CHAPTER I
THE GROWTH OF PARTHIA
THE racial origin of the earliest Parthians is largely a matter of conjecture, since our few authorities differ widely from one another as to who they were and whence they came, and archaeological and anthropological evidence is not yet forthcoming. Skeletal remains from Mesopotamia cannot be expected to yield much information, for we know in advance that they contain a large percentage of native population, a sprinkling of Macedonian or Greek stock, and possibly Negro, Chinese, Indian, and Mongoloid individuals.[1] Because of the heavy beards and the lack of detail, little if any anthropological information can be secured from the portraits on Parthian coins.[2] Language provides no clue to the origin of the Parthians, for their speech as we know it was adopted
- ↑ Marcel A. Dieulafoy, L'Acropole de Suse (Paris, 1893), pp. 109–13, has analyzed three skulls from the Parthian strata at Susa, but there is no reason to suppose they are Parthian. The graves and grave objects from Seleucia on the Tigris, not including the skeletal remains, will be treated by Samuel Yeivin in a volume of the "University of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series," the manuscript for which is now in preparation.
- ↑ Dr. Henry Field, curator of physical anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, was kind enough to examine Wroth's publication of British Museum coins (see n. 7 below); cf. Charles E. de Ujfalvÿ, "Iconographie et anthropologie irano-indiennes," L'Anthropologie, XI (1900), 199–203.
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