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History of the Lurs

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Lurs (also Lors) are an Iranian people living mainly in western and southwestern Iran.[1] There is also a significant population of Lurs in eastern and central parts of Iraq[2] The word Luristan or Lorestan, is attributed to the areas inhabited by the Lurs.[3] The boundaries of Luristan stretch from the eastern Iraqi plains to the west and southwest of Iran.[4][3][5] The Bakhtiari settlement was named Bakhtiari region, after the rule of the Safavids, and the geography of the Lorestan name was limited to the present provinces of Lorestan and Ilam. The area was also divided into two parts: Poshtkuh and Pishkuh, in the Qajar dynasty.[citation needed] Today, Lorestan is the name of one of the western provinces of Iran.

Origin

There are several disputes over the origin of the Lurs and they are believed to be from the Elamite and Kassite origin[6][7] or a Median or Persian tribe of Aryan origin.[8]

Name

The first sighting of the word Lur is in the writings of some historians and geographers of the 10th century and later in the form of اللور, اللر and لور (Lur). Hamdallah Mustawfi in Tarikh-e gozida (1330 AD) referred to the settlement of Luri tribes in Levant and then their mass migration towards the current Luri-inhabited areas. There are several hypotheses that discuss the origin of the name Lur or Lor, prominent amongst them is its attribution to a person called Lur or Lohraseb and some believe that the name refers to the area of first settlement of this ethnic group. The word Ler or Lir (literally forest or forest mountain) is a probable source for this word.[9]

Early History

Luristan is mainly a mountainous waterfall and lush area with prosperous pasturage. There are several dominant tree species like oak, elm, walnut and almond around Luristan.

Cave painting in Doushe cave, Lorestan, Iran, 8th millennium BC
Zoom of a disc-headed pin (pin, female figure). Found in Lorestan, Rietberg Museum, Zürich

The ancient history of Lorestan is closely intertwined with the rest of the Ancient Near East. In the 3rd and 4th millennium BC, migrant tribes settled down in the mountainous area of the Zagros Mountains. The Kassites, an ancient people who spoke neither an Indo-European nor a Semitic language, originated from Lorestan. They would control Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire ca. 1531 BC and until ca. 1155 BC. Iranian Medes invaded and settled in Luristan in the 2nd millennium BC. The Medes assimilated the indigenous inhabitants of the region, primarily the Kassites as well as the Gutians, by the time the area was conquered by the Persians in the 1st millennium BC. In February 2017, archeological discoveries [clarification needed] related to the Achaemenid era were made in Lorestan for the first time.[10] The history of Aryan settlement in Luristan, precedes more than 1000 years BC. From the Indo-European ethnic groups, first, the Medes settled in areas known as Lorestan. Between 625 and 700 BC, other tribes like the Scythians settled in Lorestan.

Elam

The first people who ruled areas of Lorestan were Elamites. The extent of the influence of the Elamites has been to the present Mamassani area. They were indigenous peoples of Iran, but there is no proper knowledge of how communities are formed and the beginning of their history. They were able to establish a state before the arrival of Aryan ethnic groups in parts of western Iran.[11] The Elam government included Khuzestan, modern Lorestan, Poshtkuh (Ilam province and some western Iraqi areas), Bakhtiari mountains and Southern Luri settlement. Babylonians called the land of Elamites Elam or Elamto, meaning "the mountain" and perhaps "the land of sunrise". Elamite is generally accepted to be a language isolate and thus unrelated to the much later-arriving Persian and Iranic languages. In relation to geographical and archaeological matching, historians argue that the Elamites to be the Proto-Lurs, whose language became Iranian only in the Middle Ages.[12][13][14]

Elamite cities

The major cities of the Elamites were Shush, Ahvaz, Madakto and Kheidalou. Walther Hinz believes that the current KhorramAbad in the era of the Elamites was the capital of a dynasty called Simashki. In the course of several thousand years, the Elamites maintained their identity against strong tribes such as Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Eventually, they were defeated by their enemy of Assyria in 654 BC because of internal disputes and wars. The rise of the Elamites and the formation of the Elamite government in the north of Khuzestan plain is the most important political event of Iran in the third millennium BC. Since then, before the arrival of the Medes and Persians, what we know from the history of the land of Iran is only the political history of Elamite.[citation needed]

Kassites

Kassites entered to the Iranian plateau from the highlands of the Caucasus and Azerbaijan before the Aryan migration and then settled the southwest of Iran. Kassites along with Elam, dominated parts of Lorestan and had an extraordinary skill in making bronze artifacts. They were considered as the most important Zagros mountain tribes and were engaged to livestock breeding. They spoke in a language that was affiliated with Elamite. They were warrior riders who repeatedly entered into battle with their neighbors, including Elamites and Babylonians. They overthrew the government of Babylon and ruled the Babylon for six centuries. The rule of the Kassites in Babylonia ended as a result of their defeat from the Elamites. After the defeat from the Elamites, they returned to their mountainous land of Lorestan.[15][16][17]

Achaemenids to Sassanids

During the rule of Achaemenid, Lorestan was part of the rule of the Kassites and when the Achaemenids moved from Babylon to Hamadan, they had to cross the Lorestan area and pay ransom to the Kassites.[18] Pahle was the name of a vast land in west of Iran which was included many cities and areas in the current Zagros. The province of Pahla was named after the Sasanian times and the word Pahlavi refers to the people, the language, and the alphabet related to this region. At the time of the Achaemenids, the current Lorestan, along with Ilam and Khuzestan, were the third state of this great empire. During the Parthian period, this land was one of the Satraps (states) of this dynasty and finally, during the Sassanid period, the area was named "Pahla".[19]

References

  1. ^ "The Lurs of Iran". Cultural Survival. Retrieved 2015-09-21.
  2. ^ Anonby, Erik John (2003). "Update on Luri: How many languages?". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 13 (2): 171–197. doi:10.1017/S1356186303003067.
  3. ^ a b "Lorestān". Encyclopædia Britannica . Archived from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  4. ^ Minorsky, V. Articles "Lur" and "Luristan" in Encyclopedia of Islam
  5. ^ "LURISTAN iv. The Origin of Nomadism". Encyclopædia Iranica. Archived from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  6. ^ Edwards, I.E.S.; Gadd, C.J.; Hammond, G.L. (1971). The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd ed.). Camberidge University Press. p. 644. ISBN 9780521077910.
  7. ^ Potts, D.S (1999). The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State (Cambridge World Archaeology) (2nd ed.). Camberidge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780521564960.
  8. ^ "The Lurs of Iran". Cultural Survival. Retrieved 2015-09-21.
  9. ^ H.Mostawfi. 2000. Tarikhe Gozide (in Persian). Amir Kabir Publications, Tehran
  10. ^ "Archeologist: First signs of Achaemenids discovered in Western Iran".
  11. ^ "آیا لر آریاییست یا عیلامی و کاسی؟" [Is Ler Aryan or Elamite and Kasi?] (in Persian). نشریه اینترنتی مردم لر. September 26, 2010. Archived from the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; July 12, 2012 suggested (help)
  12. ^ Edwards, I.E.S.; Gadd, C.J.; Hammond, G.L. (1971). The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd ed.). Camberidge University Press. p. 644. ISBN 9780521077910.
  13. ^ Potts, D.S (1999). The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State (Cambridge World Archaeology) (2nd ed.). Camberidge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780521564960.
  14. ^ Grugni, V; Battaglia, V; Hooshiar Kashani, B; Parolo, S; Al-Zahery, N et al. (2012). "Ancient Migratory Events in the Middle East: New Clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians". PLoS ONE. 7 (7): e41252. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041252. PMC 3399854. PMID 22815981.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  15. ^ "قوم کاسی" [Kasy folk] (PDF). مهدی رازانی. Dec 3, 1971. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 6, 2014. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  16. ^ گرانتوسگی (1926), ایران از زمان باستان تا امروز [Iran from ancient times to today], تهران
  17. ^ پیگولووسکایا (1934), ایران از عهد باستان تا قرن ۱۸ [Iran from ancient times to the 18th century], تهران
  18. ^ "جبال (۱) (جمع جَبَل) یا کورة جَبَل یا قُهِستان یا قوهستان (معرّب کوهستان) یا بلاد جبال" [Jabal (1) (Jebelab al-Jalal) or Jebel or mountain or mountain (mountainous mountain) or Balad Jabal] (in Persian). دانشنامه جهان اسلام. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
  19. ^ "پَهلَوی" [Pahlavi] (in Persian). دانشنامه جهان اسلام. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
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