Reading the ruins of Ecbatana

Ancient Ecbatana is one of the great names of the ancient world — capital of the Medes, summer seat of the Achaemenid kings, a city Greek historians wrote about with awe. Today most of it lies under modern Hamedan, and the excavated hill in the middle of the city is your window into it.

Start in the museum

Begin with the site museum. The pottery, column bases, coins and gold ornaments on display give you a sense of the wealth and reach of the city, and the maps help you picture what you are about to walk through.

Look for the grid

Out on the hill, walkways run above the excavated quarters. What first looks like a maze of mud walls resolves into a planned city: straight streets, regular blocks of buildings and channels for water. Much of what is visible belongs to the later, Parthian phases of the city's long life.

Find the view

Climb to the highest point for a view across Hamedan to the ridge of Mount Alvand. On the edge of the hill you will also find a small Armenian church — a reminder that this ground has been lived on, and prayed on, for thousands of years.