Ecbatana older Ecbatana in "Media Atropatene" on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman. However, the cuneiform texts imply that there was only one city of the name, and that "Takht-i Suleiman" is the Gazaca of classical geography. There is also the claim that Ecbatana used to be the city of Tabriz, which is one of the historical capitals of Iran and the present capital of East Azerbaijan province. The city, which was previously called Tauris, was put forward by John-Thomas Minadoi, who cited that his identification of the city was based on data collected from modern and ancient geographers, recent travel
Ecbatana A badly-damaged stone lion sculpture is of disputed date: it may be Achaemenid or Parthian. Numerous Parthian-era constructions attest to Ecbatana's status as a summer capital for the Parthian rulers. In 2006, excavations in a limited area of Hagmatana hill failed to discover anything older than the Parthian period, but this does not rule out older archaeological layers existing elsewhere within the 35-hectare site. Ecbatana was first excavated in 1913 by Charles Fossey. Excavations have been limited due to the modern town covering most of the ancient site. In 1969 the Ministry of Culture and Art began buying property on