Sassanid Persia; the Philistines, Deylamites, Caanan...
The earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician script, a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet; a linear, non-Cuneiform abjad of acrophonic glyphs found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age to 1050 BCE. Its cities and colonies around the Mediterranean is Byblos (Lebanon) and Carthage, North Africa and a number of Philistine cities including the Sea Peoples. In Akko or Acre in Western Galilee, though the Philistines adopted local Canaanite and Amurru cultures, suggested early cultural links with the Mycenaean world in mainland Greece, but it is certainly the Akka of the Amarna letters from the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep IV. Akhenaten's chief wife was Nefertiti. Amarna letters, consisting of cuneiform tablets mostly written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy for this period on Egyptian relations with Babylonia, Assyria, the Mitanni, the Hittites, Syria, Palestine and Cyprus (Alashiya), and his representative in the Canaan region to the ancient Near East.
The Philistines occupied the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan, that belonged to Egypt up to the closing days of the Nineteenth Dynasty (ended 1185 BC). The Philistines lost their independence to Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria by 736 BC.
Celts then spread to cover Middle Europe from Burgundy to Bohemia and have settled also in Ireland and Britain. Later, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon eventually conquered all of Syria and the Kingdom of Judah, and the former Philistine cities became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The theory that the Sea Peoples of Acre included Greek-speaking tribes of the period has been developed even further to postulate that the Philistines originated in either western Anatolia or the Greek peninsula to Ptolemais from the Macedonian Ptolemy Soter. Philistine, hence Sea Peoples' cultural links with the Mycenean world in mainland Greece is extinct from the Hittite empire; The Egyptian king Ramses III gives the names of the tribes of the Sea People when allied as including: The Peleset are the Philistines, The Tjeker are the Tribe of Manasseh, The Shekelesh the Tribe of Issachar, The Shekelesh the Tribe of Issachar, The Weshesh the Tribe of Asher.
| Deylamite mercenaries served as far as Egypt, Islamic Spain, and Khazar kingdom. Deylamite mercenaries served in Persian armies and where generally considered the best infantry in the middle east up to the time of Mongol invasion. By the time of the Islamic invasion, Gils and Deylamites were Zoroastrian. Muslim chronicles of Varangian (Rus, pre-Russian Norsemen) invasion of the litoral Caspian region in the 9th century BCE record Deylamites as non-Muslim. These chronicles also show that the Deylamite were the only warriors in the Caspian region who could fight the fearsome Varangian vikings as equals. Deylamite infantrymen had a role very similar to the Swiss Reisläufer of the Late Middle Ages in Europe. |  |
The Medes are credited with the foundation of Iran as a nation and empire, and established the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified empire of the Medes and Persians, often referred to as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, by defeating his grandfather and overlord, Astyages the shah of Media. Until that point, all Iranians were referred to as Mede or Mada by the peoples of the Ancient World.
Medes in ancient times intermarried with other Iranians, Persians. Thus many modern Iranians are descendants of the Medes. However, Mede heritage today is primarily claimed by the Kurds and other groups in the western part of the Iranian plateau, including the Lurs, Isfahanis and Azeris. Apart from a few personal names, the language of the Medes is almost entirely unknown, but was undoubtedly quite similar to the Avestan and Scythian languages. But the Gelae, Tapuri, Cadusii, Amardi, Utii and other tribes in northern Media and on the shores of the Caspian may not have been Iranian stock. In the southeasternmost corner of the plains, north of the woods of Thrace, Philip II of Macedon settled Macedonian trading towns along routes as far north as the Danube during the 330s BC. Shortly after 300 BC, the Celts seem to have displaced the Scythians from the Balkans, while in south Russia a kindred tribe, the Sarmatians, gradually overwhelmed them, probably making an amalgam with some of the tribes of eastern Central Asia such as the Tochari, the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Dahae.
According to Strabo, the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Dahae, but those who are situated more to the east than these are named Massagetae and Sacae, whereas all the rest are given the general name of Scythians, though each people is given a separate name of its own. They are all for the most part nomads. But the best known of the nomads are those who took away Bactriana from the Greeks (i.e. Greco-Bactrians); the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli, who originally came from the country on the other side of the Jaxartes River that adjoins that of the Sacae and the Sogdiani and was occupied by the Sacae. And as for the Däae, some of them are called Aparni, some Xanthii, and some Pissuri. Now of these the Aparni are situated closest to Hyrcania and the part of the sea that borders on it, but the remainder extend even as far as the country that stretches parallel to Aria." (Strabo, Geography, 11.8.1) Strabo's description places Dahae nomads and most of the Scythians beginning from the Caspian Sea towards the east of Massagetae and Sacae, in the area around modern Turkmenistan.
There is some evidence to believe that members of Ispahbadh clan ruled at least parts of Gilan during the Sassanid era, Seven Parthian Clans were seven different Parthian clans who constituted the Dahae Confederation of Scythia. Later they joined Alexander of Macedon in his quest to India.
The Dahae tribe dissolved with the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. At different times, the Achaemenids also ruled Egypt, although the Egyptians twice regained their independence from Persia. In the 6th century BCE, the inhabitants of Guilan (such as the Gil Gilanshah and Daylam) allied with Cyrus the Great conquered Media, Lydia and Babylon. Strabo's description places Dahae nomads in the area around modern Turkmenistan. Dahae, together with other Scythian tribes were known to fight on the side of Darius III of Persia diring the Battle of Gaugamela. Later they joined Alexander of Macedon in his quest to India. The tribe dissolved with the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. A branch of Dahae called Parni migrated from the territory of 'Dahestan' to the south and mingled with the local Parthians who were an Iranian people like the Dahae. The parni Parthians established the Iranian dynasty of Arsacids which regained Iranian terriroty for Iranians.
Gilan was loosely allied with the Parthian and Sassanid empires. Seven clans shared the administration of the Parthian Empire. People of Gilan were organized in tribes. Caspi (who gave their name to the Caspian sea), and Amardi (who lived in the Sepid Rud valley) were the main two tribes during the Achaemenid dynasty era. By the time of Sassanids, the people of the Gilan's mountains were called Deylamites and the people of the Caspian coast were called Gel, Gelai, Gil or Gilak.