Hyrcanians?

[Jim Webster]

Currently reading 'Armed Force in the Teispid-Achaemenid Empire'
Sean Manning, MA Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck) Begutachter: Prof. Christopher J. Tuplin (Liverpool)
Innsbruck, 2018
(Free pdf download)


"Upper Mesopotamia seems to have had a small, rural population in Achaemenid times so has left
few archaeological traces. However, the grave goods from the cemetery of Deve Hüyük west of the
Euphrates have been published in an accessible volume.674 Moorey suggested that the Achaemenid
cemetery (Deve Hüyük II) was used between roughly 480 and 380 BCE, although some of the
pottery and parallels with artwork at Persepolis suggest that the first graves date to the end of the
6th century.675 For the most part, the weapons are of the Scythian type: akinakai, narow-bladed
axes, spearheads, arrows and gorytoi fittings, and scale armour (now lost or decayed, but early
descriptions survive). Moorey tentatively suggested that the community settled there were
Hyrcanians based on the pottery and burial practices.676 "

674 Moorey 1980, compare Moorey 1975
675 Moorey 1980: 7-8
676 Moorey 1975: 116