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Thread: Sassanian Empire

  1. #1
    ariyan's Avatar Civis
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    Default Sassanian Empire

    Hi to all,
    I'm going to show you some pics of the Sassanian.these pics shows you the Sassanian era events that have been recorded on rocks.


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



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    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



























    Last edited by ariyan; November 20, 2014 at 01:14 PM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    useful informations dude
    let me add more informations about Sassanians :

    Sassanian helms









    Sassanian banners and shields








    Sassanian military info


    the informations that we have shows that the Sassanian empire , the roman empire and china were the strongest empires during the time that attila total war starts . so here are some infoes about the Sassanian army :
    (Battle of Samarra) :
    http://i2.wp.com/www.kavehfarrokh.co...-in-363-AD.jpg
    Emperor Julian is killed during his failed invasion of Sassanian Persia in June 26, 363 AD. Above is a recreation of Sassanian Persia’s elite cavalry, the Savaran, as they would have appeared during Julian’s failed invasion. Note the heavily armored Sassanian elite guardsman (Pushtighban) whose lance has pierced a Roman infantryman. Further right is a Savaran officer whose sword is drawn in what is now known as the “Italian grip” which is Sassanian in origin. To the far right can be seen a Zoroastrian or Mithraist Magus brandishing a Sassanian era symbol. Also of interest are the armored elephants in the background. Armored elephants were especially prized as their cabs afforded very high elevation over the battlefield, which was ideal for Sassanian archery ( Picture source: Farrokh, Plate D, -اسواران ساسانی- Elite Sassanian cavalry, 2005).
    ============================================
    http://www.romeomodels.com/images/RM-54-63_1.jpg
    This model ‘Sassanid Heavily Armed Knight’ belongs to the Army of Gyan – Avspar Peshmerga (IV – V century A.D.).This was a heroic clan of warriors, ready to sacrifice their lives in battle. He is armed in a unique and complex way. Wearing body armour with metal plates and chain mail. He is wearing a leather jacket with the “sun” medal covering his chest area, and metal decorated straps over the stomach area. His horned helmet is a complex “Spagenhelm” with full face protection. His weapons consist of a large wooden club, reinforced with metal bands. He carries a wide double-bladed sword with a cross-shaped handle, and a dagger. His defence shield is small and rounded with radial metal reinforcements.

    Text by: Costas Rodopoulos.
    Inspired by an original illustration of Christos Giannopoulos- Historical Artist, released in 2005 for Periscopio Publications – Greece.
    ============================================
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=...15049448127209
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=...15049448127209
    Zhayedan (Immortals) were warriors of an elite unit within the Sassanian army, numbering 10,000 men.[1] They are possibly modeled on the former Immortals, who served the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, and possibly wore the same clothing as their predecessors. These warriors bore some of the finest quality weaponry and armor of the entire Sassanian army. The Zhayedan were led by a commander bearing the title of "Varthagh-Nighan Khvadhay."[2]
    source1 :Sassanian elite cavalry AD 224-642 By Kaveh Farrokh; p. 6
    source2 : Sassanian elite cavalry AD 224-642 By Kaveh Farrokh, Angus McBride
    =============================================
    Sassanian cataphracts

    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/or...87a73c8e6a.jpg
    http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73...fbddcfe6f8.jpg
    pic source : By: Professor A. Sh. Shahbazi
    as we all know cataphracts are heavy armed cavalries and they were one of the most important parts of persian empire's millitary .
    ==============================================
    Sassanian officers and heavy royal units ( the info is written on the pic )
    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/73...e80ac3ff8c.jpg
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ewvRofCAT3...00/sasan+1.jpg
    ==============================================
    Sassanian clibanarii
    the one in the middle : http://up.totalwar.ir/images/4o1ibghq754un9r0akk1.jpg
    http://www.8pic.ir/images/93015797589156195730.jpg
    Greek word κλίβανος meaning "camp oven" or "metallic furnace"[citation needed]) were a Sassanid Persian, late Roman and Byzantine military unit of heavy armored horsemen. Similar to thecataphracti, the horsemen themselves and their horses were fully armoured. There are several theories to the origins of this name, one being that the men were literally nicknamed “camp oven bearers” (due to the amount of armour they wore that the troops heat up very quickly in the heat of battle)[citation needed] or that the name is derived from Persian word griwbanwar or griva-pana-bara meaning "neck-guard wearer".[1]
    The Clibanarii were used mostly by Eastern armies; for example, they were used by thePalmyrene Empire, and fought against the Roman cavalry at Immae and Emesa. Sassanids employed Clibanarii in their western armies, mainly against the Eastern Roman empire. They were more heavily armoured than their Byzantine counterparts. The Clibinarii cavalry of Shapur IIis described by Greek historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman staff officer who served in the army of Constantius II in Gaul and Persia, fought against the Persians under Julian the Apostate, and took part in the retreat of his successor Jovian, as:
    "All the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff-joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skilfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire body was covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tip of their nose they were able to get a little breath. Of these some who were armed with pikes, stood so motionless that you would have thought them held fast by clamps of bronze.
    "The Persians opposed us serried bands of mail-clad horsemen in such close order that the gleam of moving bodies covered with closely fitting plates of iron dazzled the eyes of those who looked upon them, while the whole throng of horses was protected by coverings of leather."

    Osprey images removed due to copyright images - Maximinus Thrax
    Last edited by Maximinus Thrax; November 05, 2014 at 10:40 AM.

  3. #3
    Magister Militum Flavius Aetius's Avatar δούξ θρᾳκήσιου
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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    1. Some of these are Osprey images and need to be removed

    2. Not all of this is historically accurate

  4. #4
    naddum's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Correction - almost *none* of the second post is historically accurate.
    Eran ud Turan - recreating the Iranian, Indian, and Central Asian worlds of late antiquity:
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  5. #5

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Why not?
    Last edited by Robin de Bodemloze; November 06, 2014 at 07:21 AM.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I recommand you a book that has lots of informations about Sassanian cavalries Written by dr.kaveh farrokh ( Archaeologist )
    http://www.ospreypublishing.com/stor...9781841767130/

  7. #7

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I see you've removed the Scandinavian Viking helmet, and that's a step in the right direction. However, you still have a picture of a Saxon helmet there.


  8. #8

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    that is in a same shape as the Sassanian helmet

  9. #9

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    But it's not a Sassanian helmet.


  10. #10

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I know! that was just a example ! the main pics with sources are in the (Sassanian military info) part

  11. #11
    naddum's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I've read the Osprey book, it was mediocre at best. Nicolle's book is a better introduction but still falls very, very short in terms of equipment.

    Neither of the images you have shown show Sasanian helmets, not anything similar to them.

    There is no evidence AT ALL for the use of religious imagery on military banners, and the shields are too decorated. Shields at Panjakent tend to be plain colours or with simple flowers on them.

    In terms of research, #ihavethecrownimaketherules (MMFA will know what I'm referring to!). See the link in my signature for the results of my own research and reconstructions.
    Eran ud Turan - recreating the Iranian, Indian, and Central Asian worlds of late antiquity:
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  12. #12

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    The Farrokh osprey book was so horribly done I don't know what they were thinking. Angus McBride (rip) was normally a great artist but the colors are all oversaturated and these really weird shades - an albino Julian or weird purplish-green sky, and the over abundance of female warrior depictions - one or two was all that was necessary to convey the possibility of female warriors like Gordafarid. But hell, not even the Sarmatian or Scythian osprey books had so many female warriors and they are the ones who gave us the myth of the amazons! His book Shadows in the Desert was better, but still had a lot of speculation. I don't mean to insult him, I just don't know why the quality of that osprey book was so poor.

    If you're not referring to the Montvert Publications one of Nicolle and Angus McBride, then I recommend that one (Sassanian Armies: The Iranian empire early 3rd to mid 7th century AD) by David Nicolle and Angus McBride. There's no more than a handful of iffy remarks (the worst being "The Sassanians made more use of mail before the Romans" - u wot m8), but there's an abundance of primary archaeological depictions and it's probably the best of the mainstream osprey style books, followed by the osprey one by Nicolle and with Farrokh's osprey one tailing a few thousand miles behind.

    On the topic of the Sassanians I've come to the realization that the overabundance of wicker mantles has dissuaded us from the realization of other shields in use - namely oval scutum style shields. We've got the Arch of Galerius depicting them for Sassanians, Strabo about 2 centuries prior using 'thureos' to describe the Albanian's shields and generally invoking them as similar to the Iberians and Armenians, at least one Parthian terracotta of a scutum bearing spearman and one Parthian terracotta of a scutum bearing cavalryman, and the later 5th-7th century accounts of Daylami from the Elburz using oval/rounded shields. So either they randomly chose not to use thureos/scutum style shields while Greeks and Romans were fighting them and only adopted them half a millenia after the fact or they continued to use them since it was introduced into the region in the late hellenistic period. In the Montvert book there's also a 4th-5th century Egyptian coptic picture of Pharoah's army crossing the red sea, with the 2 cavalry and 2 infantry bearing small buckler style shields with the Eastern/Persian topos of phrygian hats.

    I think we just buy into the impression of the stone reliefs and I think the textual account of the top tier Clibinarii/Cataphracts not using shields and then think all the Iranians were either unshielded or spara bearers.
    Last edited by Ahiga; November 06, 2014 at 03:32 PM.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I sort of get the impression that alot of the depictions that the Sassanids and Achaemenids made of themselves and their supposed military gear was mostly ceremonial outfits and not what they might wear in war.

  14. #14
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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Ahiga
    Amazon Female warriors are not myth but truth and history. their equal can be seen in some parts of India and as the recent news revealed, Kobane and Warrior Syrian Female Kurds.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    I know they aren't myth, but we have no evidence to suggest they existed among the Sassanians. They are depicted in almost every drawn plate in that book. No textual accounts from outsiders, the only textual sources I know of from the Persians themselves come centuries later, no archaeological evidence. We have that for the Sarmatians aplenty, we don't for the Sassanids. What's the evidence for them beyond Gordafarid in an Iranian epic written around 400 years after the fall of the Sassanians? Procopius says nothing, Marcellinius says nothing, I don't know of any references by the Muslim conquerors to any such female warriors (I know they reference a female monarch in the Soghdia area, but not female warriors). Considering with their eye to anachronism a Roman author could invoke the memory of Tomrys or the Amazons proper with the Sassanians the same way they might refer to the Red Huns troubling the Persians as "Massagetae" despite the Massagetae disappearing for close to half a millenia. And there's no chance of using an excuse of chauvenism - if anything the Romans would leap to go "look at these Medes who let women do their fighting like Tomrys and Artemisia of Halicarnassus of old". But nothing.
    Last edited by Ahiga; November 06, 2014 at 07:18 PM.

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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Ahiga View Post
    I know they aren't myth, but we have no evidence to suggest they existed among the Sassanians. They are depicted in almost every drawn plate in that book. No textual accounts from outsiders, the only textual sources I know of from the Persians themselves come centuries later, no archaeological evidence. We have that for the Sarmatians aplenty, we don't for the Sassanids. What's the evidence for them beyond Gordafarid in an Iranian epic written around 400 years after the fall of the Sassanians? Procopius says nothing, Marcellinius says nothing, I don't know of any references by the Muslim conquerors to any such female warriors (I know they reference a female monarch in the Soghdia area, but not female warriors). Considering with their eye to anachronism a Roman author could invoke the memory of Tomrys or the Amazons proper with the Sassanians the same way they might refer to the Red Huns troubling the Persians as "Massagetae" despite the Massagetae disappearing for close to half a millenia. And there's no chance of using an excuse of chauvenism - if anything the Romans would leap to go "look at these Medes who let women do their fighting like Tomrys and Artemisia of Halicarnassus of old". But nothing.
    well. i'll talk about them later, have you heard about Xenphon's Crossing in Median Lands to Armenia then west Anatolia? (as some archealogists and even Kurdish public believe themselves as descendants of Hurrians then Medians) have noted i think was page 273 that Median Women suddenly War Cried and threw javelins then strike terribly, their women were more fearful than their men!

    also for your more infromation http://landofkarda.blogspot.com/2010...-language.html as its said Amazons were Scythians.
    and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_women_in_warfare

  17. #17
    naddum's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    KeyKhusrow, isn't that story a good millennium or so before the Sasanians?
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  18. #18

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Ahiga View Post
    The Farrokh osprey book was so horribly done I don't know what they were thinking. Angus McBride (rip) was normally a great artist but the colors are all oversaturated and these really weird shades - an albino Julian or weird purplish-green sky, and the over abundance of female warrior depictions - one or two was all that was necessary to convey the possibility of female warriors like Gordafarid. But hell, not even the Sarmatian or Scythian osprey books had so many female warriors and they are the ones who gave us the myth of the amazons! His book Shadows in the Desert was better, but still had a lot of speculation. I don't mean to insult him, I just don't know why the quality of that osprey book was so poor.

    If you're not referring to the Montvert Publications one of Nicolle and Angus McBride, then I recommend that one (Sassanian Armies: The Iranian empire early 3rd to mid 7th century AD) by David Nicolle and Angus McBride. There's no more than a handful of iffy remarks (the worst being "The Sassanians made more use of mail before the Romans" - u wot m8), but there's an abundance of primary archaeological depictions and it's probably the best of the mainstream osprey style books, followed by the osprey one by Nicolle and with Farrokh's osprey one tailing a few thousand miles behind.

    On the topic of the Sassanians I've come to the realization that the overabundance of wicker mantles has dissuaded us from the realization of other shields in use - namely oval scutum style shields. We've got the Arch of Galerius depicting them for Sassanians, Strabo about 2 centuries prior using 'thureos' to describe the Albanian's shields and generally invoking them as similar to the Iberians and Armenians, at least one Parthian terracotta of a scutum bearing spearman and one Parthian terracotta of a scutum bearing cavalryman, and the later 5th-7th century accounts of Daylami from the Elburz using oval/rounded shields. So either they randomly chose not to use thureos/scutum style shields while Greeks and Romans were fighting them and only adopted them half a millenia after the fact or they continued to use them since it was introduced into the region in the late hellenistic period. In the Montvert book there's also a 4th-5th century Egyptian coptic picture of Pharoah's army crossing the red sea, with the 2 cavalry and 2 infantry bearing small buckler style shields with the Eastern/Persian topos of phrygian hats.

    I think we just buy into the impression of the stone reliefs and I think the textual account of the top tier Clibinarii/Cataphracts not using shields and then think all the Iranians were either unshielded or spara bearers.
    Agree.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by KeyKhusro View Post
    well. i'll talk about them later, have you heard about Xenphon's Crossing in Median Lands to Armenia then west Anatolia? (as some archealogists and even Kurdish public believe themselves as descendants of Hurrians then Medians) have noted i think was page 273 that Median Women suddenly War Cried and threw javelins then strike terribly, their women were more fearful than their men!

    also for your more infromation http://landofkarda.blogspot.com/2010...-language.html as its said Amazons were Scythians.
    and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_women_in_warfare
    Some random blog and wikipedia articles isn't a good option for evidence and research material, so be careful.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Sassanian Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by naddum View Post
    KeyKhusrow, isn't that story a good millennium or so before the Sasanians?

    It is if it's from Xenophon. I'm too lazy to find the passage in Xenophon's anabasis myself but I can understand to some extent an argument of precedence in the lack of contemporary info. Of course that can be rather risky - women fought for the Soviets in WW2 because of reasons completely unrelated to the Amazonian Scythians. Likewise we don't have female warriors fighting for the British in the 100 year's war because of Boudicca's precedence.

    We have to remember that warfare in the past, present, and future is always more fluid and 'random' than we constrain in fictional video games. Real people aren't hindered by animation or code into being unable to pick up weapons, loot armor or use random material on hand as a weapon. It becomes a subjective case of considering what was (or is) a common or standard feature of fighting and what is more of an exceptional case of circumstance. For example - Pyrrhus was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown by an old Argive mother. That doesn't mean Argive women were fielded as crack-shot slingers or discus-throwers. Praetorians once used bows to deal with rioting civilians in the 1st century AD. That doesn't mean Praetorians had archer regiments. There's Amminaius Marcellinus' hilarious account of a Celtic woman: …a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one [Gaul] in a fight, if he calls in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes; least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge white arms, begins to rain blows mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult but nobody can say with a straight face Gallo-Roman women were fighting in regiments under Julian at the Battle of Strasbourg. One can make a better case for mixing in female characters with males within some garrison militia unit. And there's plenty of evidence for female generals in R2 - more so R2 than Attila but there may be some less known examples than the earlier Zenobia/Boudicca/Tomrys. I think the Picts might have some cases. But with the exception of peripheral 'barbarians' like the Scythians, examples of women warriors are usually exceptional and special circumstances of individuals you can count on your fingers and toes rather than entire regiments made of them.


    Plenty more far more authentic soldiery the Sassanids ought to have. Speaking of which, can someone tell me what the heck material there is for the idea of the Soghdian heavy infantry? I've come across evidence whether visual or textual to generally support the assumption that the Sassanids could acquire better heavy infantry from the North-West and Northern provinces - the Elburz regions of Gilan/Mazandaran/Daylam and the Albanians and Media Atropatenes. But I've never heard anything about a tradition of infantry fighting from Soghdia. The only thing I can think of are the famous bowl/disc artwork depicting two guys fighting and a parallel with the earlier Penjikent art - but both those cases to me seem clearly to be dismounted cavalry (the Penjikent is without a doubt dismounted given the large leg-guards). I'd love for there to be some heavy infantry traditions in Soghdia or Transoxania but I feel like it's a case of Osprey reporting it and then it becoming gospel without anyone actually knowing the origin of the claim.

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