He stands there, examining a beautiful white column, with perfect curves around it and an exquisite capital that shows detailed architecture. He twists his head to the right just a bit to read the official description. He is in the Louvre museum and a bit surprised. He was expecting to read "Pre-Hellenistic Greek Column," but stunned, he realizes that it says "columns of Persepolis, circa 500 B.C.E." "That's surprising", he says to himself "I could have sworn that that one came from Greece." Yes, surprising. As a matter of fact, many things which are considered to have originated in Greece and are now known as "Western" culture, art, and architecture, actually originated in the Middle East, or more precisely, in ancient Persia.

Most people don't know it, but Persia was the center of the world before and during the Greco-Persian Wars (492-449 BC) ("Greco-Persian Wars"). The whole world looked to Persia and everybody tried to model everything after the Persian way. Even Greece copied Persia on some occasions. In fact, Greece, before Alexander the Great, was just a coalition of small kingdoms. Persia, the biggest empire to exist up that time, was the "world power," controlled the way of

thinking of the time, and placed a deep mark into not only Greek thinking and culture, but also the "Western" idea and life. Many people do not realize it, but much of today's culture can be found in ancient Persian literature, art, and architecture.

Greek and ancient Persian architectures were similar in many ways. Most people think that if they are similar, then the Greeks were the ones who originally had the architecture. However, it is interesting to note that the most ancient Persian architecture found was in the cities of Susa and Elam dating from 1600-1000 BC (Histoire...vol.1, 211). One notable aspect of Persian architecture imitated by the Greeks was the famous "Greek columns." As explained in the introduction, the Greek columns were very similar to Persian columns; and, because of time periods, it can be deduced that the Persians had great influence on the Greek columns (210). Nearly every part of the Greek column, from the capital, the abacus, the annulated, and the echinus, to the shaft and the base, is a near copy of the Persian column which dated approximately 500 years before the Greek confederation (Histoire...vol.2, 38). There are many examples of Greek and Persian columns still standing today which can demonstrate the influence that Persian architecture had on Greek columns. One example is the Temple of Discuses. In this architectural marvel, of which only the columns remain, the columns, dating to the 5th century B.C.E., show Persian influence in not only the shape and design of the column, but also in the material used (32). Even at Delphi, one of the most ancient Greek cities, where some of the oldest Greek temples are found, the columns are comparable to the Persian columns (35). Another type of Persian architecture that the Greeks imitated is the famous wall carving. Believed by most to be a Greek invention, it was actually started during the Persian rule and possible even before that (1500-1000 BC) (Histoire...vol.1, 35). Wall carvings, beautiful sculptures of people, animals, and sentimental and religious objects, were started in the Near East, but spread to Europe through Greece. The Persians also included many stories into their carvings, notably stories of crowing shahs and drawings of soldiers and generals going to war. Also, in many cases, the Persians made carvings of gods that they had, such as Mitra, to honor them (212). The Greeks made wall carvings very similar to the Persian carvings, and many of the stories were parallel to the Persian stories. Many of the symbols used by the Persians were also used in Greek wall carvings (Histoire...vol.2, 61). Another noteworthy way that Greece emulated Persian architecture was in their statues. The Persians had begun to make human-sized sculptures around 1000 BC (Histoire...vol.1, 213). One exquisite statue is that of queen Napir-Asu. Though decapitated, the way she has been built demonstrates her royal and high-class stance. It is very interesting that her stance is the same one used for many years up to today by the high-class society (214). There were three symbols, the golden winged goat, representing the Persians' admiration for the goat because, despite its small stature, it was a very tough and powerful animal (226). The second was the winged horse with the head of a king. This animal represents the power of a winged horse, coupled with the mind of a king (224). The third and last was the winged lion which, to the Persians, was the ultimate sign of power. The lion represented what every king wanted to be: a powerful person who could oversee everything and whom everybody feared (221). The Greeks used all three of these symbols in their sculpture. The animal which was used most of the three was the winged lion. However, the winged lion had in most cases the head of a human (Histoire...vol.2, 34). This symbol of power a knowledge is a mixture of the Persian lion and headed horse. This influence i

Some common words found in the essay are:
BC Histoirevol1, Persians Greeks, Persian Greco-Roman, Santoor Santoor, Europe Greek, Persians Greek, Greco-Roman Western, Furthermore Persian, Greece Alexander, Greece Persians, ancient persia, ancient persian, persian influence, persian architecture, art architecture, persian pottery, greco-persian wars, greek columns, culture art architecture, persian art, persian paintings, ancient persia mimicked, persia mimicked greece, evolved ancient persia, mimicked greece roots,
Approximate Word count = 2634
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)