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Did multi-cultural societies become widely accepted in ancient history

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If we look at examples of early societies in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, we often see examples of migrations or contacts between different ethnic groups. <ref> For information about historical migrations and multi-ethnic societies, see: Lucassen, Jan, Leo Lucassen, and Patrick Manning, eds. 2010. Migration History in World History: Multidisciplinary Approaches. Studies in Global Social History, v. 3. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.</ref> In many cases, these migrations or contacts are neutral or do not lead to any major confrontation. We do see cultures mixing their ideas in the form of introducing new gods to a region or even architecture. Some cases where some level of multiculturalism may have been evident include societies that adopted foreign gods from their neighbors or other nearby cultures include the Hittites and Kassites, both Indo-Aryan speaking populations, who by around 1600 BC adopt gods from Anatolia and Mesopotamia. <ref> For information migrations and the adoption of local gods, see: Moret, Alexandre, and Georges Davy. 1970. From Tribe to Empire, Social Organization among Primitives and in the Ancient East. New York: Cooper Square, pg. 236. </ref>

[[File:IvoryLabelOfDen-BritishMuseum-August19-08.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 1. Pharaoh Den from the First Dynasty smiting his enemies from the "east."]]

However, what is clear in many of these regions is that one main culture prevailed in any given period, as seen in artistic and intellectual expression. This does not mean cultures were suppressed. On the contrary, integration and assimilation were common, where local customs, languages, and social norms were generally adopted by the population merging into a given urban society. Interestingly, even if that minority culture took power, often they retained the previous prevailing culture or even went out of their way to emphasize that culture through revitalizing older traditions and languages. We see this in Kassite Babylonia in Mesopotamia, for instance, where the ruling population was Kassite and from Iran or India, while most of the native population presumably was from southern Mesopotamia. <ref> For information about how new, migrating cultures retained older cultures in given regions and the example of the Kassites, see: Ellerker, Sean. 2014. The Dawn of Civilization: 4,000-500 BC. Padstow: Matador, pg. 61.</ref> This is likely unsurprising, as migrants presumably would have encountered a majority population and integrating into these majority populations meant that some level of assimilation was needed or at least to de-emphasize cultural expressions of a minority cultural group. In other words, societies may have been multicultural but multiculturalism was relatively limited, where expression of multiple cultures, such as multiple languages and clearly outward cultural expressions in the arts, within one society was rare.

Simply put, what this shows is that the level of multiculturalism expression were relatively limited and conflict often led to other cultures depicted in a demeaning way. <ref> For information about how conflict led to intolerance in the past, see: Clarke, Steve, Russell Powell, and Julian Savulescu, eds. 2013. Religion, Intolerance, and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation. First edition. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.</ref>

~~[[File:IvoryLabelOfDen-BritishMuseum-August19-08.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 1. Pharaoh Den from the First Dynasty smiting his enemies from the "east."]]~~==Rise of Multiculturalism==

[[File:Stele Naram Sim Louvre Sb4.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 2. Naram-Sin, depicted as god, destroying his inferior enemies.]]

~~==Rise of Multiculturalism==~~ By the rise of the Achaemenid Empire in Iran, in the 6th century BC, we see a new form of rule emerging. On the one hand, empires now began to expand to much larger areas. In the case of the Achaemenids, their state reached from Egypt to Central Asia, and at times pushed into the northern shores of the Black Sea and southeast Europe to the Danube.<ref>For more information about the territories and regions controlled by the Achaemenid Empire, see: Waters, M. W. 2014. Ancient Persia: a concise history of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.</ref> With such a vast distance between regions, the new ruling dynasties needed new strategies to facilitate the maintenance of large states and enable populations within the large empire to accept their overlords. This may have led to the rise of multiculturalism, as we now begin to see more official celebration of different cultures within the Achaemenid state. For instance, in Mesopotamia, the Persian Achaemenid king depicted himself as Babylonian, while in Egypt we see depictions of the Achaemenid king as Pharaoh. The best example of this is from the reign of Darius I (522-486 BC; Figure 3). During the reign of Darius several representations of him as an Egyptian Pharaoh are depicted, including the rebuilding of important temples in Egypt. Before the reign of Darius, the Achaemenid king Cyrus was considered to write perhaps the world's oldest human rights manifesto. <ref> For information about the Achaemenid kings and their tolerant policies, see: Curtis, John, Nigel Tallis, and Béatrice And́́́́ré-Salvini, eds. 2005. Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia. Berkeley: University of California Press, pg. 153.</ref> What is made clear from these kings is that the Persian Achaemenid Empire recognized its multi-cultural aspects and embraced it with open arms as a strength.

Additionally, it was during the Achaemenid period from the 6th through 4th centuries BC that the world multiculturalism seems to have been first used in any language. <ref> For information about the early use of the term multiculturalism, see: Daryaee, Touraj, Ali Mousavi, and Khodadad Rezakhani, eds. 2014. Excavating an Empire: Achaemenid Persia in Longue Durée. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, pg. 9.</ref> In other words, societies were now officially recognized that they contained many cultural groups and that was seen as an asset rather than something that was deemphasized in official propaganda. The glory of kings was now, in part, seen as having multiple people groups within the empire and the unity of many people in support of the king was something to be boastful about. An example of this, in fact, comes from Persepolis, where we see the architecture now incorporating styles from various areas of the empire (Figure 4). <ref> For information about the multiple cultural elements in architecture at Persepolis, see: Babaie, Sussan, and Talinn Grigor, eds. 2015. Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavis. International Library of Iranian Studies 52. London: Tauris.</ref> This is also the time we now begin to see the rise of large and multi-ethnic corporations and trade spanning distant regions, which suggests multiculturalism was found to have had not only ruling benefits, by keeping a large empire together, but facilitated trade and wealth. <ref> For a case study of how trade and multiculturalism benefited each other in the period of the Achaemenid Empire, see: Jigoulov, Vadim S. 2010. The Social History of Achaemenid Phoenicia: Being a Phoenician, Negotiating Empires. BibleWorld. London; Oakville, CT: Equinox Pub. Ltd.</ref>

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