Achaemenids

Dahān-e Qolāmān is one of the Achaemenid sites in the eastern part of Iran. Archaeologically, it is significant since it is the only excavated Achaemenid site at eastern half of Iran and relatively revealing information on urbanization, architecture, administrative, religious, industrial buildings as well as pottery manufacturing.  The most important structure of Dahān-e Qolāmān is “Building No. 3” that has attracted the attention of different archaeologists and experts on its function. Ovens and fireplaces are among most important features of the structure that culminated to high variations at period “B”. Considering finding archaeological evidences and their comparison to Zoroastrian written sources, especially Avesta, it appears that the Building No. 3 belonged to Zoroastrians from Dranka province, and the regional Satrap supervised its construction according to orthodox religious basics, while fundamentally differs from Zoroastrian beliefs of western Iran.

The Territorial conquests of the Medes, as Far East as Hyrcania, could be traced from the first half of the seventh century BC onwards. The first Median kings undertook far-flung campaigns to take control of the region and extend their territory. The existence of the fortified settlement in the Gorgān plain could prove the expansion of centralized Median kingdom as far as Hyrcania. The Assyrian sources of the 9th to 7th century BC are also in overall agreement with the results of the archeological studies in the western steppe of Gorgān plain (Hyrcania). As a result, the Median’s dominance over Hyrcania determined the strategies and political guidelines of the Median kingdom and set the foundations for its transformation from a confederation of tribes to a powerful trans-regional state. Accordingly, in the present paper, beside historical and literary sources, archaeological evidences have also been studied in order to determine the Median’s range of territory in the east of their homeland.