A silver plate showing the Sasanian king Yazdgard I killing a stag
Plate: the king Yazdgard I, slaying a stag, ca. 399–420 CE
Marked Ctesiphon

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Sasanian empire

The Sasanian kings of Iran ruled from Mesopotamia to Central Asia for four centuries, rivals of Rome and Byzantium, with Zoroastrianism as their faith. Their empire fell to the first Muslim armies.

Place
Ctesiphon · Naqsh-e Rustam · BishapurThe Middle East, Asia
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IArdashir founds a dynasty
  2. IIAn emperor captured: Valerian
  3. IIICtesiphon and its great arch
  4. IVZoroastrian fire temples
  5. VKhosrow I
  6. VIThe fall

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Ardashir I
  • Shapur I
  • Khosrow I
  • Boran

Objects

  • Silver plates of royal hunts
  • The arch of Ctesiphon
  • Rock reliefs at Naqsh-e Rustam

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

AD 224 to AD 651. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?