following the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur. This information, and any other pertaining to Old Babylon, comes to us today through artifacts which were carried away from the city after the Persian invasion or those which were created elsewhere.

The known history of Babylon, then, begins with its most famous king: Hammurabi (r.1792-1750 BCE). This obscure Amorite prince ascended to the throne upon the abdication of his father, King Sin-Muballit, and fairly quickly transformed the city into one of the most powerful and influential in all of Mesopotamia.

Hammurabi's law codes are well known but are only one example of the policies he implemented to maintain peace and encourage prosperity. He enlarged and heightened the walls of the city, engaged in great public works which included opulent temples and canals, and made diplomacy an integral part of his administration. So successful was he in both diplomacy and war that, by 1755 BCE, he had united all of Mesopotamia under the rule of Babylon which, at this time, was the largest city in the world, and named his realm Babylonia.

Following Hammurabi's death, his empire fell apart and Babylonia dwindled in size and scope until Babylon was easily sacked by the Hittites in 1595 BCE. The Kassites followed the Hittites and renamed the city Karanduniash. The meaning of this name is not clear. The Assyrians then followed the Kassites in dominating the region and, under the reign of the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE), Babylon revolted. Sennacherib had the city sacked, razed, and the ruins scattered as a lesson to others.

His extreme measures were considered impious by the people generally and Sennacherib's court specifically and he was soon after assassinated by his sons. His successor, Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BCE), rebuilt Babylon and returned it to its former glory. The city later rose in revolt against Ashurbanipal of Nineveh (r. 668-627 BCE) who besieged and defeated the city but did not damage it to any great extent and, in fact, personally purified Babylon of the evil spirits which were thought to have led to the trouble. The reputation of the city as a center of learning and culture was already well established by this time.

After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, a Chaldean named Nabopolassar took the throne of Babylon and, through careful alliances, created the Neo-Babylonian Empire. His son, Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605/604-562 BCE), renovated the city so that it covered 900 hectares (2,200 acres) of land and boasted some the most beautiful and impressive structures in all of Mesopotamia. Every ancient writer to make mention of the city of Babylon, outside of those responsible for the stories in the Bible, does so with a tone of awe and reverence. Herodotus, for example, writes:

The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty stadia in length each way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty stadia. While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width and two hundred in height.

Although it is generally believed that Herodotus greatly exaggerated the dimensions of the city (and may never have actually visited the place himself) his description echoes the admiration of other writers of the time who recorded the magnificence of Babylon, and especially the great walls, as a wonder of the world. It was under Nebuchadnezzar II's reign that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to have been constructed and the famous Ishtar Gate built. The Hanging gardens are most explicitly described in a passage from Diodorus Siculus (l. 90-30 BCE) in his work Bibliotheca Historica Book II.10:

There was also, because the acropolis, the Hanging Garden, as it is called, which was built, not by Semiramis, but by a later Syrian king to please one of his concubines; for she, they say, being a Persian by race and longing for the meadows of her mountains, asked the king to imitate, through the artifice of a planted garden, the distinctive landscape of Persia. The park extended four plethra on each side, and since the approach to the garden sloped like a hillside and the several parts of the structure rose from one another tier on tier, the appearance of the whole resembled that of a theatre. When the ascending terraces had been built, there had been constructed beneath them galleries which carried the entire weight of the planted garden and rose little by little one above the other along the approach; and the uppermost gallery, which was fifty cubits high, bore the highest surface of the park, which was made level with the circuit wall of the battlements of the city. Furthermore, the walls, which had been constructed at great expense, were twenty-two feet thick, while the passage-way between each two walls was ten feet wide. The roofs of the galleries were covered over with beams of stone sixteen feet long, inclusive of the overlap, and four feet wide. The roof above these beams had first a layer of reeds laid in great quantities of bitumen, over this two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and as a third layer a covering of lead, to the end that the moisture from the soil might not penetrate beneath. On all this again earth had been piled to a depth sufficient for the roots of the largest trees; and the ground, which was levelled off, was thickly planted with trees of every kind that, by their great size or any other charm, could give pleasure to beholder. And since the galleries, each projecting beyond another, all received the light, they contained many royal lodgings of every description; and there was one gallery which contained openings leading from the topmost surface and machines for supplying the garden with water, the machines raising the water in great abundance from the river, although no one outside could see it being done. Now this park, as I have said, was a later construction.

This part of Diodorus' work concerns the semi-mythical queen Semiramis (most probably based on the actual Assyrian queen Sammu-Ramat who reigned 811-806 BCE). His reference to "a later Syrian king" follows Herodotus' tendency of referring to Mesopotamia as ` Assyria'. Recent scholarship on the subject argues that the Hanging Gardens were never located at Babylon but were instead the creation Sennacherib at his capital of Nineveh. The historian Christopher Scarre writes:

Sennacherib's palace [at Nineveh] had all the usual accoutrements of a major Assyrian residence: colossal guardian figures and impressively carved stone reliefs (over 2,000 sculptured slabs in 71 rooms). Its gardens, too, were exceptional. Recent research by British Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley has suggested that these were the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Later writers placed the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, but extensive research has failed to find any trace of them. Sennacherib's proud account of the palace gardens he created at Nineveh fits that of the Hanging Gardens in several significant details (231).

If the gardens were in Babylon they would have been part of the central complex of the city. The Euphrates River divided the city in two between an 'old' and a 'new' city with the Temple of Marduk and the great towering ziggurat in the center where, most likely, the gardens were also located. Streets and avenues were widened to better accommodate the yearly processional of the statue of the great god Marduk in the journey from his home temple in the city to the New Year Festival Temple outside the Ishtar Gate.

The Persian Conquest & Babylon's Decline

The Neo-Babylonian Empire continued after the death of Nebuchadnezzar II and Babylon continued to play an important role in the region under the rule of Nabonidus and his successor Belshazzar (featured in the biblical Book of Daniel). In 539 BCE the empire fell to the Persians under Cyrus the Great at the Battle of Opis. Babylon's walls were impregnable and so the Persians cleverly devised a plan whereby they diverted the course of the Euphrates River so that it fell to a manageable depth.

Under Persian rule, Babylon flourished as a center of art & education.

While the residents of the city were distracted by one of their great religious feast days, the Persian army waded the river and marched under the walls of Babylon unnoticed. It was claimed the city was taken without a fight although documents of the time indicate that repairs had to be made to the walls and some sections of the city and so perhaps the action was not as effortless as the Persian account maintained.

Under Persian rule, Babylon flourished as a center of art and education. Cyrus and his successors held the city in great regard and made it the administrative capital of their empire (although at one point the Persian emperor Xerxes felt obliged to lay siege to the city after another revolt). Babylonian mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy were highly respected and it is thought that Thales of Miletus (known as the first western philosopher) may have studied there and that Pythagoras developed his famous mathematical theorem based upon a Babylonian model.

When, after 200 years, the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, he also gave great reverence to the city, ordering his men not to damage the buildings nor molest the inhabitants. The historian Stephen Bertman writes:

Before his death, Alexander the Great ordered the superstructure of Babylon's ziggurat pulled down in order that it might be rebuilt with greater splendor. But he never lived to bring his project to completion. Over the centuries, its scattered bricks have been cannibalized by peasants to fulfill humbler dreams. All that is left of the fabled Tower of Babel is the bed of a swampy pond. (14)

After Alexander's death at Babylon in 323 BCE, in the Wars of the Diadochi, his successors fought over his empire generally and the city specifically to the point where the residents fled for their safety (or, according to one ancient report, were relocated). By the time the Parthian Empire ruled the region in 141 BCE Babylon was deserted and forgotten. The city steadily fell into ruin and, even during a brief revival under the Sassanian Empire, never approached its former greatness.

In the Muslim conquest of the land in 650 CE whatever remained of Babylon was swept away and, in time, was buried beneath the sands. In the 17th and 18th centuries CE European travelers began to explore the area and return home with various artifacts. These cuneiform blocks and statues led to an increased interest in the region and, by the 19th century CE, an interest in biblical archaeology drew men like Robert Koldewey who uncovered the ruins of the once-great city of the Gate of the Gods.

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Babylon is the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia whose ruins lie in modern-day Iraq 59 miles (94 kilometres) southwest of Baghdad. The name is thought to derive from or bav-ilim which, in the Akkadian language of the time, meant 'Gate of God' or 'Gate of the Gods' and 'Babylon' coming from Greek.

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Kids learn about the history of the Babylonian Empire. Empire of the city of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Hanging Gardens.

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