The Amardian satrap_shown_within_a_map_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire_at_its_greatest_extent_(500_BC)..html" ;"title="Achaemenid_Empire.html" ;"title="satrap shown within a map of the

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tribe living along the mountainous region bordering the Caspian Sea to the north, to whom the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

culture at

Marlik Marlik is an ancient site near Roudbar in Gilan, in northern Iran. Marlik, also known as ''Cheragh-Ali Tepe''D. Josiya Negahban Marlik is located in the valley of Gohar Rud (gem river), a tributary of Sepid Rud in Gilan Province in Northern I ...

is attributed. They are said to be related to, or the same tribe as, the Dahae and Saka, Sacae. That is to say, they were Scythian.

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

mentions a tribe with a similar name as one of the ten to fifteen Persian tribes in Persis. They lived in the valleys in between the Susis and Persis, in what is now southwestern Iran. The southern Mardi are described by

Nearchus Nearchus or Nearchos ( el, Νέαρχος; – 300 BC) was one of the Greek officers, a navarch, in the army of Alexander the Great. He is known for his celebrated expeditionary voyage starting from the Indus River, through the Persian Gulf and ...

as one of the four predatory mountain peoples of the southwest, along with the Susians, Uxii, and Elymaeans. Of these four nomadic groups, they were the only tribe

linguistically Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

Etymology

The term ''Mardi'' comes from the Old Iranian word for "man" ( peo, 𐎶𐎼𐎫𐎡𐎹 ; from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

''*mr̥tós'', "mortal"). Richard N. Frye believe that the name of the city of Amol is rooted in the word ''Amard'', which occurs as ''Amui'' in

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle P ...

. According to historical literature, Amol was the capital of Tapuria (modern-day Mazanderan), at least in the period starting from the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

to the

Ilkhanate The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate ( fa, ایل خانان, ''Ilxānān''), known to the Mongols as ''Hülegü Ulus'' (, ''Qulug-un Ulus''), was a khanate established from the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanid realm ...

of the

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, ...

Historical accounts

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

mentions the name ''Mardi'' several times. He places their location to the south of the Caspian Sea in what is now Gilan and Mazanderan, in northern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. On his map, he mentions (and the Amardos river), the name attributed to the region of

Sefidrud The Sefid-Rud ( fa, سفیدرود, lit=white river, glk, اسپي بيه, ''Espī bīeh'') (also known as Sepid-Rud) is a river approximately long, rising in the Alborz mountain range of northwestern Iran and flowing generally northeast to e ...

at the time.

mentions a tribe with a similar name as one of the ten to fifteen Persian tribes in Persis. They lived in the valleys in between the Susis and Persis, in what in now southwestern Iran. The southern Mardi are described by

as one of the four predatory mountain peoples of the southwest, along with the Susians, Uxii, and Elymaeans. Of these four nomadic groups, they were the only tribe

Gallery

Median Empire.jpg, Map of the

Median Empire The Medes ( Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, ...

(600 BC), showing the relative locations of the Amardian tribe. Cup with a frieze of gazelles MET an62.84.R.jpg,

gold cup from

, kept at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Gold cup kalardasht.jpg, The Hyrcanian Golden cup. Dated first half of first millennium. Excavated at Kelardasht, Mazandaran. Hirschförmiges Rhyton aus Iran, Grabbeigaben, Marlik, 1200-800 v.C. (1).jpg, Deer stag

Swastika iran.jpg, Golden necklace of three

Swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. I ...

s from

, kept at the

National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

References

Iranian nomads Historical Iranian peoples Nomadic groups in Eurasia History of Mazandaran Province Iron Age Asia {{-

Etymology

Historical accounts

Gallery

See also

Further reading

References