History of the Jews in Iran lost tribes were expelled to the land of the Medes in modern-day Iran. The book of Tobit, which is part of the Apocrypha suggests that there were people from the tribe of Naphtali living in Rhages (Rey, Iran) and Ecbatana (Hamedan) at the time of the Assyrians (Book of Tobit 6:12). Three times during the 6th century BC, the Jews (Hebrews) of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. These three separate occasions are mentioned in Jeremiah (52:28-30). The first exile was in the time of Jehoiachin in 597 BC, when the Temple of Jerusalem was
Ecbatana the tell in support of arcaheology, though actual excavation did not begin until 1983. By 2007, 12 seasons of excavation had occurred. The work on the tell is ongoing. The Greeks thought Ecbatana to be the capital of the Medes empire and credited its foundation to Deioces (the "Daiukku" of the cuneiform inscriptions). It is alleged that he surrounded his palace in Ecbatana with seven concentric walls of different colours. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus wrote of Ecbatana: "The Medes built the city now called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles