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With the Caravan of Isidore of Charax on the Road of Upper Media: Reconstruction of the Ancient Routes and Some Old Toponyms in the Kangavar-Asadabad Plain, Based on Historical Texts and Archaeological Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2025

Iraj Rezaei Open the ORCID record for Iraj Rezaei [Opens in a new window]
Iraj Rezaei*
Affiliation:
PhD in Archaeology, Independent Scholar, Iran
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Email: iraj.rezaie@gmail.com
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Abstract

Isidore of Charax, in his description of the region known as Upper Media, mentions several cities and stations located on today's Kangavar-Asadabad plain. Subsequently, historians and geographers of the Islamic period have supplemented the information about the ancient routes and places of the region. While, in the last two centuries, some researchers have located some ancient toponyms in the region, this research, for the first time, has reconstructed all the old routes and its possible branches leading to the city of Hamadan (Ecbatana), on the Kangavar-Asadabad plain during the last two thousand years. In addition, some suggestions have been made for the location of some historical places mentioned by old geographers. To achieve this goal, three categories of historical and geographical texts have been used, including the later Islamic texts (the Safavid and Qajar texts), the early Islamic texts (mainly Arab and Iranian geographical texts of the ninth and tenth centuries), and the pre-Islamic texts (mainly Greek and Roman texts, especially the Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax), whose connection to each other is not intuitively obvious at first glance. While it is not difficult to recognize historical places and routes of the studied area in the later texts, it is complicated in the case of the two older groups due to their significant gap with the present time. Overall, the result of this research indicates that multiple routes were used for passing the Kangavar-Asadabad plain during different periods. Although all these routes eventually led to the metropolis of Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), the choice of one route in ancient times seems to have depended on various factors, including the season of the year and weather conditions, road safety, the kind of caravan (light or heavy), and so on.

Keywords

Upper MediaKangavar-Asadabad plainBazigrabanAdrapanaMatbakh-i KasraIwan al-SanjAzarmidukhtPul-i ShekastehShaykh Alikhan
Type
Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , January 2025 , pp. 2 - 18
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Association for Iranian Studies

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