Dahae

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Confederation of Tribal Area

The Dahae or Dahaener ( Persian داها; Greek  Δάοι , Dáoi and Greek  Δάαι , Daai) were a confederation of three ancient Iranian tribes living east of the Caspian Sea in Dahestan ( Dehestan ) ( Persian دهستان) lived. They spoke an Eastern Iranian language .

history

The first datable mention of the Dahae can be found in the Daiva inscription of the Persian King Xerxes I in Persepolis . There the Dahae are mentioned as one of the tributary peoples under the name Dāha directly before the Saks , who were the neighbors of the Dahae. Their settlement area was called Dahestan or Dihistan . It is not known whether they had an urban center. In the Old Iranian Dictionary by Bartholomae Ch. We find this term Dahae (<dāŋha) with the following explanation: * dāŋha- Adj. (Fem. Dāhi- ) denotes a people (and their country) 'dahish' ... The Dahae, Δάοι , Δάαι , a Scythian tribe, lived east of the Caspian Sea . In 1912 Sten Konow connected this term with the Hotan-Sakic word "man"

The Dahae fought together with the Saki tribes on the side of the Achaemenids at the Battle of Gaugamela . After the decline of the Achaemenid Empire, they took part in Alexander the Great's Indian campaign . Sakic coins from the Seleucid era sometimes refer specifically to the Dahae.

In the third century BC A sub-tribe of the Dahae, the Aparnoi / Parni, rose to power under their leader Arsakes . They invaded Parthia , which had recently separated from the Seleucids, and crowned Arsakes king of Parthia. His successors - the Arsacids - took power in the Iranian highlands and founded the Parthian Empire.

identity

Map with Turkmenistan

It is not clear whether the Dahae are to be equated with the * Dāha from the religious Yasht texts. Possibly both words can be traced back to the word Daha, which stood for man in ancient Iranian. But this etymological relationship is no proof that both peoples belong to the same ethnic group. In his Geographika Strabo explicitly refers to the dahae as Scythian dahae. He placed the Dahae near what is now Turkmenistan .

literature

  • ADH Bivar: The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids. In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (= The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 3). Part 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, ISBN 0-521-20092-X , pp. 21-99.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The New Pauly: Dahistan .
  2. ↑ See also www.iranicaonline.org ( Dahistān ) , www.iranicaonline.org ( Dehestān ) and Brill ( Dihistān ) and Langenscheidt .
  3. ^ ADH Bivar: The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids. In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 3, Part 1, Cambridge 1983, p. 27.
  4. ↑ S. Konow: Vedic “dasyu”, Toxrī [ie Khotanese] “dahä”. Festschrift Vilhelm Thomsen, Leipzig 1912, p. 96 f.
  5. ^ François de Blois: Dahae i . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references).