Contributions To Humanity in Ancient History
From the humble brick, to the windmill, Persians have mixed creativity with art and offered the world numerous contributions. What follows is a list of just a few examples of the cultural contributions of Greater Persia.
- (10,000 BC) - Earliest known domestication of the goat.
- (6000 BC) - The modern brick. Some of the oldest bricks found to date are Persian, from c. 6000 BC.
- (~5000 BC) - Invention of Wine. Discovery made by University of Pennsylvania excavations at Hajji Firuz Tepe in northwestern Iran.
- (5000 BC) - Invention of the Tar (lute), which led to the development of the guitar.
- (3000 BC) - The ziggurat. The Sialk ziggurat, according to the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran, predates that of Ur or any other of Mesopotamia's 34 ziggurats.
- (2500 BC) - First Banking System of the World, at the time of the Achaemenid, establishment of Governmental Banks to help farmers at the time of drought, floods, and other natural disasters in form of loans and forgiveness loans to restart their farms and husbandries. These Governmental Banks were effective in different forms until the end of Sassanian Empire before invasion of Arabs to Persia.
- (2500 BC) - The word Check has a Persian root in old Persian language. The use of this document as a check was in use from Achaemenid time to the end of Sassanian Empire. The word of in modern Persian language is new version of old Avestan and Pahlavi language "Check". In Persian it means a document which resembles money value for gold, silver and property. By law people were able to buy and sell these documents or exchange them.
- (2000 BC) - Peaches are a fruit of Iranian origin, as indicated by their Latin scientific name, Prunus persica, from which (by way of the French) we have the English word "peach."
- Tulips were first cultivated in ancient Persia.
- (1400 BC) - The game of Backgammon appears in the east of Iran.
- (1400 BC to 600 BC) - Zoroastrianism: where the first prophet of a monotheistic faith arose according to some scholars, claiming Zoroastrianism as being "the oldest of the revealed credal religions, which has probably had more influence on mankind directly or indirectly, more than any other faith".
- (576 BC to 529 BC) - Under the rule of Cyrus II the Great, the Cyrus Cylinder was issued. It was discovered in 1879 in Babylon and today is kept in the British Museum.
- (576 BC to 529 BC) - Under the rule of Cyrus II the Great, Cyrus frees the Jews from Babylonian captivity. See Cyrus in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
- (521 BC) - The game Polo.
- (500 BC) - World's oldest Staple (fastener).
- (500 BC) - The first Taxation system (under the Achaemenid Empire).
- (500 BC) - The first courier post. Also called the "Royal Road".
- (500 BC) - Source for introduction of the domesticated chicken into Europe.
- (500 BC) - First cultivation of spinach.
- (400 BC) - Yakhchals, ancient refrigerators. (See picture above)
- (400 BC) - Ice cream.
- (250 BC) - According to archaeological digs, the Parthians created the world's first batteries. Their original use is still uncertain, though it is suspected that they were used for electroplating.
- (250 BC) Original excavation of a Suez Canal.
- (271 AD) - The teaching hospital
- (700 AD) - The cookie.
- (700 AD) - The windmill.
- (864 AD-930 AD) - First systematic use of alcohol in Medicine: Rhazes.
- (1000 AD) - Introduction of paper to the west.
- (935 - 1020) - Ferdowsi writes the Shahnama (Book of Kings) that resulted in the revival of Iranian culture and the expansion of the Iranian cultural sphere.
- (980 - 1037) - Avicenna, a physician, writes The Canon of Medicine one of the foundational manuals in the history of modern medicine.
- (1207 AD - 1273 AD) - Rumi writes poetry and in 1997, the translations were best-sellers in the United States.
- Algebra and Trigonometry: Numerous Iranians were directly responsible for the establishment of Algebra, the advancement of Medicine and Chemistry, and the discovery of Trigonometry.
- Qanat, subterranean aqueducts.
- Wind catchers, ancient air residential conditioning.
- "Virtually all European scholars claim Arabic music has Persian origins".
Read more about this topic: Iranian Society
Famous quotes containing the words contributions to, humanity, ancient and/or history:
“The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“The Ancient Mariner seizes the guest at the wedding feast and will not let go until he has told all his story: the prototype of the bore.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)