Word: persia
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This Elizabethan description of nomadic Persians (from Hakluyt's Principal Voyages) would have been accurate in the time of Herodotus (circa 484-425 B.C.) and was still accurate in A.D. 1926, when Persia's modern-minded Reza Shah Pahlavi began his reign, set about freeing the women of their veils, ordered the men into Western suits and decided that nomadic existence was "a blot on his progressive country." Harried by the Shah's troops, the nomadic tribes "settled," but in 1941, when Reza was forced to abdicate after the Allies moved into Persia, the tribes went back...
...have long since disappeared. But lessons passed on by the old masters can still be seen in the paintings and sculpture of the vigorous, expansive T'ang Dynasty, which ruled from 618 through 906, conquered an empire that stretched east to Korea and westward to the borders of Persia...
...supreme above all the other gods of the densely populated Mesopotamian pantheon. This religious move was a tactical mistake; the local priests had a vested interest in other gods, and their machinations drove Nabonidus into the wilderness. He came back after a while, but was overwhelmed by Cyrus of Persia...
...Turms, who clobbers men, conquers women and seeks his ease in the lap of the gods ("I saw her, the goddess, taking shape and resting lightly on the couch, lovelier than all earthly women . . ."). Turms is also busy making history. He contributes to the death struggle between Greece and Persia by setting fire to the temple of the Persian goddess Cybele in Sardis, helps incite war between Carthage and Sicily, insults the majesty of Rome, and leads his fellow Etruscans to ruin on the bloody field of Himera. In the end he goes alone to his doomed homeland in Etruria...
...10th century A.D. Its invincible generals vanquished the Tartars and subdued the Turkish tribes to open the camel caravan route across central Asia. Chinese silk merchants returned bringing exotic wares and gifts-fiery Bactrian stallions and two-humped camels, spices from Arabia, rich embroideries from Persia. The capital city of Ch'ang-an was thrown open to foreign traders, to Buddhists, Christians, Manichaeans and Jews alike. All that was rich and rare T'ang artists converted to bear their own vigorous stamp...