Petrie, C., Knox, R., Khan, F., and Thomas, K. (2005). The Achaemenid empire in South Asia and recent excavations in Akra in northern Pakistan. American Journal of Archaeology, 109 (4), pp. 711–741.20 Marshall, Sir J. (1951). Taxila, 3 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21 McNicoll, A., Ball, W. (1996). Excavations at Kandahar 1974 and 1975. BAR International Series 641. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.
22 Mohammadkhani, K. (2012). Une nouvelle construction monumentale achéménide à Dahaneh‐e Gholaman, Sistan, Iran. ARTA 2012.001, pp. 1–18.
23 Potts, D.T. (1990). The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity: Vol. I: From Prehistory to the Fall of the Achaemenid Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
24 Sajjadi, S.M.S. (2007). Wall painting from Dahaneh‐ye Gholaman (Sistan). Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia, 13, pp. 129–154.
25 Sarianidi, V. (1977). Bactrian center of ancient art. Mesopotamia, 12, pp. 97–110.
26 Scerrato, U. (1966). Excavations at Dahan‐e Ghulaman (Seistan‐Iran): first preliminary report (1962–1963). East and West, 16, pp. 9–30.
27 Stein, M.A. (1931). An Archaeological Tour in Gedrosia. Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch.
28 Stein, M.A. (1937). Archaeological Reconnaissances in North‐Western India and South‐Eastern Iran: Carried Out and Recorded with the Support of Harvard University. London: Macmillan.
29 Vogelsang, W.J. (1992). The Rise and Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: The Eastern Iranian Evidence. Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East 3. Leiden: Brill.
30 Wheeler, Sir M. (1962). Chārsada: A Metropolis of the North West Frontier. London: Oxford University Press.
31 Wilkinson, T.J., Boucharlat, R., Ertsen, M.W., et al. (2012). From human niche construction to imperial power: long‐term trends in ancient Iranian water systems. Water History, 4 (2), pp. 155–176.
FURTHER READING
1 Avanzini, A. (ed.) (2010). Eastern Arabia in the First Millennium BC. Arabia Antiqua 6. Archaeological Studies. Roma: “L’Erma” di Breitschneider. Contains several up‐to‐date papers on first millennium BCE archeology in southeastern Arabia.
2 Ball, W. (2019). Archaeeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan. Revised edition, Oxford : Oxford University Press.
3 Boucharlat, R. (2003). Water draining galleries in the Iron Age Oman Peninsula and the “Iranian qanat”. In D. Potts, H. Al Naboodah, and P. Hellyer (eds.), The Emirates in Antiquity: Proceedings of the 1st Conference on the Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, April 2001. London: Trident Press, pp. 162–172. Raises the issue of new irrigation techniques allowing the resettlement of the region in this period.
4 Callieri, P. (2004). s.v. India iii. Political and historical relations: Achaemenid period. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 13 (1), pp. 10–13; and more recently some pages in Henkelman, W.F.M. (2012). The Achaemenid heartland: an archaeological‐historical perspective. In D.T. Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 931–962. Provide a historical and archeological overview of the eastern satrapies.
5 Franke‐Vogt, U. (2001). The Southern Indus Valley during the later 2nd and 1st millennia B.C.: the Dark Age. In R. Eichmann, H. Parzinger (eds.), Migration und Kulturtransfer: Der Wandel vorder‐ und zentralasiatischer Kulturen im Umbruch vom 2. und 1. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend. Bonn: R. Habelt, pp. 247–303; Magee, P., Petrie, C. (2010). West of the Indus – East of the Empire: the archaeology of the pre‐Achaemenid and Achaemenid periods in Baluchistan and the North‐West Frontier Province, Pakistan. In J. Curtis, J. Simpson (eds.), The World of Achaemenid Persia, London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 502–522. Discuss archeological data in northwestern and western Pakistan, to the Indus river, particularly ceramic chronology.
6 Magee, P. (2005) The chronology and environmental background of Iron Age settlement in southeastern Iran and the question of the origin of the Qanat irrigation system. Iranica Antiqua, 40, pp. 217–231. Discusses the relationship of southeastern Arabia with southern Iran.
7 Vogelsang, W.J. (1992). The Rise and Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: The Eastern Iranian Evidence. Leiden: Brill. Amongst the first attempts to deal with the Eastern provinces.
8 Wilkinson, T.J., Boucharlat, R., Ertsen, M.W., et al. (2012). From human niche construction to imperial power: long‐term trends in ancient Iranian water systems. Water History, 4 (2), pp. 155–176. Deals with irrigation techniques but more specifically with the underground water galleries in the regions corresponding to the southeast of the Achaemenid Empire.
NOTES
1 1 Dahaneh‐i Ghulaman in Sistan is a remarkable exception. See below.
2 2 On the other hand, Iron Age III installations, such as Pirak Level III in Pakistani Baluchistan and Nad‐i Ali, in southwestern Afghanistan (near Dahaneh‐i Ghulaman), are supposedly abandoned in the Achaemenid epoch (Franke‐Vogt 2001).
CHAPTER 25 The Median Dilemma
Robert Rollinger
It is no easy feat to correctly ascertain the role of the Medes in the historical and political development of the Ancient Near East. This is mostly due to two distinct problems, the first being a disparate and heterogeneous source tradition. Just as importantly, however, scholarly “tradition” has led to the calcification and entrenchment of certain ideas and preferences, as regards, for example, which source genres to use in trying to write Median history. At times, the salient issues are thus not grasped in their entirety or are ignored in favor of a narrative reconstruction of historical events allegedly based on a solid foundation in the sources. As recently as the late twentieth century, it was accepted historical knowledge that the fall of the Assyrian Empire was followed by the rise of a Median “empire” which ruled vast tracts of the Ancient Near East for half a century, until Astyages, the last Median ruler, was overthrown by one of his own vassals, namely Cyrus the Great. Only relatively late, the important works of the late Heleen Sancisi‐Weerdenburg pointed out the many difficulties and inadequacies of this view (Sancisi‐Weerdenburg 1988, 1995; see also Kienast 1999). Sancisi‐Weerdenburg was particularly critical of the alleged “imperial” structure and character of Median rule and identified a number of striking dissimilarities with other imperial entities of the Ancient Near East. She also emphasized the almost complete dependency of modern historiography on Classical (i.e. Greek) sources, to the nearly complete disregard of Ancient Near Eastern sources. Unfortunately, Sancisi‐Weerdenburg's work was met with very little acceptance. On the contrary, her hypotheses and conclusions were ignored, and the problematic nature of previous scholarship was marginalized.
An international symposium held in Padua in 2001 attempted to rigorously review all available sources and to present a secure (as far as possible) narrative of Median history (Lanfranchi et al. 2003).
