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3 - MEDIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
I. M. Diakonoff
Edited by
I. Gershevitch
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Summary

THE MEDES AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES

The earliest recorded information on the population of the Iranian highlands

During the epoch which forms the subject of this chapter the name Media (Iranian Māda), as covering the entire historical region which later bore that name, did not yet exist. However, for the sake of simplicity, we shall with some anachronistic licence speak of "Media" in the broad meaning of this geographical term, understanding by it the territory limited in the west by the Zagros mountain ranges, in the north by the river Araxes and the Alburz mountain range, in the east by the salt desert Dasht-i Kavīr, and in the south by a line passing along the watershed which separates the valleys of the rivers flowing towards the centre of the highland, from those of the rivers Saimarreh-Karkhah, Āb-i Diz, Kārūn and the basin of Lake Nairīz.

Of the other tribes inhabiting the Iranian highlands outside Elam at the dawn of history, written sources in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Elamite mention the Qutī, the Lullubī, and the Kassites, as well as the Hurrians whose original home lay outside Iran but who partly encroached on some regions of present-day Kurdistan up to Lake Urmīya.

The Qutī, under the name of Gu-ti-umKI, or more correctly Qù-ti-umKI, appear in the historical arena at the end of the 23rd century B.C. during the reign of Narām-Su'en, king of Akkade, who at that time held under his sway the whole of Mesopotamia up to the foot-hills of the Zagros, the Armenian Taurus and the Taurus in Asia Minor; Elam, too, was subject to him. To judge from a later Akkadian tradition Narām-Su'en had to fight the Qutī and possibly fell in a battle against them. Apparently at that time the leader of the Qutī, Enridawazir, penetrated deep into Southern Mesopotamia and seized the sacred town of Nippur, where an inscription was composed for him by Sumerian scribes.

Keywords

Mannaean kingdomAssyrian inscriptionsElamite territoryeastern MediaZagros mountain rangespre-Iranian populationMedian desert
Type
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The Cambridge History of Iran , pp. 36 - 148
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1985

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  • MEDIA
  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Iran
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521200912.004
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  • MEDIA
  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Iran
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521200912.004
Available formats
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  • MEDIA
  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Iran
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521200912.004
Available formats
×