SR: Persian Empire Uniform Museum in Iran

Persian Empire Uniform Museum in Iran

Dear Knowers,

One day in Iran, X took me to a museum. I do not recall the exact name of the museum, but it was a museum that displayed about a hundred ancient Persian Empire military uniforms. Each uniform looked like the ancient Persian uniforms we see in ancient Persian and Turkish miniature paintings, complete with turbins, slipper shoes, jackets, baggy pants, and swords. It was amazing and shocking to see that they had kept them for so long.

I do not remember the exact dates that were on each uniform case, or the wars where they were worn in. I knew basically nothing about the historical wars described on each uniform display, and I was surprised that the ancient uniforms included uniforms from the Crusades. I only had a vague idea of what the Crusades were, from very few pages of text in public school history books. I did not know that Persia had anything to do with the Crusades until that day, and I thought the Crusades were long over and forgotten.

Most revealing and surprising to me was X's reaction to the uniforms. I had never seen him look so proud. A strong emotional bond with the historic Persian military was more than obvious as X stood to the right of each display with unmistakable pride. He expressed a serious, confident, proud, arrogant, and superior character at each display that I had not seen before. I thought to myself, "Wow, he sure is proud of the Persian Empire military history!" I was uncomfortable about the substantiation that the Persian Empire was still very grand and real for him.

I had not previously heard X talk about conquests other than "Islamic" conquests, though X often talked about the fact that "Iran" is the modern name for Persia, means "Arian." He proudly told me that the original Persians were Caucasian Arians. X was very proud of his Arian Persian heritage, which he distinguished from the Arabs, who supposedly have blood that is more African. X also told me that Persians do not really like Arabs, including Iraqi Arabs.

At the uniform museum, it became obvious to me that X still thought of Iran as a Superpower. I thought to myself that he was disillusioned. I now know that I was the one who was disillusioned.

SR