The Possibility of the Existence of An Older Ancestral Land for the People of Parsua Based on the Contents of Written Archaeological Sources and Historical-Mythological Names

Based on the data extracted from Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, this is a famous fact that the report of Shalmaneser III is the earliest text, which has mentioned the political presence of a group of people named Parsuans as the league of 27 rulers" in the second half of the 9th century B.C. Archaeomythology is an integral part of the analysis of culture and historiography of historical nations. The information provided by Greek-speaking authors about the roots of the name of Persians (Πέρσαι) may be one of the basic data used in the background of Archaeomythological research. In this article, based on the components of this archaeological approach, the possibility of dealing with older evidence of the identity and political presence of Persian ancestors or people of Parsua was investigated. The present study showed that a solution could be proposed to establish a connection between the mythological data in written sources and those archaeological written documents obtained from excavations and obtain an older trace of their presence based on this method.

KURPár-su-a-a was a land located in the west of the Iranian plateau on the way of the Assyrian army into the settlements of "A-ma-da-a-a" or Western Medes regions close to "māt Úrarṭu", "Mannai", "Zamua", and "Gizil-p/bunda". The first document referring to the Assyrians' approaching to the Persians was the third paragraph of the fourth column written by Šalmanaser III (A.0.102.6) (Luckenbill 1926: 206; Grayson, 1996: 40). It referred not to a land or a country (KUR or māt), but to a city (URU) by that name. After the reign of Šalmanaser, a land with the same name or in the form of KUR.par-su-áš with the same geographical area was mentioned in the inscriptions of his successors until the 7th century BC. We encountered KUR.par-su-áš in the South Zagros near Anshan (Grayson, 2014: 194, 335), which created some challenges.

In this article, two types of components were considered to analyze the data. One of them was historical nomens (geographical  and ethnical toponymies), which were related to political-ethnic groups and their lands of residence. The other one included the names derived from the mythological justifications in the old texts that were mentioned later in relation to the events or subjects. For example, there was an awareness that the geographical descent name of Pārsa appeared both in Mesopotamian texts (Component A1) (old Persian (comparative evidence of Component 1)) and in Greek texts. In the contents of these Greek texts, there was mainly an explanatory narrative (Witness Component B1) as to why an event occurred or why a name was given to a population based on Greek mythology. In this case, the origin of the Persians nomen in Herodotus's text (Πέρσíς) was also traced back to the myth of "Πέρσης" (Component B1). Herodotus spok of an older historical name for the Persians (Component B2) and its mythological roots (Witness Component B2) (Herodotus, VII: 61), which formed the basis of the study. This article sought out the historical written form (Component A2=unknown) that was associated with the older name of the Persian population.

According to a mythological view that seemed to have prevailed among the Greeks and that Herodotus wrote in his work, the Persian and Persian names had their roots in "Perseus" (Περσεύς), the Greek mythological hero. Herodotus wrote that the Persians were formerly called "Cephenes" (Κηφῆνες) by the Greeks and "Artai" (plural: Ἀρταῖοι) by themselves, as well as their neighbors. When Perseus, Andromeda, (δρονδρομέδα), a son was born to them, who was named "Persis" (Πέρσης). It was from this child that the Persians got their new name (Herodotus, VII: 61). Although Herodotus's reference was clearly derived from an ancient worldview and classical view of demographic etymologies (naming an ancestor after a city, country, or population), it contained a point that was very important from the point of view of the present article. In the report of Aššr-nāṣir-apli II, son of Tukulti-Ninurta II, which related to his campaign in the first year of his reign (883 BCE), he wrote that he left Kalhu (modern Nimrud), crossed the Tigris and down to the other side of the Tigris coast (south), and reached a land called "K/Qipani" (Kipani; KURqi-pa-ni). In a city called "Ḫuzirina" (URUḫu-zi-ri-na), its rulers took tributes (Luckenbill, 1926: 127; Grayson, 1991: 219). The present village of "Khazraniyah" (coordinates of39.36° 35' N and 26.264° 43' E) located in the eastern part of Sharqat in the province of Salahiddin in Iraq.

Based on the analysis of the geographical data of Assyrian texts, as well as the mythological roots presented for the demographic letters in Herodotus's text, an anonymous comparison was made between the 4 components mentioned in this article. In the Assyrian texts, a demographic identity was sought in the coordinates related to the Assyrian neighbors to see if a suitable case could be found to determine the original form of the ancestral name of the Persians before the time of Shalmaneser III from the phonetic, geographical, and temporal points of view. In the era of Aššr-nāṣir-apli II, the father of Shalmaneser, "Kipani land" was seen. From all the three perspectives, it was appropriate to introduce the historical equivalent of the ancestor of the Parsuan people in the mythological narrative of Herodotus, as well as the issue of Cephenes and Persians.