Qumis, Iran

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Shahr -e Qumis (Persian شهرقومس ), also known by the Greek name Hecatompylos ( lit. city of a hundred gates ) is the name of a former capital of the Parthian Arsakidendynastie. Besides Rhagae and Ctesiphon they served the Parthian kings probably as seasonal residence.

The evolved from a caravanserai city is located halfway between the modern cities Semnān and Dāmghān on the Silk Road.

The historian Appian of Alexandria, according to the city was founded by the Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator, but is it more a re- creation, as Alexander the Great had visited the city in the summer of 330 BC. Numerous potsherds also can be dated back to the early Iron Age.

Today, the formerly 28 km ² large city that was home to a hundred thousand inhabitants, a desert-like plain from which rise some hill-shaped ruins.

Finds

The previous archaeological studies point to a palatial buildings of adobe, a fortress with several towers and a fortified courtyard garden, a drummer House ( Naqqāreh Khāneh ) and Zoroastrian graves ( Towers of Silence ). Other finds have been ceramics, seals, jewelry leave (including a Lapis Lazuli ) (78 BC) dated and two lists of personal names to the year 170 of the Arsacid era.

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