Civilizations the Topic Is Religious and Social

¶ … Civilizations The topic is religious and social life in the Achaemenid Empire. The purpose of the project is to learn more about this subject and dispel some of the myths in today's media. I will use books on the subject to learn about what this empire was like, and what their religion was like. I expect that I will be able to come to some conclusions about the Achaemenid Empire.

Furthermore, I believe that I will demonstrate that the rulers of this empire were enlightened and had a high level of tolerance for the customs of those over whom they ruled. Purpose Statement The subject of this report will be the Achaemenid Empire that flourished in ancient Persia, from 550-330 BCE. This empire is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which was its Zoroastrian religion and general religious tolerance.

This empire has been cast as villain in popular Western culture in stark contrast to the apparent reality of the Empire's nature (Fairey, 2014). This paper intends to examine the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great more deeply, to peel back the layers of myth, in particular with respect to their religious tolerance. The key topic is going to be religious and social policy within the Achaemenid Empire. Dusinberre (2003) notes that tolerance in this empire was more for local customs than specifically for religion.

Cyrus had etched a charter of human rights onto a clay cylinder, to ensure consistency of interpretation of his edict (Houghton Mifflin, 2014). It is possible that some of this tolerance was a personal belief of Cyrus, but it may have been related to Zoroastrian beliefs about conversions -- they were not interested in conversions per se, meaning they had no desire to impose their beliefs upon their subjects. At this point, my experience is mostly academic.

I am a student of ancient history and have done some readings on this topic. I have not been to Iran or been able to conduct first-person research. However, I have an interest in the subject and see this project as an opportunity to refine my knowledge. There are a number of different sources that can be used. A lot of the best materials for this subject are books. Some books include Kuhrt (2013), Dandamaev (1989), Choksy (1989) and Dusinberre (2003).

There are also academic journal articles that touch upon specific issues relating to this topic, including Armayor (1978) discussing Herodotus' description of the Persian Empire and Snowball (2008) discusses modern perceptions of the Persian Empire, in context of current Western relations with Iran. There are also some internet sources that can be used as well, though they seem to provide a lower caliber of education on this subject. The process of collecting data will begin with an analysis of the sources.

The sources typically contain material from scholars, a mix of their writing with the occasional primary source evidence. For this subject, however most of the source material is going to come from historians. Thus, taking extensive notes from the readings is going to provide me with the best insight into this subject, wherein I develop a high level of understanding of the topic through the readings.

In this case, the readings on the Persian treatment of those under their rule will be combined with an understanding of their religion in order to form theories about religious and social life in the Achaemenid Empire. There is not going to be any quantitative data as part of this methodology, as the issues being studied do not lend themselves easily to quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis based on presenting the data and infusing it with logical interpretations is the main methodology, therefore, that will be used for this paper.

For the final presentation, I feel that a powerpoint presentation is going to be the most viable form. In large part this is by default -- I am not a web programmer nor videographer. I would not even guarantee that audio will be on my powerpoint -- I have to play to my strengths and fancy media for the sake of it does not play to my strengths. I expect to find from this research to understand better religious and social life under Achaemenid rule.

In particular, I wish to cut through the myth that the 300 movie created about the Persians, and present a more balanced view of what that culture was really like. If I can shed some light.