Achaemenid in the context of "Capitals of Iran"

Pushkalavati was the capital of the ancient region of Gāndhāra, situated in present day's Pakistan. Its ruins are located on the outskirts of the modern city of Charsadda, in Charsadda District, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 35-42 kilometres northeast of Peshawar, at the banks of Jindi River, near the junction of Swat River with Kabul River. The earliest archaeological remains in Bala Hisar mound are from 1400 to 800 BCE. Pushkalavati (in Bala Hisar mound) may have been incorporated as an Achaemenid regional settlement around 520 BCE, and it remained an important city (in Shaikhan Dheri mound) through to the beginning of the 3rd century CE.

The ruins of Pushkalavati consist of two sites, separated by the small Shambor river. To the south is Bala Hisar, which consists of two separate mounds, one eastern and one western. To the north is Shaikhan Dheri, wedged between the Shambor and Jindi rivers.

The Caspians (Persian: کاسپی‌ها, Kaspyn; Greek: Κάσπιοι, Káspioi; Aramaic: ܟܣܦܝ, kspy; Old Armenian: Կասպք, Kaspk’; Latin: Caspi, Caspiani) were an people of antiquity who dwelt along the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region known as Caspiane. Caspian is the English version of the Greek ethnonym Kaspioi, mentioned twice by Herodotus among the Achaemenid satrapies of Darius the Great and applied by Strabo. The name is not attested in Old Iranian.

The Caspians have generally been regarded as a pre-Indo-European people. They have been identified by Ernst Herzfeld with the Kassites, who spoke a language not identified with any other known language group and whose origins have long been the subject of debate. Onomastic evidence bearing on this point has been discovered in Aramaic papyri from Egypt published by P. Grelot, in which several of the Caspian names that are mentioned—and identified under the gentilic כספי kaspai—are, in part, etymologically Iranian. The Caspians of the Egyptian papyri are therefore generally considered as either an Iranian people or strongly under Iranian cultural influence.

Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East or West Asia, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of ancient Larsa. It is 30 km (19 mi) east of modern Samawah.

Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC.By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100 BC, the city may have had 40,000 residents, with 80,000–90,000 people living in its environs, making it the largest urban area in the world at the time. Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the Sumerian King List (SKL), ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. After the end of the Early Dynastic period, with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, the city lost its prime importance. It had periods of florescence during the Isin-Larsa period, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods and throughout the Achaemenid (550–330 BC), Seleucid (312–63 BC) and Parthian (227 BC to AD 224) periods, until it was finally abandoned shortly before or after the Islamic conquest of 633–638.

Kerman province (Persian: استان کرمان) is the largest of the 31 provinces of Iran. Its capital is the city of Kerman.

The province is in the southeast of Iran. In 2014 it was placed in Region 5. Mentioned in ancient times as the Achaemenid satrapy of Carmania, Kerman province has an area of 183,285 km (70,767 sq mi), encompassing nearly 11% of the land area of Iran.

There is evidence of mercenaries (misthophoroi (plural), misthios (singular male), misthia (singular female) in Greek) being hired in Ancient Greece from the 6th century BC. The tyrants of that time hired bodyguards from other city-states. It is not known if earlier Aegean armies and navies, such as the Minoans and Mycenaeans, used mercenaries.

Mercenary troops from Caria and Ionia are known to have fought with Psamtik I against the Assyrians. These were the "bronze men from the sea" whose arrival in Egypt, according to Herodotus, was foretold to Psamtik by an oracle. They entered the country as raiders but Psamtik made a truce with them and hired them to his cause. Afterwards, he granted land to them alongside the Nile and they are traditionally held to have been the first Greeks to settle in Egypt.

Cyrus the Younger (Old Persian: 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš; Ancient Greek: Κῦρος Kyros; died 401 BC) was an Achaemenid prince and general. He ruled as satrap of Lydia and Ionia from 408 to 401 BC. Son of Darius II and Parysatis, he died in 401 BC in battle during a failed attempt to oust his elder brother, Artaxerxes II, from the Persian throne.

The history of Cyrus and of the retreat of his Greek mercenaries is told by Xenophon in his Anabasis. Another account, probably from Sophaenetus of Stymphalus, was used by Ephorus. Further information is contained in the excerpts from Artaxerxes II's physician, Ctesias, by Photius; Plutarch’s Lives of Artaxerxes II and Lysander; and Thucydides' History of Peloponnesian War. These are the only early sources of information on Cyrus the Younger.

Artaphernes (Greek: Ἀρταφέρνης, Old Persian: Artafarna, from Median Rtafarnah) was a brother of the Achaemenid king Darius I and held power circa 513–492 BC. He was appointed satrap of Lydia, which he governed from its capital of Sardis. As satrap of Lydia he had to deal with the Greeks, and played an important role in both the Siege of Naxos and in suppressing the Ionian Revolt.

Media (Old Persian: 𐎶𐎠𐎭, romanized: Māda, Middle Persian: Mād) is an Iron Age region of north-western Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. During the Achaemenid period, it comprised present-day Iranian Azerbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan and western Tabaristan. As a satrapy under Achaemenid rule, it would eventually encompass a wider region, stretching to southern Dagestan in the north. However, after the wars of Alexander the Great, the northern parts were separated due to the Partition of Babylon and became known as Atropatene, while the remaining region became known as Lesser Media.

The Kabul hoard, also called the Chaman Hazouri, Chaman Hazouri or Tchamani-i Hazouri hoard, is a coin hoard discovered in the vicinity of Kabul, Afghanistan in 1933. The collection contained numerous Achaemenid coins as well as many Greek coins from the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Approximately one thousand coins were counted in the hoard. The deposit of the hoard is dated to approximately 380 BCE, as this is the probable date of the least ancient datable coin found in the hoard (the imitation of the Athenian owl tetradrachm).

This numismatic discovery has been important in studying and dating the history of the coinage of India, since it is one of the very rare instances when punch-marked coins can actually be dated, due to their association with known and dated Greek and Achaemenid coins in the hoard. The hoard proves that punch-marked coins existed in 360 BCE, as also suggested by literary evidence. According to numismatist Joe Cribb, it suggests that the idea of coinage and the use of punch-marked techniques was introduced to India from the Achaemenid Empire during the 4th century BCE. However, numerous Indian scholars see the development of coinage in the Gangetic plains as an indigenous development.