How Iran's History Was Lost

No one has solved this sealed riddle: what the world was like on its first day. No one knows how humankind began, or how people first learned to sow and reap. How did these tribes come together? Did they settle in towns, or in the plains and mountains? Who was the first to set a crown upon his head? No one remembers it from those distant ages. Especially in Iran, where no real history survives, and the old legends have no firm root or foundation. For from the time of the Chaldeans down to the Arabs, learning and culture withered three times over. Once in the time of Zahhak's plunder, which erased the records of the early peoples. Again in the time of Alexander, the glory-seeker, who washed those writings away in the river's water. And third in the time of Islam, when from the Arabs great harm came upon the land of Iran. In each of these three breaks that appeared, nothing of Iran's records was left behind. And even where they stitched together scraps of the old tales, they struck up only a faint echo of ancient times. Neither beginning nor end is clear; every word came down tangled and confused. Anyone who would trace those old stories now must search for their traces in the Shahnameh. For Ferdowsi of Tus, of noble birth, gave fully of his manhood and his learning. He hid not a single tale from us, whether of heroes or of ancient days. Yet what a pity: no clear path is left, nothing but groping through the dark of night. In the very names he recorded, many mistakes and distortions have crept in. And in the eras of earlier kings, he pieced things together with much imprecision. He did not give the names of all the kings, nor did he name them in their proper order.