FEUDALISM IN PERSIA: ITS ORIGIN. DEVELOPMENT, 

 AND PRESENT CONDITION.^ 



By JACQiES DE Morgan, Paris. 



The Iranian plateau is one of the very few countries of the work! 

 of which we can with authority affirm that we know its first inhabi- 

 tants. We loiow that in glacial times it Avas inaccessible,- and even 

 after the melting of the snow which covered it throughout the Pleisto- 

 cene period it still remained barren ^ during many centuries, perhaps 

 for even thousands of years. When the tribes of Medes came there 

 they probably trod on virgin soil. 



We include among the Medes those hordes which, taking the lead 

 in the Iranian * movement, first of all invaded Hyrcania, crossed the 

 low plain south of the Caspian Sea, occupied the mountains of El- 

 burz, and advanced on the Persian plain as far as the region where 

 the cities of Kashan, Hamad an, and Kermanshah now stand. 



"When the tide of invaders reached the mountains of Kurdistan it 

 encountered some peoples who, come probably in early times from 

 the valley of the Tigris or the north of western Asia,'^ settled in 

 the valleys ; they retreated before the invasion and spread out toward 

 the west. Perhaps in this movement of peoples we might see the 

 origin of the Cassite dynasty of Babylonia," whose founder Gandish 

 or Gaddash ruled f rom^ about 1761 to 1746 B. C J 



But the invasion of the Medes was not stopped there ; to the north, 

 Armenia, all of the upper Tigris and the upper Euphrates Valleys 

 were successively occupied, and the Iranian bands penetrated into 

 Asia Minor and as far as Oronte,^ the homes of the Hittites.^ 



1 Translated by permission from tlie Revue d'Btlmographio et de Sociologie, A. Van 

 (xennep. Editor, Paris, vol. ."?, Nos. 5-8, May-August, 1912, pp. 1(59-190. 



-J. de Morgan, Le Plateau iranien pendant I'epoque Pleistocene, in Rev. ]5coIe 

 d'Anthrop. de Paris, June 6, 1907, pp. 21.S-226. 



" .T. de Morgan, Les Premieres Civilisations, 1909. p. 181. 



♦Throughout this article we consider peoples from the standpoint of their linguistic 

 rharacteristics only. 



* .T. de Morgan, Prem. Civ., 1909, p. 175 sq. 



8 A first invasion of Cassites in the nineteenth year of Samsilouna (about 1900 B. C.) 

 had been hurled hack. Cf. Dhorme, Les Aryens avant Cyrus, in Conf. St. Etienne, 

 1910-11. p. 73. 



' Cf . Thureau-Dangin, Journ. Asiat., 1908, p. 117. 



* Cf. Dhorme, op. cit., p. 70. 



» Cf. Dhorme, op. cit., p. 61, and Winckler. Orient, litt. Zeitung, 1910, col. 291. 



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