Hamadan
(2002 pop. 409,000). Hamadan (once called Ecbatana), an ancient city in western Iran, was the capital of Media; after the Persians overthrew their Median overlords, the city became the Persian royal summer residence. Alexander of Macedon conquered the city in 330 BCE, while pursuing the last Persian ruler, Darius III. The Seleucids besieged Hamadan, and the Parthians incorporated it into their empire. The Arabs took the city in the seventh century, and the Seljuk Turks in the twelfth century, the Seljuks making Ecbatana their capital. After the Mongols invaded Iran in the thirteenth century, they devastated Ecbatana in 1220; the city of Hamadan rose above Ecbatana's ruins. Timur sacked Hamadan in 1386.
More recently Russians, Turks, and British have held Hamadan for various periods, with the Iranians finally gaining the city in 1918. In the 1980s, the Iran-Iraq war caused much damage to Hamadan.
Hamadan's location explains its history. The city lies on the road between modern Tehran and Baghdad, and whoever controlled the city also dominated north-south and east-west routes—between the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf and between Europe and China. About one hundred kilometers west of Hamadan, in a mountainous region, is Darius the Great's inscription at Bisitun, meant to impress travelers passing between Assyria and Media. The Persian king's trilingual inscription on the rocky bluff was used to decipher cuneiform in the nineteenth century.
Modern Hamadan is a commercial center noted for fine Persian rugs and leather goods. Ironically Ecbatana's remains are buried beneath modern Hamadan, except for the Sang-e Shir (stone lion), a majestic but time-ravaged guardian of the city gates from the fourth century BCE. The fabled golden treasures of the Median and Persian palaces of Ecbatana await excavation, which is unlikely to occur because the modern city would have to be demolished.
The tomb of Avicenna (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Sina; 980–1037), a Persian Islamic philosopher and physician, stands in Hamadan; Avicenna's medical text was widely studied in Europe as well as Asia. Also in Hamadan is a tomb said to be that of the biblical Esther and Mordecai; designed in Islamic style, the tomb is guarded by a Jewish family, who serve as custodians and guides.
Further Reading
Adelkhah, Fariba. (2000) Being Modern in Iran. New York: Columbia University Press and Centre d'Études et de Recherches Internationales.
Ghirshman, Roman. (1978) Iran. Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin.
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