Did ancient Iranians have blue eyes and red hairs?

By ancient Iranians, I mean original Iranian speaking people, not the people of Iran, Afghanistan, ...

They had purple eyes and pink hair 

Originally posted by Bulldog They had purple eyes and pink hair

I had once read about such a race of people- they had such a thilly language

I think this has a lot to do with the Indo European theory and obviously over time the intermixed with other races, The Tarim basin mommies demonstrate how far east these Indo European tribes came.
Such a question would take a lot of research to really answer but it is a good topic.

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri By ancient Iranians, I mean original Iranian speaking people, not the people of Iran, Afghanistan, ...

Yes they did.
And many modern-day Persians also have blue eyes and red hair.
And so do many Afghans, and Kurds and North-West Pakistanis, and Kashmiris.
And you ask this because?

I think the important question is that from what region the original Iranian-speaking people migrated to the Iranian plateau, it could be from the southern Europe and Greece throuh Anatolia, or the eastern Europe throuh the Caucasus, or from the east, somewhere in Kazakhstan and Central Asia or northern China where Tocharians and Yueh-chih lived, or maybe even from the south throuh the Persian gulf!

I'm absolutely certain some Iranians had light hair and blue eyes, just like some Iranians do today, but I see no reason to believe it was any more common back then. Since rare traits are often considered more desirable (light skin, light hair, blue eyes etc.) they will be overrepresented in art, so pictures like those are nothing to go by. Judging by art you'd have to conclude that the majority of Renaissance Italians were blonde and blue-eyed, that ancient Greeks were all heavily muscled and the Japanese all had chalkwhite skin.

I thought that the "supposed" Indo-European homeland was in Central Asia, within the borders of what is today Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan etc.
From there, the proto Indo-european speakers migrated south to Persia and India, and westwards into Europe; where local inhabitants adopted their language.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ancient Iranians, or proto indo-european speakers, had blond hair and blue eyes among them; because today, many people living in the same region, such as many Tajiks, some Afghans, and even some of the Turkic nationalities such as Kazakh and Kirgyz, also have these traits; but I would very much doubt that the percentage of "blonds" was considerably greater than what you have among these people today.

Roman sources did describe the ancient Iranian Alans as having "dirty yellow" hair and ugly facial features; but most of these descriptions could have been exagerated because steppe people barely lived up to Mediterranean standards of beauty.
The modern-day descendants of ancient Alans are supposed to be the Ossetians, and few of them are blond.

Who knows, but the interesting fact is, that even some negroid people have blond hair (some tribe on one of the Solomon Islands).

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri I believe the aryanization of the native people of Iran was so much more culturally than ethnically, so there is no reason that modern people of Iran look like the original Aryan immigrants, except a small minority, but there was certainly a reason that we see Rustam, the Scythian national hero of Iran, had red hair and Herodotus says about Scythians "they have all deep blue eyes, and bright red hair" (herodotus 4:108)

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri By ancient Iranians, I mean original Iranian speaking people, not the people of Iran, Afghanistan, ...

What is this original speaking people thing?

People of Iran and A-stan are unoriginal Iranian speaking peopls?




Edited by Emil_Diniyev - 31-Mar-2009 at 17:37