Hamadan > Ecbatana Hamadan Iran

Hamazi or Khamazi (Sumerian: a-ma-ziki) is an ancient kingdom or city-state of some importance that reaches its peak between about 2500 and 2400 BCE.

Its exact location is unknown, but is thought to have been located in the western Zagros mountains roughly between Elam and Assyria, possibly near Nuzi or modern Hamadan.

Hamazi first came to the attention of archaeologists with the discovery of a vase with an inscription in very archaic cuneiform commemorating the victory of Utug (or Uhub), an early king of Kish, over this place, causing fringe theorist Laurence Waddell in 1929 to speculate that it was to be identified with Carchemish in Syria.

It is now generally considered to have been somewhere near the Diyala, a river and tributary of the Tigris that runs through Kurdistan in Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan.

One of the earliest references to Hamazi is found in the epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, where Enmerkar prays to Enki about the confusion of languages in the various inhabited lands, at the time of the building of the ziggurats in Eridu and Uruk.

Hamazi is the only land mentioned in this prayer with the epithet "many-tongued.” A sequel, Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, also mentions that the sorcerer of Hamazi, Urgirinuna, went to Aratta after Hamazi "had been destroyed"; he is later sent by the Lord of Aratta on a failed mission attempting to bring Enmerkar into submission.

According to the Sumerian king list, king Hadanish of Hamazi held hegemony over Sumer after defeating Kish, but was in turn defeated by Enshakushanna of Uruk.

A clay tablet found in the archives at Ebla in Syria bears a copy of a diplomatic message sent from king Irkab-Damu of Ebla to king Zizi of Hamazi, along with a large quantity of wood, hailing him as a brother, and requesting him to send mercenaries in exchange.

The legendary King Vahe of Armenia, the last offspring of the Hyke dynasty, revolts against Alexander the Great and falls in battle, fighting for Darius the Great of Persia, according to the fifth century poet and historian Moses of Chorene (or Khoren), who is traditionally regarded as the author of the most significant mediaeval Armenian history.

…Darius escapes with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.

Alexander may have had a great advantage in linothrax, a Kevlar-like body armor made by laminating together layers of linen.

Widely mentioned in ancient records, the main visual evidence for Alexander wearing linothrax is the famous Alexander mosaic from Pompeii, which depicts the Macedonian conquerer wearing this sort of armor.

Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, states that Alexander wore “a breastplate of folded [or doubled] linen” at the Battle of Gaugamela.

Linothrax apparently used the flexibility of the fabric to disperse the force of the incoming arrow or other projectiles, providing ample protection under extreme conditions.

A few years after Gaugamela, when Alexander is in India and receives twenty-five thousand new suits of armor for his forces, he is described as ordering the old, worn-out suits to be burned—an indication that said armor is not made of metal but of fabric.

Alexander marches north into Media in spring 330 BCE and occupies its capital Ecbatana, the summer residence of the Achaemenian kings.

He sends home the Thessalians and Greek allies; henceforward he will wage a purely personal war.

His views on the empire are changing, as the appointment of Mazaeus indicates: he has come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this serves to augment the misunderstanding that now arises between him and his people.

Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who has retreated into Bactria, he assembles all the Persian treasure and entrusts it to Harpalus, who is to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer.

Parmenio, an older man whose presence has perhaps become irksome, is also left behind in Media to control communications.

Hephaestion dies in Ecbatana in autumn 324 BCE, and …

…Peithon to the greater (southern) part of the former Achaemenid satrapy of Media—Media Magna—as far as the Caspian Straits; …

…the Seleucids also recover the nearer provinces of Iran.

Ecbatana (in Persia) is also named Epiphania and becomes a Greek city.

Many of these Seleucid cities are granted the right to coin their own municipal currency.

Mardavij, shortly after proclaiming his new dynasty, raises an army to encounter the Abbasid Caliph first in Hamadan, Kermanshah province, then …

Ibn Sina had subsequently settled at Rai, in the vicinity of modern Tehran, (present day capital of Iran), the home town of Rhazes; where Majd Addaula, a son of the last Buyid emir, was nominal ruler under the regency of his mother (Seyyedeh Khatun).

About thirty of Ibn Sina's shorter works are said to have been composed in Rai.

Constant feuds that raged between the regent and her second son, Shams al-Daula, however, had compelled the scholar to quit the place.

After a brief sojourn at Qazvin he passed southwards to Hamadãn where Shams al-Daula, another Buyid emir, had established himself.

At first, Ibn Sina entered into the service of a highborn lady; but the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling.

Ibn Sina was even raised to the office of vizier.

The emir decreed that he should be banished from the country.

Ibn Sina, however, remained hidden for forty days in sheikh Ahmed Fadhel's house, until a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post.

Even during this perturbed time, Ibn Sina persevered with his studies and teaching.

Every evening, extracts from his great works, the Canon and the Sanatio, were dictated and explained to his pupils.