The first Iranians to have a definable entity through tangible archaeological evidence (as opposed to legend) are peoples who moved into the valleys of the Zagros Mountains of today’s western Iran, by way of the Caucasus, around 1300 BC. They are identifiable through the archaeological record by their distinctive gray-ware pottery. This is classified as ‘Iron Age I’. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Iranian kingdom of the Medes was founded in the late eighth century BC, with its capital at Ecbatana (modern
Hamadan). No formal excavations have been conducted in Hamadan, but innumerable high-quality objects from Hamadan placed on the illegal antiquities market attest to its significant status during this time and later.
During the early seventh century, the Medes confronted the more famous and infamous Assyrians. Mid-century invasions of the area by Scythians from the Black Sea area caused considerable disruption. The state was strengthened however through both diplomacy and strategic reorganization of the military into separate fighting units of spearmen, bowmen, and cavalry. In 609 BC, an alliance with the Babylonians ended the previously formidable Assyrian power. Consequently, Media fell heir to the former Assyrian holdings in Anatolia, bringing them into confrontation with the Lydians in western Anatolia. At this time, the big power players in the Middle East were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Lydians, and the Medes. An important aspect of Median identity is the phenomenon of the Magi, priests of Aryan traditions.
Achaemenian Persians
Media’s mid-seventh century problems permitted the coalescence of an Iranian group tracing their ancestry in southwest Iran to a legendary Achaemenes. The nascent Achaemenian state is first to be discerned at the site of Tepe Malyan in the Marvdasht plain, where inscribed documents attest to its association with the legendary ‘Parsua’. Around 550 BC, Persian Cyrus II staged a successful revolt, having first married into the Median royal line. Cyrus ‘the Great’ established his dynastic seat at the site of Pasargadae, north of the Marvdasht plain. The site comprises two palaces, with an irrigated garden in between. A platform terrace was probably intended to be the location of a third, private palace in the style of the later, more grandiose Persepolis. Other features of the site include an open-air sacred precinct with two altars, and a tower building, likely an archive house. Cyrus’ tomb employed a form and gabled roof derived from Lydian traditions of tomb architecture.
Achaemenian holdings were considerably expanded when Cyrus captured the city of Babylon in 539 BC. He proceeded to attack Lydia, defeating King Croesus in 546 BC, capturing also Greek cities along the Aegean. But, turning to Iran’s eastern frontier, Cyrus lost his life in 529 BC fighting to control reaches of the Oxus. The capital Pasargadae was never finished as planned.
Cyrus’ successor, Cambyses II (529-522 BC), continued the expansionist policies of his predecessor. In 525 BC, he entered Egypt after a surprise crossing of the Sinai (normally considered formidable protection invasion), ending in capitulation of the city of Memphis. The Pharaoh was carried off into captivity to Iran, and Cambyses was recognized as the founder of the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty. Cambyses’ premature death on the way home precipitated a widespread national revolt. But Darius I (522-486 BC) used suppression of the revolt to trumpet the new power of the Achaemenian state.
The site of Bisitun, in western Iran, is enormously significant for the definition of Achaemenian Empire. On a towering cliff-face above a prolific spring, Darius depicts images of the vanquished in very explicit terms - they are shown with chains around their necks. Their dress defines their ethnicity. Names inscribed above the figures determine their identity. It was this trilingual inscription - in Babylonian, Elamite, and Old Persian - that formed the basis for Rawlinson’s cracking of the code of cuneiform in 1847. The site of Susa, in today’s southwestern Iran, but geographically a natural part of Mesopotamia, functioned as an administrative centre in Achaemenian times. Few intact Achae-menian remains have been unearthed due to the centuries of later site use. The stray find of a statue of Darius is especially interesting because of its strong Egyptianizing style.
Achaemenian Dominion
Following suppression of the famous revolt, Darius moved to expand Iranian authority into India and the Oxus reaches, which he did successfully between 522 and 486 BC. At the same time, he attacked the Scythians in the area of the Black Sea, in the so-called Hellespont, disrupting grain supplies to the Greek city-states along the Aegean coast. His successes on the world stage are well reflected in the creation of a new capital in Pars province, at Persepolis. His palace complexes were set upon an artificial terrace (called in later folklore Takht-i-Jamshid, or throne of mythical King Jamshid), accessed by a ceremonial staircase rising from the Marvdasht plain. Here Darius built his huge audience chamber (Apadana) palace, as well as a smaller private palace. Walls were adorned with scenes of grand accomplishments. There was a treasury building as well. Flanking the staircase of Darius’ audience palace were scenes of processions of loyal subjects and the king’s retainers (Medes and Persians), reflecting the ceremonial activities envisaged for the building.
When King Xerxes (486-465 BC) inherited the throne after Darius’ death, a serious revolt broke out in Egypt. Its harsh suppression signals the hard line that Xerxes took in all his foreign policy. At home, too, he was authoritarian. His so-called
Daeva edict, carved in stone in Old Persian, reflects the close association between Persian state and Zoroastrianism. The edict outlawed what were considered to be inappropriate acts of worship. Struggles with the Magi priests of the Median tradition are not out of the question. The royal tomb site of Naqsh-i-Rustam along an escarpment in the vicinity of Persepolis also attests to this. Here, the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda is depicted above the figure of the king venerating a fire altar. Continuing the strong Egyptian connection in Achaemenian art, Ahura Mazda is shown as a human carried as on the outstreched eagle wings of the god Horus. Disillusioned at the failure of his invasion of Greece in 480, Xerxes devoted his energies to palace construction at Persepolis. He also built a ceremonial gatehouse to the terrace that was flanked by winged bulls as guardian spirits in the style of Assyrian palace architecture.
Following the assassination of Xerxes, Iran was ruled by a series of weak kings between 465 and 404 BC. Symptomatic of state weakness was another revolt in Egypt, in 405 BC, resulting in the end of the status of the Achaemenians as rulers of the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty. A notorious event in this period was the attempted coup by Cyrus the Younger, to take the Achaemenian throne, in 401 BC, employing the services of 10 000 Greek mercenaries. We owe it to the Greek writer Xenophon for the account of Cyrus’ demise. In spite of Cyrus’ battlefield defeat, the unchallenged retreat of the Greeks through hundreds of miles of hostile terrain from Mesopotamia to the shores of the Black Sea speaks loudly of the ineffectiveness of Achaemenian state authority at this time.
Macedonian Conquest
Other uprisings occurred in the Levant, though the revolts were not successful. These events were largely overshadowed by Macedon’s dramatic rise to power. To their eventual disadvantage, the Achaemenians declined to contribute aid to the Athenians in their quest to restrict Philip II’s ambitious expansion of Macedonian authority. At the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Philip brought the entire Greek mainland under his aegis. The stage was now set for the campaigns of Alexander, Philip’s son, who would eventually topple the great empire of Iran. The first loss to Alexander was in 334 BC at the river Granicus, not far from Troy in northwestern Anatolia. Four years later, the Macedonian wonder boy surmounted the steps as a victor of the great palace terrace at Persepolis. The palaces went up in flames. The worst damage was in the palaces of Xerxes, causing archaeologists to interpret the conflagration as an act of revenge. The last Achaemenian king, Darius III, whose unfinished tomb at Persepolis bears testimony to the unexpected speed of the Macedonian advance, fled the scene but was murdered by his own men while trying to escape.
Seleucid Interlude
Returning from his extended march into Asia, Alexander the Great took up residence in Babylon, in southern Mesopotamia, expecting to operate very much as the kind of eastern potentate he had just defeated. Yet he died prematurely in 323 BC, leaving no heir or designate. His generals fought for control of the conquered lands, and Seleucus emerged as victor of the eastern territories in 312 BC. He established a new capital just slightly upstream from Babylon, at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, close to today’s Baghdad. In spite of the fact that veterans of the Macedonian campaign had been settled along the way in newly created cities - which meant that Greek cultural attitudes and principles of science and technology began to supplant the ancient traditions in these settlements - it became difficult for the Macedonian authorities to control the vast territory they had conquered. Testimony to this is presented when local figures issued coins in the own names, not that of the Seleucid king.
An example of the precarious Seleucid position is documented at Pasargadae. A military fort had been built on Cyrus’ unfinished palace terrace, as part of the post-Alexandrian occupation of the region. A coin hoard recovered through excavation from the destroyed, burnt layers of the Pasargadae fort attests to a local uprising against the Macedonian presence around 280 BC. Already by 300 BC either provincial governors or native chiefs were claiming degrees of independence from the Seleucid authorities. Eventually, as the eastern losses increased, the Seleucids abandoned Mesopotamia and positioned themselves on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, at Antioch. A few forays were made to recover lost territory on the Iranian plateau, but the new stakeholders - the Parthians - resisted these attempts. We have here the beginnings of a new empire of Iran.
World History
