King of Media

The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in an area known as Media (northwestern with a priesthood named as "Magi". Later during the reigns of the last Median kings, the reforms of Zoroaster spread into western Iran.
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An early description of the territory of Media by the Assyrians dates from the end of the 9th century BC until the beginning of the 7th century BC. To the west and northwest it was bounded by the Zagros Mountains and from the east by Dasht-e Kavir. This region of Media was ruled by the Assyrians and for them the region "extended along the Great Khorasan Road from just east of Harhar to Alwand, and probably beyond. It was limited on the north by the non Iranian state of the Mannaeans , on the south by Ellipi. This land was located near a mountain range which the Assyrians call "Bikni" and describe as "Lapis Lazuli Mountain".

There are various opinion on the location of this mountain. Mount Damavand of Tehran and Alvand of Hamadan are two proposed sites. This location is the most remote eastern area that the Assyrians knew of or reached during their expansion until the beginning of the 7th century BC. In the sources from Achaemenid Iran and specifically from the Behistun Inscription 2.

The classical authors transmitted this as Ecbatana. This site is modern Hamadan province. Median archaeological sources are rare. The discoveries of Median sites happened only after the s. These sources have both similarities in cultural characteristics and differences due to functional differences and diversity among the Median tribes. The materials found at Tepe Nush-i Jan, Godin Tepe, and other sites located in Media together with the Assyrian reliefs show the existence of urban settlements in Media in the first half of the 1st millennium BC which had functioned as centres for the production of handicrafts and also of an agricultural and cattle-breeding economy of a secondary type.

Iranian tribes were present in western and northwestern Iran from at least the 12th or 11th centuries BC. But the significance of Iranian elements in these regions were established from the beginning of the second half of the 8th century BC. This period of migration coincided with a power vacuum in the Near East with the Middle Assyrian Empire — BC , which had dominated northwestern Iran and eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus , going into a comparative decline.

This allowed new peoples to pass through and settle. In addition Elam , the dominant power in Iran, was suffering a period of severe weakness, as was Babylonia to the west. In western and northwestern Iran and in areas further west prior to Median rule, there is evidence of the earlier political activity of the powerful societies of Elam, Mannaea, Assyria and Urartu. From the 10th to the late 7th centuries BC, the western parts of Media fell under the domination of the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire based in northern Mesopotamia , which stretched from Cyprus to Iran, and from the Caucasus to Egypt and the north of the Arabian Peninsula.

During the reign of Sinsharishkun — BC the Assyrian empire, which had been in a state of constant civil war since BC, began to unravel. Neo-Assyrian dominance over the Medians came to an end during the reign of Cyaxares , who in alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon and Chaldea and the Scythians and Cimmerians , attacked and destroyed the strife riven empire between and BC.

After the fall of Assyria between BC and BC, a unified Median state was formed, which together with Babylonia, Lydia , and ancient Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. However, nowadays there is considerable doubt whether a united Median Empire ever existed. There is no archaeological evidence and the story of Herodotus is not supported by sources from the Neo-Assyrian Empire nor the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The list of Median rulers and their period of reign compiled according to two sources.

Firstly, Herodotus who calls them "kings" and associates them with the same family.

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A combined list stretching over years is thus:. However, not all of these dates and personalities given by Herodotus match the other near eastern sources.

In Herodotus book 1, chapters 95— , Deioces is introduced as the founder of a centralised Median state. He had been known to the Median people as "a just and incorruptible man" and when asked by the Median people to solve their possible disputes he agreed and put forward the condition that they make him "king" and build a great city at Ecbatana as the capital of the Median state.

Greek references to "Median" people make no clear distinction between the "Persians" and the "Medians"; in fact for a Greek to become "too closely associated with Iranian culture" was "to become Medianized, not Persianized". Median people spoke the Median language, which was an Old Iranian language. Strabo 's Geographica finished in the early first century mentions the affinity of Median with other Iranian languages: No original deciphered text has been proven to have been written in the Median language.

It is suggested that similar to the later Iranian practice of keeping archives of written documents in Achaemenid Iran, there was also a maintenance of archives by the Median government in their capital Ecbatana. There are examples of "Median literature" found in later records. One is according to Herodotus that the Median king Deioces, appearing as a judge, made judgement on causes submitted in writing. There is also a report by Dinon on the existence of "Median court poets".

Words of Median origin appear in various other Iranian dialects, including Old Persian. A feature of Old Persian inscriptions is the large number of words and names from other languages and the Median language takes in this regard a special place for historical reasons.

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There are very limited sources concerning the religion of Median people. Primary sources pointing to religious affiliations of Medes found so far include the archaeological discoveries in Tepe Nush-e Jan, personal names of Median individuals, and the Histories of Herodotus. The archaeological source gives the earliest of the temple structures in Iran and the "stepped fire altar" discovered there is linked to the common Iranian legacy of the "cult of fire". Herodotus mentions Median Magi as a Median tribe providing priests for both the Medes and the Persians.

They had a "priestly caste" which passed their functions from father to son. They played a significant role in the court of the Median king Astyages who had in his court certain Medians as "advisers, dream interpreters, and soothsayers". Classical historians "unanimously" regarded the Magi as priests of the Zoroastrian faith.

From the personal names of Medes as recorded by Assyrians in 8th and 9th centuries BC there are examples of the use of the Indo-Iranian word arta- lit. Diakonoff believes that "Astyages and perhaps even Cyaxares had already embraced a religion derived from the teachings of Zoroaster" which was not identical with doctrine of Zarathustra and Mary Boyce believes that "the existence of the Magi in Media with their own traditions and forms of worship was an obstacle to Zoroastrian proselytizing there".

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It has also been suggested [ by whom? In BC, Cyrus the Great , King of Persia, rebelled against his grandfather, the Mede King, Astyages son of Cyaxares; he finally won a decisive victory in BC resulting in Astyages' capture by his own dissatisfied nobles, who promptly turned him over to the triumphant Cyrus. After Cyrus's victory against Astyages, the Medes were subjected to their close kin, the Persians. Russian historian and linguist Vladimir Minorsky suggested that the Medes, who widely inhabited the land where currently the Kurds form a majority, might have been forefathers of the modern Kurds.

He also states that the Medes who invaded the region in the eighth century BC, linguistically resembled the Kurds. This view was accepted by many Kurdish nationalists in the twentieth century. However, Martin van Bruinessen , a Dutch scholar, argues against the attempt to take the Medes as ancestors of the Kurds. Contemporary linguistic evidence has challenged the previously suggested view that the Kurds are descendants of the Medes.

In general, the relationship between Kurdish and Median are not closer than the affinities between the latter and other North Western dialects — Baluchi, Talishi, South Caspian, Zaza, Gurani, etc. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the ancient Iranian people. For other uses, see Medes disambiguation.

For Medians, see Median disambiguation. Part of a series on the.

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