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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 mostl ...

culture at Marlik 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 The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

mentions a tribe with a similar name as one of the ten to fifteen

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

tribes in

Persis Persis ( grc-gre, , ''Persís''), better known in English as Persia ( Old Persian: 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿, ''Parsa''; fa, پارس, ''Pârs''), or Persia proper, is the Fars region, located to the southwest of modern-day Iran, now a province. T ...

. They lived in the valleys in between the Susis and Persis, in what is now southwestern Iran. The southern Mardi are described by Nearchus as one of the four predatory mountain peoples of the southwest, along with the Susians,

Uxii The Uxii ( grc, Ouxioi) were a tribal confederation of non-Iranian semi-nomadic people who lived somewhere in the Zagros Mountains. They were classified by Nearchus as among the four predatory peoples of the southwest along with the Mardi, Sousii, ...

, 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 The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped ...

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 Richard Nelson Frye (January 10, 1920 – March 27, 2014) was an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest were Irania ...

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 ...

. According to historical literature, Amol was the capital of

Tapuria Tabaristan or Tabarestan ( fa, طبرستان, Ṭabarestān, or mzn, تبرستون, Tabarestun, ultimately from Middle Persian: , ''Tapur(i)stān''), was the name applied to a mountainous region located on the Caspian coast of northern Iran. ...

(modern-day Mazanderan), at least in the period starting from the Sasanian Empire 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.

Historical accounts

Strabo 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 Amardus or Mardus ( grc, Ἀμάρδος, Μάρδος, Amárdos, Márdos) was a river of Media, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus in his confused description of the Persian provinces and by Ptolemy places it in Media, and if we take his numbers ...

river), the name attributed to the region of Sefidrud at the time.

mentions a tribe with a similar name as one of the ten to fifteen

tribes in

. They lived in the valleys in between the Susis and Persis, in what in now southwestern Iran. The southern Mardi are described by Nearchus as one of the four predatory mountain peoples of the southwest, along with the Susians,

, and Elymaeans. Of these four nomadic groups, they were the only tribe

Gallery

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

gold cup from Marlik, 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 most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. 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 Marlik Swastika iran.jpg, Golden necklace of three Swastikas from Marlik, kept at the National Museum,

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