Teïspes (from Greek ; in peo, 𐎨𐎡𐏁𐎱𐎡𐏁 ''Cišpiš''; Akkadian: 𒅆𒅖𒉿𒅖 ''Šîšpîš'',Kent (1384 AP), page 394 Elamite: Zi-iš-pi-iš) ruled Anshan in 675–640 BC. He was the son of Achaemenes of Persis and an ancestor of

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...

. There is evidence that

Cyrus I Cyrus I (Old Persian: ''Kuruš'') or Cyrus I of Anshan or Cyrus I of Persia, was King of Anshan in Persia from to 580 BC or, according to others, from to 600 BC. Cyrus I of Anshan is the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus II. ...

and

Ariaramnes Ariaramnes (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹𐎠𐎼𐎶𐎴 ''Ariyāramna''; "peace of the Arya") was a great-uncle of Cyrus the Great and the great-grandfather of Darius I, and perhaps the king of Parsa, the ancient core kingdom of Persia. __NOTO ...

were both his sons. Cyrus I is the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, whereas Ariaramnes is the great-grandfather of

Darius the Great Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his d ...

. According to 7th-century BC documents, Teispes captured the

Elam Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...

ite city of Anshan, speculated to have occurred after the Persians were freed from

Median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...

supremacy, and expanded his small kingdom. His kingdom was, however, a vassal state of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC). He was succeeded by his second son, Cyrus I.

Name

The

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...

version of the name is ''Čišpiš''; Walther Hinz and Heidemarie Koch interpret it as ''*Čaišpiš'', but this appears to be incorrect.

Rüdiger Schmitt Rüdiger Schmitt (born 1 July 1939) is a German linguist, Iranologist, and educator. He was a professor of Comparative Indo-European Philology and Indo-Iranian Studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany, from 1979 until 200 ...

considers the name "probably Iranian", whereas Jan Tavernier says it could also be Elamite. In either case, the etymology is unknown. It is probably not related to either the name of the Hurrian storm god

Tešup Teshub (also written Teshup, Teššup, or Tešup; cuneiform ; hieroglyphic Luwian , read as ''Tarhunzas'';Annick Payne (2014), ''Hieroglyphic Luwian: An Introduction with Original Texts'', 3rd revised edition, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p.& ...

or to the name of the Cimmerian king Teušpa.Schmitt, 1992 Its connection with the (Elamite) byname 𒍝𒆜𒉿𒆜𒅆𒅀 ''Zaišpîšiya'' is unclear — Hinz believes it represents an adjectival form of the name, ''*Čaišpišya'', but Schmitt prefers the reading ''*Čašpišya'' instead and says the two names are unrelated. Vasily Abayev proposed that ''Čišpiš'' represents an Iranian form of the Old Indian ''sú-śiśvi'', meaning "growing well". János Harmatta suggested a possible relation to the Sogdian ''čp'yš'', meaning "leader". Tavernier, however, does not think either proposal is convincing. Another Iranian derivation proposed by

Wojciech Skalmowski Jan Wojciech Skalmowski (pseud. ''Maciej Broński'', ''M. Broński'', ''Piotr Meynert''; 24 June 1933, in Poznań – 18 July 2008, in Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All ...

is that the name is a compound related to Old Indian ''cit-'', "thought, intelligence", and ''pi-'', "to swell, overflow". As for Elamite derivations, Tavernier says that no good one has been found. The verb stem ''piš-'', meaning "to renew, restore", is indeed found in some Elamite names, but the first part is hard to explain. Tavernier suggests a possible connection with ''šišnali'', "beautiful", which occurs as ''šiš'' in some compounds; an Elamite name ''*Šišpiš'' could then mean "renewing the beautiful". However, this would not explain why the name is spelled ''Zišpiš'' in Elamite, since ''šišnali'' is only ever spelled with a ''š''. Another person named ''Čišpiš'' is also attested in the

Persepolis tablets The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Persepolis Treasury Archive are two groups of clay administrative archives — sets of records physically stored together – found in Persepolis dating to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The discover ...

. This person is mentioned in tablets from 503 and 502 BCE as the recipient of various amounts of grain, and is associated with a place in Elam called Zila-Umpan.

References

Bibliography

* * * 640 BC deaths 7th-century BC Iranian people 7th-century BC monarchs Kings of Anshan (Persia) Teispids Year of birth unknown {{royal-stub

Name

See also

References

Bibliography