The Iranian Highlands as a borderland of the Neo-Assyrian empire: notes on cultural and political dynamics

During the 8th and 7th cent. BC the expansion of the Neo-Assyrian state reached areas that can be defined as borderlands, both for their geographical location in or near landscapes that represented natural barriers, and for their history which was characterized by different cultural and political trajectories. In the Zagros area Assyrian expansion confronted Urartian expansion. To illustrate the system of interrelations that characterized these borderland regions within the mosaic of geopolitical entities from the 9th to 7th centuries BC, the paper considera three case studies to represent the various political and institutional statuses: the independent polity of Mannea, the Assyrian borderland province of Zamua, and the region of the Medes, whose internal organization and subsequent development is the object of a long standing discussion.