Teïspes (from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

; in peo, 𐎨𐎡𐏁𐎱𐎡𐏁 ''Cišpiš'';

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

: 𒅆𒅖𒉿𒅖 ''Šîšpîš'',Kent (1384 AP), page 394

Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record a ...

: Zi-iš-pi-iš) ruled

Anshan Anshan () is an inland prefecture-level city in central-southeast Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, about south of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, it was Liaoning's third most populous city with a populatio ...

in 675–640 BC. He was the son of

Achaemenes Achaemenes ( peo, 𐏃𐎧𐎠𐎶𐎴𐎡𐏁 ; grc, Ἀχαιμένης ; la, Achaemenes) was the apical ancestor of the Achaemenid dynasty of rulers of Persia. Other than his role as an apical ancestor, nothing is known of his life or ...

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 ...

and an ancestor of

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...

. There is evidence that

Cyrus I Cyrus I (Old Persian: ''Kuruš'') or Cyrus I of Anshan or Cyrus I of Persia, was King of Anshan in Persia from to 580 BC or, according to others, from to 600 BC. Cyrus I of Anshan is the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus II. ...

and

Ariaramnes Ariaramnes (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹𐎠𐎼𐎶𐎴 ''Ariyāramna''; "peace of the Arya") was a great-uncle of Cyrus the Great and the great-grandfather of Darius I, and perhaps the king of Parsa, the ancient core kingdom of Persia. __NOT ...

were both his sons. Cyrus I is the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, whereas Ariaramnes is the great-grandfather of

Darius the Great Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...

. According to 7th-century BC documents, Teispes captured the Elamite city of Anshan, speculated to have occurred after the Persians were freed from Median supremacy, and expanded his small kingdom. His kingdom was, however, a vassal state of the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew ...

(911–605 BC). He was succeeded by his second son, Cyrus I.

Name

The

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ( ...

version of the name is ''Čišpiš''; Walther Hinz and Heidemarie Koch interpret it as ''*Čaišpiš'', but this appears to be incorrect.

Rüdiger Schmitt Rüdiger Schmitt (born 1 July 1939) is a German linguist, Iranologist, and educator. He was a professor of Comparative Indo-European Philology and Indo-Iranian Studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany, from 1979 until 2004 ...

considers the name "probably Iranian", whereas Jan Tavernier says it could also be Elamite. In either case, the etymology is unknown. It is probably not related to either the name of the

Hurrian The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...

storm god Tešup or to the name of the

Cimmerian The Cimmerians (Akkadian: , romanized: ; Hebrew: , romanized: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people originating in the Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West ...

king Teušpa.Schmitt, 1992 Its connection with the (Elamite) byname 𒍝𒆜𒉿𒆜𒅆𒅀 ''Zaišpîšiya'' is unclear — Hinz believes it represents an adjectival form of the name, ''*Čaišpišya'', but Schmitt prefers the reading ''*Čašpišya'' instead and says the two names are unrelated. Vasily Abayev proposed that ''Čišpiš'' represents an Iranian form of the Old Indian ''sú-śiśvi'', meaning "growing well".

János Harmatta János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca and papyri of Dura Europos and was the first to decipher a major Bactrian inscription.Ritoók, Zsigmond. (1997"The contribution of H ...

suggested a possible relation to the Sogdian ''čp'yš'', meaning "leader". Tavernier, however, does not think either proposal is convincing. Another Iranian derivation proposed by

Wojciech Skalmowski Jan Wojciech Skalmowski (pseud. ''Maciej Broński'', ''M. Broński'', ''Piotr Meynert''; 24 June 1933, in Poznań – 18 July 2008, in Brussels), was a Polish scholar, orientalist, essayist, writer, journalist and literary critic Litera ...

is that the name is a compound related to Old Indian ''cit-'', "thought, intelligence", and ''pi-'', "to swell, overflow". As for Elamite derivations, Tavernier says that no good one has been found. The verb stem ''piš-'', meaning "to renew, restore", is indeed found in some Elamite names, but the first part is hard to explain. Tavernier suggests a possible connection with ''šišnali'', "beautiful", which occurs as ''šiš'' in some compounds; an Elamite name ''*Šišpiš'' could then mean "renewing the beautiful". However, this would not explain why the name is spelled ''Zišpiš'' in Elamite, since ''šišnali'' is only ever spelled with a ''š''. Another person named ''Čišpiš'' is also attested in the Persepolis tablets. This person is mentioned in tablets from 503 and 502 BCE as the recipient of various amounts of grain, and is associated with a place in Elam called Zila-Umpan.

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* * * 640 BC deaths 7th-century BC Iranian people 7th-century BC monarchs Kings of Anshan (Persia) Teispids Year of birth unknown {{royal-stub

Name

See also

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