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The Basques: A Timeless People

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The Basques were an ancient people. They endure to this day as a unique ethnic group, with mysterious origins and a culture that grew in almost complete isolation, leading to enormous distinctions from their surrounding peoples. Everything from their language to their DNA is unrelated to the surrounding tribes. The history of the Basques is long and unique, and their cultural identity has been shaped by their distinctive language, Euskara, as well as their geographic location in the western Pyrenees. The Basques are considered one of the oldest ethnic groups in Europe, and their history is characterized by a rich cultural heritage, autonomy struggles, and a resilient identity. The Basques are believed to be one of Europe's oldest ethnic groups, with roots that may trace back to pre-Indo-European populations in the region. Their language, Euskara, is unrelated to any other known language, making it a linguistic isolate. According to one scholar, even the Basques themselves are an un...
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Sparta: A Kingdom Built on Blood and Honor

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Sparta, or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, located in the southeastern Peloponnese. It rose to prominence around the 10th century BCE, when Dorian Greeks settled there after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. According to legend, Sparta was founded by King Lacedaemon and named after his wife, Sparta.  In its early years, Sparta was much like other Greek city-states: small, agricultural, and ruled by kings. Over time, however, it developed a unique and highly militarized society. Yet, Sparta (‘the sown land’?) lies 56 km. (35 miles) south of Tegea, and 48 km. (30 mi.) north of Gytheum, at the heart of the fertile alluvial valley of the Eurotas in the district of Laconia Southwest Peloponnes. Dorians, who were the occupants of Sparta, or Spartiates, enjoyed full civil rights, whereas the occupants of the villages around Sparta, the perioikoi, had only local independence. The subject population of the area ruled by Sparta (Laconia) had no rights what...
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Before the Fall: The World of the Sasanians

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In order to fully understand the history of the Sassanid Empire and how the Sassanid dynasty came to be the rulers of the Neo-Persian Empire, we must go back to the formation of the Achaemenid Empire. Their rule extended from a region that the natives called Parsa, and in Greek that region was called Farsis. That region was located near the Zagros Mountains in present-day southern Iran and extended to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Their homeland became the name of the entire empire we know today as Persia in Hellenistic pronunciation. From the 6th century BC. From the middle to the 4th BC. By the end, the First Persian Empire had expanded its empire over three continents and controlled the region. For a short time, much of the empire was incorporated into Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire, which united and unified Greece, Persia, and other Eastern cultures. Thus, a Hellenistic culture was created, which was largely Greek in origin, but was not so accepted by the Persians. ...
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Who Were the Aryans? Memory, Myth, and Meaning in Indian History

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Aryans the so-called Aryans (Sanskrit arya. Old Iranian airya) were Indo-European tribes who migrated from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and beyond in the third millennium B.C.E. They were patriarchal warriors who brought powerful male gods with them as they migrated eventually into Greece, Anatolia, the Fertile Crescent, Iran, and India.   The Harappan civilization began to decline by about 1900 B.C.E. and was overrun by northern nomads in about 1500 B.C.E. These nomads, called Aryans, began the Vedic culture in India, a culture with a caste social system.   In fact, on the Indian Subcontinent the early influx of Aryans, who arrived in waves from the north sometime between 1500 and 1300 B.C.E. (in what historians alternately describe as “invasions” and “migrations”), accounted for the importation of much of the foundations of future Indian culture, such as the language of Sanskrit. The Aryans themselves in time fully integrated with the darker resident populations of the val...
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