Search for the Median empire

by Damien F. Mackey “The very existence of a Median empire, with the emphasis on empire, is thus questionable” (H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Was there ever a Median Empire?”, in Kuhrt, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., Achaemenid History III. Method and Theory, Leiden, 1988, p. 212). There is an outstanding reason why the Median empire has been so hard to pinpoint, and that is because archaeologico-historians do not know the true location of Media. And that must necessarily mean, in turn, that they are unable to investigate Media archaeologically. This has led to scholars questioning the very existence of the Median empire. For, as I observed in my article: Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology (2) Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology [Professor Gunnar] Heinsohn, in his far-reaching “The Restoration of Ancient History” (http://www.mikamar.biz/symposium/heinsohn.txt), refers to the results of some conferences in the 1980’s pointing to difficulties regarding the extent of the Medo-Persian empires: In the 1980’s, a series of eight major conferences brought together the world’s finest experts on the history of the Medish and Persian empires. They reached startling results. The empire of Ninos [pre-Alexander period (3)] was not even mentioned. Yet, its Medish successors were extensively dealt with - to no great avail. In 1988, one of the organizers of the eight conferences, stated the simple absence of an empire of the Medes [pre-Alexander period (2)]: “A Median oral tradition as a source for Herodotus III is a hypothesis that solves some problems, but has otherwise little to recommend it … This means that not even in Herodotus’ Median history a real empire is safely attested. In Assyrian and Babylonian records and in the archeological evidence no vestiges of an imperial structure can be found. The very existence of a Median empire, with the emphasis on empire, is thus questionable” (H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Was there ever a Median Empire?”, in A. Kuhrt, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., Achaemenid History III. Method and Theory, Leiden, 1988, p. 212). Two years later came the really bewildering revelation. Humankind’s first world empire of the Persians [Pre-Alexander Period (1)] did not fare much better than the Medes. Its imperial dimensions had dryly to be labelled “elusive” (H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “The quest for an elusive empire?”, in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, A. Kuhrt, eds., Achaemenid History IV. Centre and Periphery, Leiden 1990, p. 264). [End of quote] I did, however, qualify my point about the apparently inadequate archaeology by going on to explain that the underlying problem was one of geography: Now, I think that there are two compelling reasons why Medo-Persian archaeology does not appear to manifest itself adequately in Mesopotamia. The first reason is huge and is hugely controversial: Medo-Persia was actually located nowhere near Mesopotamia. This is according to a recent (2020) geographical correction by retired Naval Officer, Royce (Richard) Erickson, in his ground-breaking article: A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY (3) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson - Academia.edu I fully accept, at least, Royce Erickson’s radical NW re-location of Chaldea and Elam, and so would broadly agree with him that the related Medes and Persians must also be correspondingly shifted. The second reason is due to the fact (my belief, that is) that: Some of the so-called Persian Kings were semi-legendary, and composite The mighty king, Xerxes, favoured by various commentators to represent “Ahasuerus”, the Great King of the Book of Esther, is most likely a composite character, a mix of real Assyrian and Medo-Persian kings. The name ‘Xerxes’ is thought by historians to accord extremely well linguistically with “Ahasuerus”, the name of the Great King of the Book of Esther. There are several kings “Ahasuerus” in the (Catholic) Bible: in Tobit; in Esther; in Ezra; and in Daniel. As Cyrus The “Ahasuerus” in Esther I have identified as Darius the Mede/Cyrus. The names, Xerxes, Ahasuerus, Cyaxares and Cyrus are all fairly compatible. …. Some revisionist scholars have boldly embarked upon a radical type of solution to ‘save’ the Medo-Persian empire. My article continues: Professor Gunnar Heinsohn had put forward a most controversial ‘solution’ to account for the problems of Medo-Persian archaeology by attempting to identify the Persians with the Old Babylonian Dynasty of Hammurabi – Darius ‘the Great’ being Hammurabi himself. More recently (2002) Emmet Sweeney, who has been a supporter of Heinsohn, has sought to fuse the Persians with the neo-Assyrians and neo-Babylonians, so that, for instance, Cyrus the Great is to be identified with Tiglath-pileser III; Xerxes with Sennacherib; and Artaxerxes III with Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. …. Clever - but the proper solution is, I suggest - following Royce Erickson - to re-locate Medo-Persia geographically. If that be done correctly, then a flourishing new archaeology awaits the hopeful spade. A somewhat pessimistic, understandably, view of the “Medes” (2020) is given here at: https://www.livius.org/articles/people/medes/ Media poses a problem to the scholar who tries to describe this ancient empire: the evidence is unreliable. It consists of the archaeological record, several references in Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts, the Persian Behistun inscription, the Histories by the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the Persian history by Ctesias of Cnidus, and a couple of chapters in the Bible. The trouble is that the archaeological record is unclear, that the oriental texts offer not much information, that the Greek authors are unreliable, and that several Biblical books appear to have been influenced by Herodotus. But let's start with a description of the landscape itself. Mackey’s comment: No, the Herodotean account is far more complex than is the biblical data which can be boiled down to just the one major Median king: “Darius the Mede namely [even] Cyrus the Persian” (Daniel 6:28). Daniel in the den of lions during the reign of Darius the Mede (Daniel 6:16-23), even the reign of Cyrus (Daniel 14:31-42: Bel and the Dragon), is just the one, same incident: Was Daniel twice in the lions’ den? (3) Was Daniel Twice in the Lions' Den The livius.org article continues, dishing up the conventional archaeology for Media which is so hopelessly misplaced. The Country Although the boundaries of Media were never completely fixed, it is more or less identical to the northwest of modern Iran. Its capital Ecbatana is modern Hamadan; its western part is dominated by the Zagros mountains and border on Assyria; to the south are Elam and Persis; in the arid east, the Caspian Gate is the boundary with Parthia; and Media is separated from the Caspian Sea and Armenia by the Elburz mountains. The country was (and is) dominated by the east-west route that was, in the Middle Ages, known as the Silk road; it connected Media to Babylonia, Assyria, Armenia, and the Mediterranean in the west, and to Parthia, Aria, Bactria, Sogdia, and China in the east. Another important road connected Ecbatana with the capitals of Persis, like Persepolis and Pasargadae. Mackey’s comment: See above map (Royce Erickson’s Figure 1) for this Pasargadae newly identified with Pazarkaya: Pasargadae (5C) Pazarkaya Identical Persian and modern Turkish name. Modern site fits Assyrian list of Persian and Median towns correlated with Anatolian sites and also Greek History Persia Media controlled the east-west trade, but was also rich in agricultural products. The valleys and plains in the Zagros are fertile, and Media was well-known for clover (which is still called medicago), sheep, goats, and the horses of the Nisaean plain. The country could support a large population and boasted many villages and a few cities (Ecbatana, Rhagae, Gabae). The Greek author Polybius of Megalopolis correctly calls it the most powerful of all Asian countries, and it was generally recognized as one of the most important parts of the Seleucid and Parthian Empires. Mackey’s comment: See same map for Ecbatana newly identified with Abadaniye: Bit-Matti Matiana Goreme, Nevsehir Media Recent previous historical name of Turkish Goreme was Matiana. Located close to Abadaniye (Agbatana) and Ladek (Laodiceia) Royce Erickson has written regarding Agbatana/Ecbatana potentially as Abadaniye (I do not necessarily accept his account here of Cyrus and Persian history): …. There is a small town in central Tukey north of Konya called Abadaniye, very similar phonetically to Agbatana. A little more than 100 years ago its Armenian name was Egdavama. Next to it lies a barren, gentle hill with a circumference of about 6 miles, very much like the circuit wall of classical Athens, 5.25 miles. its gentle slope would favor the arrangement of seven concentric walls rising one above the other, just as Herodotus describes the walls of Agbatana. According to Greek tradition, other Median major cities were Laodicea, Rhages , and Apamea, all three not far from Ecbatana. These are their later classical Greek names; their original Median names are unknown. Modern scholars tentatively locate these sites near Tehran, based on the assumption that Agbatana was in Iran, but with admittedly very sparse historical or archaeological support. Strangely enough in south central Turkey very near modern Abadaniye described above, lie the modern towns of Dinar and Ladek, previously named Apamea and Laodicea by the Greeks. Thus there is strong circumstantial evidence that the core of the ancient Median Empire around 700 BC was not in Iran, but in central Turkish Anatolia, over 600 miles to the West. This could be written off as an absurd concept supported by astounding coincidence, so allow me add a few more facts to strengthen the case. Early Persians were closely intertwined with the Medes geographically and historically. Originally Median vassals, the Persians later ousted the Median king Astyages by means of a coup d’etat aided by the defection of most of the Median army, and established the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, incorporating the entire Median Empire. The original capital of the Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus II on the site of his victory over Astyages, known to the ancients as Pasargadae. Until today its location remains unknown, but is assumed by experts to be somewhere in southwest Iran, based once again on historical deduction without strong material archaeological support, despite numerous attempts to find any. Once again, we find in central Anatolia today two towns with the modern Turkish names of Pazarkaye and Khorasi not far from Abadaniye. I propose that Pazarkaye is the modern site of ancient Persian Pasargadae, and Khorasi (pronounced Khorashi) is on the site of a proposed Persian town named after either Cyrus I or Cyrus II, Persian kings whose names were pronounced “Kurush.” …. Early History Media is archaeologically poorly understood. Often, researchers have simply called those objects Median that were discovered under the stratum they had identified as Achaemenid. It would have been helpful if we could establish that certain types of archaeological remains (like house forms, ornaments, pottery, and burial rites) in the entire area of Media constantly recurred together, but until now this definition of a material culture has not been possible. Mackey’s comment: Recall what I have written above regarding Median geography: Still, it is reasonably clear that in the first quarter of the first millennium, nomadic cattle-herders speaking an Indo-Iranian language infiltrated the Zagros and settled among the native population. (The language of the newcomers can be reconstructed from loan words, personal names and toponyms.) The tribal warriors are mentioned for the first time in the Assyrian Annals as enemies of Šalmaneser III (858-824). KURMa-da-a ("the land of the Medes") …. and although the Assyrian kings were able to subdue several of them, they never conquered all of Media. In fact, it is likely that the Assyrians were themselves responsible for the unification of the Median tribes. …. Empire? If we are to believe Herodotus, Media was unified by a man named Deioces … the first of four kings who were to rule a true empire that included large parts of Iran and eastern Anatolia. Their names sound convincingly Iranian: a Daiaukku and a Uksatar (Deioces and Cyaxares) are mentioned in texts from the eighth century. Using the number of regnal years mentioned by the Greek researcher and counting backward from the year in which the last Median leader (who is mentioned in the Babylonian Nabonidus Chronicle) lost his throne, we obtain this list: Deioces 53 years 700/699 to 647/646 Phraortes 22 years 647/646 to 625/624 Cyaxares 40 years 625/624 to 585/584 Astyages 35 years 585/584 to 550/549 Unfortunately, there are several problems. In the first place, Ctesias offers another list of kings. Secondly, there is something wrong with the chronology: according to Assyrian sources, the Daiaukku and Uksatar mentioned above lived in c.715. Even worse, Daiaukku lived near Lake Urmia, not in Ecbatana. Besides, the story of Deioces looks suspiciously like a myth or saga about the origins of civilization. Finally, Herodotus' figures are suspect: (53+22) + (40+35) = 75+75 = 150 years. There is no need to doubt the existence of the two last rulers, who are also mentioned in Babylonian texts, but we may ask what kind of leaders they have been. One clue is a little list that Herodotus inserted in his Histories, in which he states that Deioces "united the Medes and was ruler of the tribes which here follow, namely, the Busae, Paretacenians, Struchates, Arizantians, Budians, and Magians". …. But was Deioces the only leader to unite several tribes? It is not a strange or novel idea to interpret the various personal names we have as an indication of a fluid, still developing central leadership. Herodotus' list can be seen as an attempt to create order in a confused oral tradition about earlier leaders; his description of Median history probably projects back aspects of the later, Achaemenid empire upon a loose tribal federation. He took the stories told by his Persian informers about the early history of Iran a bit too literally. Which does not mean that the leaders of tribal federations were not capable of exercising great political influence. Mackey’s comment: Ha, ha. The author here shows about as much confidence in the reliability of Herodotus as an historian as I do. Although an Arbaces may have united several Median tribes too, Cyaxares and Astyages are generally recognized as the two last rulers of the federation of tribes. According to the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle, Cyaxares (called Umakištar) destroyed the Assyrian religious center Aššur in the summer of 614: The Medes went along the Tigris and encamped against Aššur. They did battle against the city and destroyed it. They inflicted a terrible defeat upon a great people, plundered and sacked them. The king of Babylonia and his army, who had gone to help the Medes, did not reach the battle in time. From this moment on, Cyaxares and the Babylonian king Nabopolassar joined forces, and two years later, the Assyrian capital Nineveh was captured by the allies: The king of Babylonia and Cyaxares [...] encamped against Nineveh. From the month Simanu [May/June] until the month Âbu [July/August] -for three months- they subjected the city to a heavy siege. On the [lacuna] day of the month Abu they inflicted a major defeat upon a great people. At that time Sin-šar-iškun, king of Assyria, died. They carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple and turned the city into a ruin heap. [...] On the twentieth day of the month Ulûlu [10 August 612] Cyaxares and his army went home. Mackey’s comment: Here, in my opinion, Sennacherib (“Nabopolassar”) (c. 700 BC) has become inter-mixed with a somewhat later time, when Sin-shar-ishkun, the son of Ashurbanipal, was killed (c. 612 BC, conventional dating). Aššur-etil-ilāni, the supposed brother of this Sin-shar-ishkun, was actually his father, as Esarhaddon/Ashurbanipal. See my article: Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani (2) Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani Then, moving all of this into synch with its Chaldean parallel, Ashurbanipal’s ill-fated son, Sin-shar-ishkun, the last ruler of Assyria, re-emerges as the same king as Nebuchednezzar’s ill-fated son, Belshazzar, the last Chaldean ruler. …. Anyhow, Cyrus took over the loosely organized Median empire, including several subject countries: Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, and perhaps Aria. They were probably ruled by vassal kings called satraps. In 547, Cyrus added Lydia to his possessions, a state that had among its vassals the Greek and Carian towns in the west and southwest of what is now Turkey. Mackey’s comment: Notice the largely western geography here: Armenia; Cappadocia; Lydia; Greek and Carian towns. Royce Erickson has, in connection with his new, revolutionary geography, made the following intriguing comment on the Median and Persian languages: [Darius the Great] established a new capital at Persepolis in 515 BC and carved a monumental inscription, accompanied by numerous illustrations, on the nearby cliff of Behistunstan, describing and glorifying his victory in the civil war. The inscription was written in Persian (Iranian), Akkadian and Elamite – the three most important languages of the Empire. I would suggest that the Iranian language currently identified as Persian was actually Median and that the language currently identified as Elamite was the actual Persian language, as spoken at that time. Exactly how the geographic and ethnic transformation of Persians into Iranians occurred, before or after the founding of Persepolis, or even whether it occurred at all, is a worthy subject for study and debate. …. Whatever about that, there is no doubt that many startling discoveries (archaeological, geographical, cultural, linguistic, and so on) await us as a result of Royce Erickson’s: More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of Elam and Chaldea (2) More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of Elam and Chaldea