Achaemenid EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (əˈkiːmənᵻd; 𐎧𐏁𐏂, Xšāça, ) was the ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC, also known as the First Persian Empire. Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen at its time, spanning a total of from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east. Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians.
Sasanian EmpireThe Sasanian Empire (səˈsɑːniən,_səˈseɪniən), officially known as Eranshahr ("Land/Empire of the Iranians"), was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).
Parthian EmpireThe Parthian Empire (ˈpɑrθiən), also known as the Arsacid Empire (ˈɑrsəsɪd), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I (171-132 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids.
Behistun InscriptionThe Behistun Inscription (also spelled Bisotun, Bisitun or Bisutun; بیستون, Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the place of god") is a multilingual Achaemenid royal inscription and large rock relief, produced during the reign of Darius I the Great (522-486). It is carved on a cliff at Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of modern Iran. The inscription was important to the decipherment of cuneiform, because it is the longest known cuneiform text recorded in multiple languages, being written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a variety of Akkadian).
CimmeriansThe Cimmerians were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians. The Cimmerians themselves left no written records, and most information about them is largely derived from Assyrian records of the 8th to 7th centuries BC and from Graeco-Roman authors from the 5th century BC and later.
ColchisIn classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis ('kɒlkɪs; Κολχίς) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi (ეგრისი) located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the Colchians, are generally thought to have been an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe ancestral to contemporary western Georgians, namely Svans and Zans. According to David Marshall Lang: "one of the most important elements in the modern Georgian nation, the Colchians were probably established in the Caucasus by the Middle Bronze Age.
Hellenistic periodIn classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the death of Cleopatra VII (30 BC) followed by the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Ancient Greek word Hellas (Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived.
Iranian peoplesThe Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe, from the Danubian plains in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.
ScythiansThe Scythians (ˈsɪθiən or ˈsɪðiən) or Scyths (ˈsɪθ, but note Scytho- (ˈsaɪθʊ) in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained established from the 7th century BC until the 3rd century BC. Skilled in mounted warfare, the Scythians replaced the Agathyrsi and the Cimmerians as the dominant power on the western Eurasian Steppe in the 8th century BC.
TehranTehran (tɛəˈræn,_-ˈrɑːn,_ˌteɪ-; Tehrân tehˈɾɒːn) is the capital and most populous city of Iran, capital of Tehran province and Tehran county. Tehran city had a population of 9,039,000 in the estimate of 2022 and according to the 2018 estimate of the United Nations, it is the 34th most populous city in the world and the most populous city in West Asia, Tehran metropolis is also the second most populated metropolis in the Middle East.
