Author: Daan Nijssen

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.

Continue reading “History of the Nuristani people”

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.

Continue reading “The Graeco-Persian wars in context”

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.

Continue reading “Were the Achaemenids Zoroastrians?”

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.

Continue reading “Pirates of the Aegean”

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.

Continue reading “Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh”

On February 9, 2016 Livius Onderwijs organized a lecture day on the history of monotheism. In ten short lectures lasting ten minutes each, Dutch historians Jona Lendering and Richard Kroes discussed various topics, including the origins of monotheistic thought, the birth of the various monotheistic religions, the reasons why they split up into different sects and the origin of fundamentalism. Of course it is quite a challenge to present such a complex theme in a series of ten mini-lectures. Nevertheless, Jona Lendering and Richard Kroes managed quite well. Their lectures went smooth (aside from a breakdown of the beamer during the second lecture and the fact that some lectures did surpass the ten minute limit) and they managed to introduce the audience to the basics, leaving the wanting for more. Now I am facing the challenge of summarizing these mini-lectures in even fewer words…

Continue reading “Babylon to Baghdad – A History of Monotheism”

In 1066 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invaded Britain and subdued the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxons, in turn, had invaded Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries. Before the Normans and Anglo-Saxons invasions, the original Celtic-speaking Britons had lived on the island for at least a thousand years, leaving a great cultural impact on the region. This indigenous British culture had been slowly dying out since the Anglo-Saxon invasions and was even further endangered by the Normans, who brought along a new wave of French culture. Only in Wales, where people cherished their ancient roots, language and oral traditions, did this original British culture survive. It was in the Welsh town of Monmouth that a certain Geoffrey was born. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and a prolific author who, at the instigation of Archdeacon Walter of Oxford, set out to write a history on the original British people: the Historia Regum Britanniae.

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The Incredible Human Journey (2009) is one of the most exciting and also one of the most comprehensive documentaries on prehistoric human migration out of Africa. In her quest to trace the human journey, anthropologist Alice Roberts travels around the world, visiting the most scenic environments across the five continents, meeting with rare tribes living traditional lifestyles, discussing important archaeological sites and talking to various specialists. No expenses are spared and the result is over four hours worth of great footage that will speak to anyone, regardless of their prior knowledge or even interest in this topic. Throughout the documentary, several mainstream theories on early human migration are discussed in an accessible way. Most of the information is accurate and up-to-date, although I do have some minor comments. In order to give you an idea of the contents of the documentary, I will discuss all five episodes below.
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The Sumerian King List is arguably the oldest historiographical document known to man. It lists all the kings who had ruled over Sumer from primordial times up to the dynasty of Isin (2017-1793 BC). The fact that the Sumerian King List ends with the dynasty of Isin implies that the standard version that we know today was completed during this period. Isin was an Akkadian city state that managed to bring much of Sumer and Akkad under it’s rule after the fall of the Sumerian Ur III dynasty (2112-2004 BC). The Ur III dynasty was the last native Sumerian dynasty and its rulers prouded themselves on being the heirs of former Sumerian dynasties, dating back all the way to Antediluvian (pre-Flood) times. Much of the Sumerian King List, safe from the addition of the kings of Isin, probably already existed during the Ur III period and gives an interesting insight in how the Sumerians in the third millennium BC constructed their past.

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It has long been known that the ancient Babylonians were great astronomers and mathematicians. Already in Hellenistic times Greek authors like Strabo credited the Babylonians with inventing mathematics and astronomy and the discovery of cuneiform clay tablets from the nineteenth century onward has confirmed this notion. Babylonian priests meticulously kept track of the movements of heavenly bodies, since they believed that the paths of the stars and planets had been established by the gods and thus influenced the events on earth. By using advanced mathematics they were able to calculate the paths of the planets and the stars across the night sky and predict lunar eclipses. Up until now it had been believed that these Babylonian astronomers only used simple arithmetics to calculate planetary movements, but a new discovery by Mathieu Ossendrijver, professor of history at Berlin’s Humboldt University, implies that they had knowledge of complex geometry that foreshadowed the development of calculus.

Continue reading “A new insight into Babylonian mathematics”