A History of Iran

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Land of Iran: Geography and Early Peoples
• Chapter 2: Elamites, Medes, and the Rise of the Achaemenids
• Chapter 3: The Persian Empire: From Cyrus to Darius the Great
• Chapter 4: Zoroastrianism and the Culture of Ancient Persia
• Chapter 5: Alexander's Conquest and the Seleucid Era
• Chapter 6: The Parthian Empire: Arsacid Rulers and Roman Wars
• Chapter 7: The Sassanian Empire: A New Persian Renaissance
• Chapter 8: The Arab Conquest and the Islamization of Iran
• Chapter 9: The Rise of Persianate Dynasties: Tahirids, Saffarids, and Samanids
• Chapter 10: The Ghaznavids and Seljuks: The Turkic Ascendancy
• Chapter 11: The Mongol Invasion and the Ilkhanate
• Chapter 12: The Age of Timur and the Black and White Sheep Turkmen
• Chapter 13: The Safavid Dynasty and the Establishment of Shi'a Islam
• Chapter 14: Shah Abbas the Great and the Zenith of Safavid Power
• Chapter 15: The Decline of the Safavids and the Rise of Nader Shah
• Chapter 16: The Zand and Qajar Dynasties
• Chapter 17: The Great Game and the Constitutional Revolution
• Chapter 18: Reza Shah and the Founding of the Pahlavi Dynasty
• Chapter 19: Iran During World War II and the Rise of Mohammad Mosaddegh
• Chapter 20: The 1953 Coup and the White Revolution
• Chapter 21: The Seeds of Discontent: The Road to Revolution
• Chapter 22: The Islamic Revolution of 1979
• Chapter 23: The Iran-Iraq War and the Consolidation of the Republic
• Chapter 24: The Reconstruction Era and the Reform Movement
• Chapter 25: Iran in the 21st Century: Nuclear Ambitions and Regional Power

To write a history of Iran is to tell a story of astonishing endurance. It is the story of one of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations, one that has not only survived for millennia but has consistently absorbed its conquerors and stamped its own indelible identity upon them. The narrative of Iran is one of empires rising from the dust, clashing with their neighbours, and then falling, only for a new iteration of Iranian culture and power to re-emerge, transformed but unbroken. This is a land that has been a highway for armies and a cradle for ideas, a place of immense strategic importance and profound cultural achievement.

First, a word on names. For much of its history, the land was known to the West as Persia, a name derived from the ancient Greeks. They encountered the empire builders who hailed from the province of Pārs (modern Fārs) and applied its name to the entire realm. The people themselves, however, have for thousands of years called their land "Iran," meaning "Land of the Aryans," a self-designation rooted deep in their ancient texts. In 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi requested that the international community adopt the native name, Iran. While "Iran" is the correct political and official term, "Persia" still evokes the rich cultural and historical tapestry of the region, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in a cultural context.

The story of Iran is inseparable from its geography. The country is dominated by the vast Iranian plateau, a high-altitude expanse ringed by formidable mountain ranges like the Zagros to the west and the Alborz to the north. This plateau has acted as a natural fortress and a continental crossroads, connecting Mesopotamia and the West with Central Asia and the Far East. While the mountains provided a measure of defense, the plateau has also been a corridor for migrating peoples and invading armies, from the Indo-European tribes who first settled the land to the Arabs, Turks, and Mongols who would later write their own chapters in its history. This recurrent theme of invasion, resistance, and assimilation is central to understanding the resilience of Iranian civilization.

Our history begins long before the name "Iran" was first etched into a royal inscription. The land has been inhabited since the Lower Paleolithic, and organized urban settlements date back to at least 4000 BCE. The first great civilization to emerge, centered in the lowlands of the southwest, was that of the Elamites, who for centuries vied with their Mesopotamian neighbors for power and influence. Their capital at Anshan, deep on the plateau, would later become a cradle of Persian power. It was from these ancient roots that new peoples would emerge, the Medes and the Persians, Iranian-speaking tribes who migrated onto the plateau around the second millennium BCE.

The arrival of these tribes set the stage for Iran's imperial debut. By the 7th century BCE, the Medes had forged the first unified Iranian state. Yet, their dominion was to be short-lived. In the mid-6th century BCE, a vassal king from the southern region of Persis, from the city of Anshan, would overthrow his Median overlords and embark on a series of conquests that would astound the ancient world. His name was Cyrus, and he would become known to history as "the Great." He was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the largest the world had yet seen, which would stretch from the Indus Valley to the shores of Greece.

The Achaemenid period marks Iran's entry into the full light of history. This was the era of legendary kings like Darius and Xerxes, of the Royal Road that stitched the vast empire together, and of the nascent clashes with the Greek city-states that would be immortalized by historians like Herodotus. It was also the era that nurtured one of the world's great religions, Zoroastrianism, a faith centered on the eternal struggle between good and evil, which would profoundly shape the ethical and philosophical landscape of Iran for over a thousand years. The legacy of the Achaemenids was one of sophisticated administration, multicultural tolerance, and monumental architecture, epitomized by the grand ceremonial capital of Persepolis.

This magnificent empire, however, was not destined to last forever. In the 4th century BCE, a young and ambitious Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, swept across Asia, toppling the Achaemenid throne and incorporating the Persian lands into his own sprawling, but fleeting, empire. Alexander's conquest was a pivotal moment, initiating a period of Hellenistic influence that saw Greek culture, language, and philosophy mingle with ancient Iranian traditions. This synthesis would continue under Alexander's successors, the Seleucids, who ruled over much of the former Persian realm.

But Iranian identity was far from extinguished. A revolt in the 3rd century BCE by a nomadic tribe from the northeast, the Parni, led to the establishment of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians, ruled by the Arsacid dynasty, drove out the Seleucids and re-established an Iranian kingdom that would become a formidable rival to the rising power of Rome. For nearly five centuries, the Parthians and Romans engaged in a near-constant struggle for dominance in the Near East, a clash of empires that defined the geopolitical landscape of the age. The Parthians were master horsemen and archers, and their military prowess became legendary.

In the 3rd century CE, the Parthians were overthrown by one of their own vassals, Ardashir I, who hailed from the old Persian heartland of Pārs. This marked the beginning of the Sassanian Empire, a new Persian dynasty that saw itself as the heir to the Achaemenids and initiated a second great renaissance of Iranian culture. The Sassanian era was a golden age for art, architecture, and scholarship. They revived and institutionalized Zoroastrianism as the state religion, and their royal court was a center of intellectual ferment. The rivalry with Rome, now the Byzantine Empire, continued, a seemingly endless series of wars that exhausted both great powers.

This long twilight struggle left both empires vulnerable. In the 7th century CE, a new, dynamic force erupted out of the Arabian Peninsula, galvanized by the new faith of Islam. Arab armies, with stunning speed, overwhelmed the Sassanian defenses, and by 651, the last Sassanian king was dead and his empire absorbed into the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphate. The conquest marked a profound turning point in Iranian history. It led to the gradual decline of Zoroastrianism and the mass conversion of the population to Islam.

Yet, the Arab conquest did not erase Iranian culture. On the contrary, while Iranians adopted Islam, they also transformed it, and in doing so, preserved their own distinct identity. The Persian language, though now written in Arabic script and enriched with Arabic vocabulary, endured and flourished. Indeed, Iranians played a central role in the intellectual and cultural flowering of the Islamic Golden Age, making immense contributions in science, medicine, philosophy, and art. The Persian bureaucracy and courtly traditions were adopted wholesale by the Arab caliphs in Baghdad.

Politically, Iranian lands remained under Arab rule for centuries, but the spirit of independence never died. Starting in the 9th century, a series of native Persianate dynasties began to emerge, first as nominal vassals of the caliph and later as de facto independent rulers. The Tahirids, Saffarids, and most notably the Samanids, presided over a remarkable cultural revival. It was under the Samanids that the New Persian language came into its own as a literary vehicle, culminating in the monumental epic poem, the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), by Ferdowsi, which single-handedly preserved the myths, legends, and history of ancient Iran and became a cornerstone of Iranian identity.

The next wave of conquerors came not from the west, but from the east. Starting in the 11th century, Turkic peoples from Central Asia began to migrate onto the Iranian plateau. Dynasties like the Ghaznavids and the Seljuks established vast empires, with the Seljuks eventually conquering their way to the Mediterranean. Yet again, the conquerors were, in a sense, conquered by the culture they had overcome. The Turkic rulers adopted the Persian language for administration and literature, becoming great patrons of Persian art and architecture and further integrating Persian culture into the wider Islamic world.

This period of Turkic ascendancy was shattered in the 13th century by the most devastating invasion in Iran's history: the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan. The invasion was an apocalypse, leaving cities in ruins and populations decimated. The subsequent rule of the Ilkhanate, the Mongol dynasty in Iran, began in bloodshed and destruction. But once again, the pattern repeated itself. The Mongol rulers gradually adopted the customs of their Persian subjects, converted to Islam, and became patrons of a new and brilliant period of artistic and scientific achievement.

The collapse of the Ilkhanate was followed by a period of chaos and the brutal, if brief, empire of Timur (Tamerlane), another conqueror from Central Asia whose campaigns left a trail of pyramids of skulls. His death led to a fragmentation of power, with various regions falling under the control of competing Turkmen confederations, known as the Black Sheep and White Sheep. This was a turbulent and violent age, but one that set the stage for Iran's next great rebirth.

Out of the turmoil of the 15th century arose a new and powerful force that would unify Iran and give it the religious identity it retains to this day. The Safavids, a dynasty originating from a mystical Sufi order, came to power in the early 16th century. Their charismatic leader, Shah Ismail I, not only conquered Iran but also declared Shi'a Islam the official state religion, in stark contrast to the majority Sunni faith of the surrounding Islamic world. This act of forcible conversion fundamentally reshaped Iran's identity, creating a Shi'a bastion and setting it apart from its powerful Sunni neighbors, most notably the Ottoman Empire to the west.

The Safavid period was another golden age. Under rulers like Shah Abbas the Great, Iran reached a new zenith of political power and cultural brilliance. He established a new capital at Isfahan, which became one of the world's most beautiful cities, filled with magnificent mosques, palaces, and public squares. The Safavids fostered a flourishing of art, particularly in ceramics, textiles, and miniature painting, and their influence spread far and wide. The establishment of Shi'ism also created a new clerical hierarchy that would come to play an increasingly important role in Iranian society and politics.

Like the empires before it, the Safavid dynasty eventually fell into decline, weakened by internal strife and external threats. In the early 18th century, the country was overrun by Afghan tribesmen, plunging Iran into another period of chaos. It was a brilliant but ruthless military commander, Nader Shah, who rose to expel the Afghans and restore Iran's unity and power. His reign was one of relentless military campaigning that briefly extended Iranian dominion from the Caucasus to northern India, but his empire collapsed upon his assassination, leading to another half-century of civil war.

From this conflict, two dynasties emerged to rule Iran in succession: the relatively benign Zands, and then the Qajars, a Turkic tribe that established its rule at the close of the 18th century. The Qajar period coincided with a new and momentous challenge: the rising power of European imperialism. Throughout the 19th century, Iran found itself caught in the "Great Game," a strategic rivalry between the Russian and British empires for influence in Central Asia. Outmatched militarily and technologically, Iran lost vast territories to its northern neighbor and saw its economic sovereignty eroded by foreign powers.

This growing foreign encroachment and the ineffectiveness of the Qajar shahs sparked widespread discontent, culminating in the Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century. This movement, one of the first of its kind in the Middle East, sought to establish a parliamentary democracy and limit the power of the monarchy. While the revolution ultimately struggled to achieve all its goals, it was a landmark event that introduced modern political ideas of law, citizenship, and popular sovereignty into the Iranian consciousness.

The chaos following World War I and the weakness of the Qajar state paved the way for a coup in 1921 led by an ambitious military officer, Reza Khan. A few years later, he deposed the last Qajar shah and crowned himself Reza Shah, founding the Pahlavi dynasty. Inspired by the modernization of Turkey's Atatürk, Reza Shah embarked on a radical program of top-down secularization, industrialization, and nation-building. He built railways, established modern factories and a national university, and sought to curtail the power of the Shi'a clergy. His rule was authoritarian, but it laid the foundations of modern Iran.

Reza Shah's pro-German sympathies during World War II led to the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, and he was forced to abdicate in favor of his young son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The post-war period was marked by political turmoil and the rise of a powerful nationalist movement led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who championed the nationalization of the British-controlled oil industry. This move brought him into direct conflict with Western powers, leading to a fateful CIA- and MI6-orchestrated coup in 1953 that overthrew Mosaddegh and restored the Shah's absolute power.

The 1953 coup was a traumatic event that poisoned Iran's relationship with the West and set the stage for the next quarter-century of its history. Backed by the United States, the Shah embarked on his own ambitious modernization program, the "White Revolution," which brought significant economic development and social change, including land reform and women's suffrage. However, this progress was accompanied by growing political repression, the suppression of all dissent through his brutal secret police, the SAVAK, and a widening gap between a new, Westernized elite and the traditional, more religious segments of the population.

Beneath the surface of economic growth, discontent festered. The Shah's autocratic style, his close ties to the United States, his secularizing policies, and the perception of pervasive corruption alienated vast swathes of the population. A powerful opposition coalesced around a long-exiled and charismatic religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. From his exile, he denounced the Shah's regime as illegitimate and called for the establishment of an Islamic government.

By the late 1970s, this opposition exploded into a mass movement. A year of massive strikes and demonstrations brought the country to a standstill, and in January 1979, the Shah was forced to flee Iran. Two weeks later, Ayatollah Khomeini returned in triumph. The ancient monarchy was abolished and, following a referendum, the Islamic Republic of Iran was established, a unique political system based on Khomeini's theory of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), which vested ultimate authority in a Supreme Leader.

The early years of the Islamic Republic were tumultuous, marked by internal power struggles, the purging of opponents, and the dramatic 444-day hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran. This was followed by a brutal and costly eight-year war with neighboring Iraq, which invaded Iran in 1980. The war, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, helped to consolidate the new revolutionary regime's power, fostering a sense of national unity in the face of foreign aggression.

The decades following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 have been characterized by a struggle between different factions within the Islamic Republic. The post-war reconstruction period under President Hashemi Rafsanjani saw a degree of economic liberalization. This was followed by the surprising election of the reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 1997, who championed a "dialogue of civilizations" and greater social and political freedoms. However, the reform movement faced stiff resistance from hardline elements within the state.

The 21st century has seen Iran continue to navigate a complex path, asserting itself as a major regional power while facing international isolation and economic sanctions, largely due to its controversial nuclear program. The country remains a place of deep contrasts and paradoxes: a theocratic state with vibrant and often contested presidential elections; a society governed by strict Islamic law where a young, tech-savvy population pushes cultural boundaries; a nation with a deep sense of historical pride and a complex relationship with the modern world.

This book aims to navigate that long and intricate history. It will chart the rise and fall of empires, explore the development of a rich and enduring culture, and trace the political and religious currents that have shaped this fascinating land. It is a story of kings, poets, priests, and revolutionaries; of war and conquest, but also of extraordinary artistic and intellectual achievement. It is the story of a civilization that has, time and again, demonstrated a remarkable capacity for reinvention and survival, a story that is far from over.

To understand the history of Iran, one must first understand its landscape. The country is a fortress built by nature, a vast and high plateau wedged between the Caspian Sea to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south. This is the Iranian Plateau, a defining feature that covers most of the country and extends into neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a land of dramatic contrasts, a place where formidable mountain ranges encircle arid basins, and where lush, subtropical forests exist a short distance from some of the most scorching deserts on the planet. This geography has not been a mere backdrop to Iran’s story; it has been a primary actor, shaping settlement patterns, dictating military strategies, and fostering a unique and resilient culture.

The plateau itself is a massive expanse, with an average elevation of about 900 meters, ringed by imposing mountain chains that have historically isolated it and protected it. The most significant of these is the Zagros range, a series of parallel ridges that runs for over 1,500 kilometers from the northwest, near the border with Turkey, down to the shores of the Persian Gulf. The Zagros have always been more than a geological feature; they have been a cultural and political barrier, separating the peoples of the plateau from the great civilizations of Mesopotamia in the west. While its rugged peaks, many soaring over 3,000 meters, served as a formidable line of defense, its fertile valleys and foothills provided sanctuary and sustenance, becoming a cradle for some of the region's earliest human settlements.

To the north, the plateau is sealed off by the Alborz mountains, a narrower but equally dramatic range that hugs the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. The Alborz act as a wall, trapping the moisture blowing in from the sea and creating a startlingly green and fertile coastal plain, a world away from the arid interior. This range is home to Iran’s highest peak, the magnificent and myth-laden Mount Damavand. A dormant stratovolcano rising to an elevation of over 5,600 meters, Damavand is a national symbol, its snow-capped cone visible from Tehran on a clear day and deeply embedded in Persian mythology and folklore as a place of power and resistance.

Completing the mountainous enclosure are the Kopet Dag range in the northeast, forming a natural border with Turkmenistan, and other highlands in the east. These ranges effectively cut off the interior from oceanic moisture, a geographical fact that dictates much of Iran's climate. The result is a land of extreme water scarcity, a challenge that has preoccupied its inhabitants for millennia and spurred remarkable feats of ingenuity. The most famous of these is the qanat system, an ancient method of providing water to arid regions. Developed in Iran some 3,000 years ago, a qanat is a gently sloping underground tunnel that taps into an aquifer at the foot of a mountain and channels water, by gravity alone, over many kilometers to a settlement or agricultural area. This system, which prevents evaporation, has allowed life to flourish where it otherwise would seem impossible and stands as a testament to the sophisticated engineering skills of the ancient Iranians.

Within this ring of mountains lie the central basins, a vast and arid interior. This region is home to two of the world's most inhospitable deserts. The Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert, is a desolate expanse of salt flats, mud, and marshes in the north-central part of the plateau. To its southeast lies the Dasht-e Lut, the "Desert of Emptiness." The Lut is a truly extreme environment, a place of colossal sand dunes and surreal wind-sculpted rock formations known as yardangs. It is one of the hottest and driest places on Earth, where surface temperatures can reach blistering highs, rendering it almost entirely devoid of life. These deserts have served as a powerful internal barrier, further isolating different regions of the plateau from one another.

Yet, life has always found a way. Beyond the Caspian lowlands with their humid, subtropical climate, the other major fertile area is the Khuzestan Plain in the southwest. Geographically, this is an extension of the Mesopotamian lowlands, a flat and hot region watered by several rivers, most notably the Karun, Iran's only navigable river. This plain has been a center of population and civilization since ancient times. However, for most of the country, life has been concentrated in the oases and in the well-watered valleys of the mountain ranges, creating pockets of settlement separated by vast, empty spaces. This very fragmentation has contributed to the endurance of local traditions and identities throughout Iran's long history.

The story of humanity in Iran begins deep in the recesses of prehistory. The Zagros Mountains, in particular, have been a rich source of information for archaeologists. Caves in the region have yielded evidence of Neanderthals who lived there between 65,000 and 35,000 years ago. More recent discoveries have pushed back the timeline of human presence on the plateau even further, with some findings suggesting hominin occupation as far back as half a million years ago. For millennia, these early inhabitants lived as mobile hunter-gatherers, adapting to the dynamic environmental conditions of the late Ice Age.

Around 12,000 years ago, as the climate warmed, a profound transformation began to take place in the foothills of the Zagros. This region was part of the Fertile Crescent, and here, humans began to shift from a nomadic existence to a settled way of life. This Neolithic Revolution saw the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Sites like Chogha Golan, in modern Ilam province, provide some of the world's earliest evidence for the long-term management and cultivation of plants, particularly wild wheat, dating back nearly 12,000 years. At sites such as Ganj Dareh and Tepe Sarab in the central Zagros, archaeologists have found the remains of early villages, along with clay figurines of humans and animals, marking the beginnings of settled community life around 10,000 years ago.

As agricultural techniques improved, populations grew, and settlements became larger and more complex. The Chalcolithic Period, or Copper-Stone Age, saw the beginnings of metallurgy and the rise of the first towns. One of the most significant prehistoric sites is Tepe Sialk, located near the modern city of Kashan on the edge of the desert. Inhabited from the 6th millennium BCE, Sialk shows evidence of sophisticated pottery, early metalworking, and the construction of large, ziggurat-like structures, indicating a complex and organized society.

By the Bronze Age, several distinct cultures had emerged across the plateau, interacting and trading with each other and with the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. In the northwest, near Lake Urmia, the settlement of Tepe Hasanlu flourished for thousands of years. The dramatic excavation of Hasanlu, which was destroyed in a catastrophic fire around 800 BCE, has provided a remarkable snapshot of life in the Iron Age. The fire preserved buildings, artifacts, and even the skeletons of its inhabitants where they fell. Among the discoveries was a famous golden bowl, its surface covered with intricate mythological scenes, and the poignant remains of two skeletons, dubbed the "Hasanlu Lovers," who were found in an embrace, seemingly seeking shelter in the final moments before their death.

Another important site was Godin Tepe, strategically located in the Kangavar Valley on a major trade route connecting the plateau with Mesopotamia. Excavations there have revealed a long history of occupation, but its most intriguing period is from around 3,500 BCE when a fortified compound, showing strong cultural links to the Uruk civilization of Sumer, was established within the local settlement. This suggests Godin Tepe was a key commercial outpost, perhaps housing merchants from the lowlands who came for resources and trade. The discovery of vessels containing chemical residue of beer and wine also points to a sophisticated and well-established agricultural society.

More mysterious is the so-called Jiroft culture in southeastern Iran. Only investigated systematically in the 21st century, archaeological work in the Jiroft region has uncovered evidence of a rich and extensive Bronze Age civilization that flourished in the 3rd millennium BCE. Hundreds of confiscated artifacts, including intricately carved vases and ornaments made of a soft green stone called chlorite, feature a unique and powerful artistic style with animal and mythological motifs. These artifacts have been found as far away as Mesopotamia, suggesting Jiroft was a major production center and part of a wide-ranging trade network, though much about its people and their society remains to be discovered.

The first group of people on the Iranian plateau to emerge into the full light of written history, however, were the Elamites. Centered in the hot, low-lying plains of Khuzestan in the southwest and the adjacent highlands of Fars, the Elamite civilization was one of the most enduring of the ancient Near East. Their great capital city of Susa was founded as early as 4,395 BCE, making it one of the oldest settlements in the world. For nearly three thousand years, the Elamites were a major political and cultural force, their history intertwined with that of their powerful Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian neighbors in Mesopotamia. Their relationship was a complex mix of trade, cultural exchange, and chronic warfare, with control of territory and resources shifting back and forth over the centuries. They developed a unique language, unrelated to any other known tongue, and were among the first to develop a writing system, known as Proto-Elamite, before later adopting the Mesopotamian cuneiform script.

Into this ancient world of established cities and indigenous cultures, a new group of people began to arrive. Sometime in the second millennium BCE, a gradual migration of semi-nomadic tribes began to filter onto the Iranian Plateau. These were the people who would give the land its name: the Iranians. They were a branch of a larger group of peoples known as Indo-Europeans, who were spreading across Eurasia. The specific branch that moved south from the steppes of Central Asia are known as the Indo-Iranians, who called themselves Arya, a term meaning "noble" or "honorable." This was not a single, violent invasion, but a slow, centuries-long process of movement and settlement.

These newcomers possessed key skills that gave them a distinct advantage. They were expert horsemen and breeders, and they brought with them the light, spoke-wheeled chariot, a revolutionary piece of military technology that transformed warfare in the ancient world. Their lifestyle was primarily pastoral, revolving around their herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, and they moved across the land in search of new pastures. As they settled, they brought their language, their social structure, and their religious beliefs, which were rooted in a pantheon of gods and a set of oral traditions that would eventually form the basis of Zoroastrianism.

The Iranian tribes spread out across the plateau, often settling in regions that were not already heavily populated. They gradually intermingled with and absorbed the indigenous populations they encountered. Over time, the Iranian languages and culture became dominant. Two of these tribes would prove to be particularly important to the future course of history: the Medes (Mada) and the Persians (Parsa). The Medes settled in the western part of the plateau, in the valleys of the Zagros Mountains, in an area centered on the later site of Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). The Persians settled further south, in the region that would come to bear their name, Parsa (modern Fars), in the highlands northeast of the Persian Gulf. Crucially, this was the heartland of the old Elamite kingdom, and the Persians settled in and around ancient Elamite centers like Anshan.

Thus, by the dawn of the first millennium BCE, the stage was set. The Iranian Plateau was a complex mosaic of peoples. The ancient civilization of Elam still held sway in the southwest. Various other pre-Iranian peoples continued to live in the more remote mountain valleys. And across the vast expanse of the plateau, the newly arrived but increasingly powerful Iranian tribes had established their presence. A new chapter in the land's history was about to begin, one in which these tribes would move from the periphery to the center, first under the leadership of the Medes and then, with world-altering consequences, under the Persians.