Shahdokht Soraya of Bahramiyan Eranshahr (Persian)

A concept drawing of the Pre-Islamic Persian Woman Warrior of the Historically Wrong Sketch Series: Medieval Revisited, which is roughly based on the Middle ages covering 800s AD to 1400s AD.

The representation of Persia in the series is divided into three drawings: The first (This drawing), represents the Sassanid Empire just before their collapse under the Arab Invasion of Persia in the mid 7th century. The Second represent the Islamic Persianate/Persian Dynasty after the fall of the Arabic Caliphate, while the third, represents Persia under Turkic (Seljuk) and Turko-Mongol (Il-Khanate and Timurids) rule.

Inspired by the Music: God of War OST



When I first started this series, I thought that it would be enough to represent the Persian Faction as somewhat similar to the Sassanids, to give a distinction over all the other middle-eastern faction. But after much further reading, simplifying Persia like this would grossly underestimate and under-represent the richness and wealth of interaction that was experienced by the Iranian people, from its native Persian ruler, the Arabs, the Turks and finally, the Mongols who came into their land. This is somewhat similar to saying that Scandinavia throughout the middle ages remained "Vikings", an idea which may not sit well with the academic society.

Nevertheless, Persia, or Iran, has a special place in my heart amongst all the cultures I have studied and became exposed to. To that, I would like to dedicate my love of Persian culture in this series of mine, in a hope to make people see, that this land of Aryan, is so much more than what Hollywood Movies portrayed them.

As you may have noticed, the previous drawing shows her in Clibenarii armor. At that time, I only have a few slight knowledge of how the Sassanid arms and armors would look like. After much reading, I decided to stick with the original design, albeit with little bit of modification and correction. Here, Shahdokht Soraya Baharamdokht of the Bahramiyan Dynasty is depicted in a heavy mail armor, with decorated skirt, shield with the Simurgh drawing, Persian straight sword and bow. All of these are based on the carving of Sassanian Emperor from Taq-i-Bustan (Nash-i-Rustem) sketch of the Sassanian Bas Relief/Stone Carving. As for her helmet, it's a product of my own stylization, with anthropomorphic eye-mask (like the Khazar) and Sassanian Spangehelm based on the British Museum Collection. Their accuracy may be debatable, but one thing that I can say about her outfit, is that, it was only reserved for the Shahanshahs and shahzadis of the Sassanid Persian Empire.

On the left, I have included a super Sassanian heavy infantry with scale armor and mail shirt, while the ones on the right, is based on the Sogdian or Afghan nobles under the Persian Empire.