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 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