Ecbatana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Map of Iran and surrounding lands, showing location of Hamadan (Hagmatan/Ekbatana)

Golden Rhyton from Iran's Achaemenid period. excavated at Ecbatana. Kept at National Museum of Iran.

Ecbatana (Old Persian: Haŋgmatana, written Agbatana in Aeschylus and Herodotus, Agámtanu by Nabonidos, and Agamatanu at Behistun; modern Hamadan, Iran) (literally: the place of gathering) is supposed to be the capital of Astyages (Istuvegü), which was taken by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 BC).

The Greeks supposed it to be the capital of Media, and ascribed its foundation to Deioces (the Daiukku of the cuneiform inscriptions), who is said to have surrounded his palace in it with seven concentric walls of different colours.

So far no evidence of Median existence in Hagmatana hill has been attested. The only evidence observed in the area belongs to the Parthian era afterwards. ^[1] There is no mention of Hagmatana/Ecbatana in Assyrian sources at all. Some scholars have suggested the Sagbita/Sagbat frequently mentioned in Assyrian texts in fact has been an earlier form of the Ecbatana/Hagmatana mentioned in later Greek and Achaemenid sources, as Indo-Iranian /s/ turned into /h/ in many Iranian languages. Sagbita mentioned by Assyrian sources was located in proximity of cities of Kishesim (Kar-Nergal) and Harhar (Kar-Sharrukin) ^[2]^[3]. Under the Persian kings, Ecbatana, situated at the foot of Mount Alvand, became a summer residence. Later, it became the capital of the Parthian kings.

Sir Henry Rawlinson attempted to prove that there was a second and older Ecbatana in Media Atropatene on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman, but the cuneiform texts imply that there was only one city of the name, and Takht-i Suleiman is the Gazaca of classical geography. Ecbatana was the main mint of the Parthians, it produced drachm, tetradrachm, and assorted bronze denominations. It is also mentioned in the Bible (Ezra, vi. 2).

In the fifth century B.C. Herodotus wrote of Ecbatana: "The Medes built the city now called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles one within the other. The plan of the place is, that each of the walls should out-top the one beyond it by the battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favors this arrangements in some degree but it is mainly effected by art. The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries standing within the last. The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with that of Athens. On this wall the battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, the fifth orange; all these colors with paint. The last two have their battlements coated repectively with silver and gold. All these fortifications Deioces had caused to be raised for himself and his own palace."

Ecbatana/Hamedan (Iran) is not to be confused with Ecbatana/Hamath (Syria) where Cambyses II is supposed to have died according to Herodotus.

Ancient Near East portal

Archaeology portal

[edit] Notes

^ CHN | News
^ I.N. Medvedskaya, Were the Assyrians at Ecbatana?, Jan, 2002 [1]
^ Were the Assyrians at Ecbatana? | International Journal of Kurdish Studies | Find Articles at BNET.com

[edit] References

See Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Persia (Eng. trans., 1892); M Dieulafoy, L'Art antique de Ia Perse, pt. i. (1884); J. de Morgan, Mission scientifique en Perse, ii. (1894).
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Please update as needed.