The Truth of Alexander's Return: The End of Myths

It is now clear that "India" referred to southern Khuzestan and the northwestern shores of the Persian Gulf, not the Indian subcontinent as we know it today. Alexander and his army must have returned from there.

After Alexander and his army were defeated in Khuzestan, as described in the Alexander Letters: finally, when Alexander saw that there was no option but to retreat, he ordered it.

After the retreat in Khuzestan, Alexander arranged his army into two columns. One column was sent along the Zohreh River (known as "Indian River" by the sea) to the Persian Gulf. From there, they traveled through the Gulf and Shatt al-Arab to reach the Euphrates River and Babylon, while Alexander himself led another column towards Babylon. Along the way, he passed through the Arabius River (Shatt al-Arab) and encountered the Arabs (Arabit) before reaching the barren, unworked plains of modern-day southern Iraq, northern Arabia, and Kuwait. After passing through, he encountered the people of Ur (Uruk, two major cities of Sumer, located south of Babylon by the Euphrates) before reaching Babylon. Scholars have manipulated Alexander's legend to claim that he made his way to India by identifying the location of the "mouth of the Indus" as a different river.

From Babylon, Alexander traveled northeast to the "Royal Road," and spent some time in southern Kurdistan and modern-day Kermanshah, before following the road to the city of Zor, where he eventually died. Today, Zor is a small settlement in Iraq, located between Sulaymaniyah and Paveh, near Halabja. During the Sassanian period, Zor was a prosperous and large city. After their coronation, the Sassanid kings would travel on foot to Zor or Dinawar (now a region between Sahneh and Senqor), from where they would head to the fire temple of Azar-Gashasp (a fire temple near Takht-e-Suleiman in southeastern Maragheh). Abu Rayhan al-Biruni writes in The Remaining Pieces that Alexander fell ill in Zor and died there. After his death, Babylon came under the control of the Seleucids, whose eastern border extended as far as Kermanshah. In 35/1334, when the road from Hamadan to Kermanshah (Khor Mithan = Khor Mihan = Qarmasin) was being constructed toward Shahabad (Helwan), a large stone statue of Hercules was found near Kermanshah, which must have marked the eastern border of the Seleucid Empire.

I also examine the claim that: it is said that the Greek script traveled with Alexander to Central Asia and became the script of the Parthian court. Some go further, stating that Greek was spoken in the Parthian court (but they don’t clarify which part of Greece). These people believe that the script on Parthian coins is Greek.

This too, like the Alexander Letters, should be investigated because: the Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic alphabets (including the Amjad alphabet) all originate from the Phoenician alphabet. Initially, the Greeks also wrote from right to left, and their script did not differ significantly from Aramaic and Syriac scripts. Therefore, the inscriptions on Parthian coins could very well be in Syriac script (Aramaic and Eastern dialect). Until the history of the Phoenicians, Arameans, Syriacs, Hittites, Mitanni, and Urartians is clarified, what Western historians have written about ancient Greek culture cannot be accepted unquestioningly. Moreover, the mere discovery of a few coins in a location does not automatically place the dominion of the coin’s empire over that area.

Helen Phil, Hellenism – A German historian named J.G. Droysen wrote a book about Alexander in 1833, and for the first time, he referred to the culture of ancient Greece from Alexander's time until the noon of Christ as Hellenism. The term Hellenism is only 140 years old and lacks historical roots. After Droysen, Western historians attempted to fabricate Greek roots for the term Hellenism. But what is the fundamental basis of Hellenism, which was the major intellectual shift in ancient Greece?

In ancient Greek history, we encounter four terms: Helios, Helena, Hellas, and Hellen, which might be the roots of the word Hellenism. Hellen in ancient Greek mythology was the father of the Greeks, from whom four sons—Jon, Dorus, Aiolos, and Achaios—descended, establishing the four tribes of Greece. Can we accept that the glorious culture of Hellenism is named after such a mythical figure?

Hellas – In ancient times, Hellas was the name of a part of Thessaly (on the western shore of the Aegean Sea). It is said that it once also referred to the middle section of the Greek peninsula, but it was never the name of the entire land of Greece. In the 9th century BCE, when the Greeks were divided into three groups (the Aiolians in the north, the Ionians in the center, and the Dorians in the south), the name Hellas was not known among them. This implies that Hellas, like other regions in Greece, did not have a distinct identity. Thus, it cannot be accepted that Hellenism is derived from the name Hellas.

Helena – According to ancient Greek mythology, Helena was the daughter of Leda and Zeus and was born from an egg. Poets of ancient Greece described her as a beautiful but unfaithful woman. It is hard to accept that such an unfaithful mythical woman could lend her name to such a grand culture.

Helios – The ancient Greeks regarded him as the god of light, who rode a chariot drawn by white horses across the sky during the day and returned in a golden boat to his first station in the evening. This is the same "Bogh Mehr" or Aryan sun god that the Greeks adapted.

Bogh Mehr, the god of the Iranians and Hindus, became Bacchus in ancient Greek. Because the Medes were known to be drinkers of wine, the Greeks called him the "god of wine." The unvanquishable Mehr was known to the ancient Greeks as Helios Invictus. What is now called Hellenism is actually the rich and glorious culture of the Medes, which traveled from Iran, the Hittite lands, and Mitanni in Anatolia to Greece. Western historians have distorted this history to present themselves as heirs to a great culture.

Helen Phil, a follower of the cult of Mehr, was not a lover of Greece, for Greece was never called "Hellen" at any time. Now that the time is right, we must purify Iranian history and cleanse it of foreign misrepresentations.

Professor Fritz Schachermeyer, an 80-year-old Austrian historian and one of the leading historians of ancient European history, wrote a book about "Alexander the Great," which was published in 1973 by the Academy of Sciences in Austria.

In the seventh chapter of the book, I read and examined his account of Alexander's departure from Tyre by the Mediterranean and his arrival near the body of Darius III near Damghan, which I will summarize below.

According to this book, Alexander and his army set out from Tyre towards Iran at the end of May 331 BCE. By July, they reached the banks of the Euphrates River. After crossing the Euphrates, they reached the fast currents of the Tigris in mid-September and crossed it. From there, they continued along the Tigris in the north of Mosul, heading towards "Goge Melle."

The famous Austrian historian, who was an officer in the Austrian army during World War I and served in Asia Minor, after the war, traveled to Asia Minor, Iran, and Afghanistan to further study Alexander's route. He identified "Goge Melle" as the modern-day Tel Gomel. Tel Gomel is located beside the Gomel River, 40 kilometers northeast of Mosul and 70 kilometers northwest of Erbil.

A map should be drawn here.

According to this historian, Alexander and his army took four months to travel from Tyros to the battlefield of Gaugamela. On the first of October, Alexander was woken from his deep and heavy morning sleep to march to the battlefield to fight Darius III.
In October 331 BC, Alexander and his army marched to the battlefield of Gaugamela, fought against Darius III and his forces, defeated them, and left the battlefield heading toward Erbil. After plundering Darius III’s treasury and the wealth of his army and the people along the way, they traveled from Erbil via Kirkuk toward Babylon. After crossing the Little Zab, the Great Zab, and the Tigris, they covered nearly 600 kilometers along the Tigris, from northern Mosul to Gaugamela, then to Erbil, Kirkuk, and finally to Babylon (near present-day Hella).
After staying in Babylon for over a month (November), Alexander and his army set off for Susa at the beginning of December. After 20 days of marching, they reached Susa by the end of December, then proceeded to Persepolis. Therefore, Alexander and his army were in Susa at the end of December 331 and the beginning of January 330 BC. Alexander and his army traveled 700 kilometers between Susa and Persepolis in the cold winter, fighting all the way, and reached Persepolis victorious at the beginning of January 330 BC. The great historian of ancient Europe did not pay attention to the fact that Alexander and his army could not have been in both Susa and Persepolis at the beginning of January 330 BC.
After staying in Persepolis for four months (from January to May 330 BC), Alexander and his army set off toward Ekbatana via Paraitakene. Upon reaching Ekbatana, Alexander left behind his infantry and, mounted on horseback with his elite cavalry, covered more than 300 kilometers in eleven days (28 kilometers per day) and reached Ray. From Ray, Alexander traveled via Derbent to reach the site of Darius III’s corpse in mid-July 330 BC. I send my greetings from afar to Professor Schachermeyer, the great historian of ancient European history, and apologize to him. I write to him that what has been written about Alexander the Great’s military campaign in Iran is, like other Alexander biographies, legendary storytelling and inaccurate, and cannot be accepted. As explained below, I will evaluate Alexander’s advance in Iran using the scales provided by the professor in his 724-page book about Alexander the Great, to clarify that the writings in this book about his military campaign to Iran and India, like other Alexander biographies, are baseless and lacking in substance. The professor wrote in his book that: Alexander and his army traveled from Troy, by the Sea of Rome, to the battlefield in four months without encountering the enemy. The distance covered was nearly 1,000 kilometers, meaning that Alexander’s army advanced 3.8 kilometers per day (while Nader Shah’s military advance toward India was 6 kilometers per day). The professor wrote that: Alexander left his infantry behind and pursued Darius III with his cavalry, covering more than 300 kilometers in eleven days (28 kilometers per day) and reached Ray. Therefore, the fastest march of Alexander on horseback was no more than 28 kilometers per day.
The route traveled by Alexander and his army from the battlefield of Gaugamela to Erbil, Kirkuk, Babylon, and Susa was nearly 1,000 kilometers. Taking the same amount of time (four months) to cover the 1,000 kilometers from Tyros to Gaugamela, as mentioned before, we add to this the more than a month Alexander and his army spent in Babylon, making it a total of 5 months. Additionally, we must account for the days spent fighting Darius III (one of the largest ancient battles), the days spent looting in Erbil, and the days spent reorganizing his army on the way from Babylon to Susa (which I estimate as one month in total). According to this calculation, based on the scales from the professor’s Alexander biography, Alexander and his army could not have reached Susa before six months, meaning no earlier than April 330 BC. This calculation contradicts the professor’s book, which places Alexander and his army in Susa by the end of December 331 BC, which is not possible. The professor wrote that Alexander and his army set off from Babylon for Susa in early December and, after twenty days of marching, arrived in Susa by the end of December 331 BC.
This same professor also wrote that Alexander and his army stayed in Persepolis for four months, from January to May 330 BC. Comparing these two dates, it results in the following: The capture of Susa and its looting, Alexander’s coronation, the exhaustion of his army, the 700 kilometers covered from Susa to Persepolis, and the taking of Persepolis were all accomplished by Alexander and his army in just ten days (from the end of December 331 BC to the beginning of January 330 BC). This is the historical example that Europeans have written for us. The professor and all the Alexander biographers and historians have written that: Alexander and his army covered 3,300 kilometers from the Tigris River to the battlefield of Gaugamela, Erbil, Kirkuk, Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ekbatana, Ray, Derbent, near Damghan, and the site of Darius III’s corpse in nine and a half months (from the first day of October 331 to mid-July 330 BC).
From these nine and a half months, we must subtract: one month spent in Babylon, four months of exhaustion in Persepolis, the days spent fighting at Gaugamela, the looting of Erbil, the reorganization of the army on the way from Babylon to Susa, and the looting and coronation at Susa, all of which I estimate as one month in total. By subtracting these six and a half months from the nine and a half months, we are left with three and a half months, or 105 days. Eleven of these 105 days were spent by Alexander in a rapid march on horseback from Ekbatana to Ray. Therefore, the remaining 3,000 kilometers must have been covered in 94 days, meaning 32 kilometers per day. This would have been impossible, as the fastest march Alexander ever made, on horseback and with exhausted horses, was 28 kilometers per day (from Ekbatana to Ray, 300 kilometers in eleven days), which is four kilometers less than his daily advance along the Tigris. Marching 32 kilometers per day is 3.5 times the speed of Nader Shah’s advance during his campaign in India. This cannot be accepted or believed.

Another calculation:
Alexander and his army, without encountering resistance, covered 1,000 kilometers from Tyros to the Tigris in four months. By this measure, they should have covered 3,000 kilometers between the Tigris and near Damghan in twelve months. To this twelve months, we add: eleven days of rapid marching by Alexander from Ekbatana to Ray + one month spent in Babylon and four months spent in Persepolis + the days spent fighting Darius III and the looting and coronation at Susa, all of which I estimate as one month in total. This six months and eleven days, added to the twelve months calculated above, totals eighteen months and eleven days. Therefore, Alexander could not have reached Darius III’s corpse any earlier than eighteen months and eleven days, which is nine months later than the date written in all the Alexander biographies, namely the beginning of April 329 BC, not the "mid-July 330 BC" stated by Professor Schachermeyer and other Alexander biographers.
Remarkable! Why should a great and elderly scholar, in the age of atom splitting and space exploration, uncritically accept the false writings of the legendary storytellers about Alexander as historical fact? After years of study on Alexander the Great's invasion of Iran, the conclusion has been reached:
The military campaign of Alexander the Great into Iran and India is the greatest historical lie.
I believe that there was a specific purpose behind this, which continues to this day. It is clear to me that, during the past two centuries, the colonial policy of the British Empire has worked hard to weaken the spirit of the people of the East. In this regard, the British Empire has turned the legend of Alexander the Great into history and used the mace of Alexander to strike the colonized people of the Near East, the Middle East, and India, in order to make the people of Egypt, Arabia, Asia Minor, Iran, Afghanistan, Transoxiana, and India understand that they had been defeated, humiliated, and subjugated by Europeans for over two thousand years. Therefore, European dominance over them is nothing new. It must be accepted unconditionally that this has been successful, to the point that the myth of Alexander the Great’s conquests from Iran to India has become a historical fact.
Read the history of Sir Mark Sykes, the British general, politician, and historian, as well as the writings and travel diaries of "Sir Arnold Stein" about Alexander the Great, to understand the truth of my statement.