Richard N. Frye

Richard Nelson Frye (January 10, 1920 – March 27, 2014) was an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University.

Quotes

• One of the important problems in the southward movement of the Indo-Iranians or even of early Iranians is the existence of two almost mutually distinct cultures, the Andronovo culture of the steppes of Kazakhstan and the Bactrian Margiana complex.
  • - More on Archaeology and Language: Mario Alinei, Richard N. Frye: Current Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (February 2003), pp. 109-110. Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. DOI: 10.1086/345686

• Henning further proposes that the relatively swift and easy conquest of eastern Iran by Cyrus the Great presupposes the coexistence of a large ataic or group of stats. Otherwise the conquest would have taken a much longer time. If we follow this line of argument however, one might add that the absence of later revolts against the Achacmemds except in Darius' first year when rebels were everywhere would suggest a background of Median hegemony or some western rule in eastern Iran. In the same views it is easy to believe that Cyrus put an end to the Kiiwarezmian state ruled by Vishtaspaf the patron of Zoroaster, because there are too many imponderables and no real evidence. At the present we can only say that there probably were at least two states or rather confederations in eastern Iran before the Achaemenids with centers in Bactria and Herat. Further, the Median empire probably had relations with one or both and possibly exercised some sort of influence over one or both although there is no proof. Kavi Vishtaapa and Zoroaster fitted into the Herat confederation then before it became unified, if it ever really did, and they did not necessarily have anything to do with Cynia. The possibility that Bacttia reached prominence only under the Achaememds, and after the fail of a Khwiireimian state as suggested by Markwart, is an attractive theory' but again without evidence. So our history of eastern Iran before the Achacmcnids h scanty and conjectural* The sagas of the epic for this period are unreliable as history but they provide a framework for the heroic age which did not require history.
  • Heritage of Persia, Frye, Richard N. [1] quoted in G. Gnoli. Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland: A Study on the Origins of Mazdeism and Related Problems by Gherardo Gnoli, Instituto Universitario Orientale, Seminario di Studi Asiatici, (Series Minor VII), Naples, 1980.