Persian Essay
Routines and Behaviors
Max Livant
The term
“Persia” was adopted by all western languages through the Greeks and used as
the official name for Iran by the western nations up until 1935. This essay
will discuss the daily life of how the Persians lived such as their language,
routines, home life, technology, art and more.
The Persian
language is one of the oldest languages in the world. It is still in use today.
This language was generally known as “Farsi” which was the Arabic form of “Parsi”
because there is no “P” sound in Arabic. There have been many different names
for the Persian language depending on the country it is spoken in. It is widely
known as one of the most powerful literary traditions with many Persian poets.
Persian families
were very large and the father’s word was the law of the family. Poor children
worked with their parents at a young age. Noble children were raised by their
mothers until the age of 5, and then slaves would raise them. The children
would often not see their father until they were adults. The boys would be
trained to ride horses and use a bow and arrows. Girls were trained to run the
house hold and raise a family. Wealthy women would spend the majority of their
time at home. Persian homes would have pointed roofs with porches that faced
the sun. Poor families had one-roomed houses, whereas the noble families had
rooms for women and rooms for men.
Persia is
fairly centrally located on the globe, so it has served as a fusion point
between eastern and western arts and architecture. The vast geographic region
of Persia has been extremely pivotal in the development of all Persian arts.
Persian art includes a wide variety of arts including modern art, calligraphy,
miniature – painting and glasswork. The most prominent architectural work,
which is still seen today, is the work of the Achaemenids hailing from Persis. Persian
cinema has also reached critical acclaim internationally as well as Persian
music and literature.
Persian people had many mannerisms and rules to
live by adopted from other cultures as well as creating some themselves. They
had a love of truth as many Greeks did, loyalty to the king, avoided debt,
respected nature and many other ways of living. Loyalty to the king was of the
most important to the Persians. The king was seen as all government and was
respected and obeyed, it was almost like ancient patriotism towards there
government.
The clothes the Persians wore was determined on
ones social class. The ordinary
dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade, was probably the
tunic and trousers of leather. The upper classes seem generally to have adopted
the Median costume, which was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple
or flowered robes with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the
knee, also sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant
shape than the ordinary Persian. This made it easy to distinguish between the
wealthy and the poorer classes of people.
Lastly, the Persians
have invented some of the most vital tools and technologies that helped shape
our world today. They are credited with the invention of the brick in 6000 BC
and the windmill in 1700 BC. There have also been theories that the Persians
invented algebra and trigonometry, however the Arabs have been said to be the
ones behind those mathematical findings. It is still unclear because of how
closely linked the cultures are. They were the first people to ever distill
alcohol, made tremendous contributions to the worlds of science and medicine
and came up with some of the first theories on the speed of light and gravity.
The Persian people, to say the least, are truly
some of the most important people to ever have lived. So many things have been
adopted from there culture and are still in use today. It is important to make
the distinction and connection from the Persian ancient civilization to our
world now, and to see how we have used their findings today. It is incredible what these people created
and how they spread out geographically into many countries and cultures,
constantly growing and building what we know as our world today.
