Medes

"Mede" redirects here. For the town in Italy, see Mede (Italy).

The Medes (Kurdish: میدیا, romanized: Mîdya) were an ancient Iranian people and the ancestors of modern Kurdish people^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea^[8] They entered this region with the first wave of nomadic Iranian tribes, in the late second millennium BC (at the end of the Bronze Age).^[9]

Median Empire
c. 625 BCE–549 BCE
Median Empire, ca. 600 BC
Capital	Ecbatana
Religion	Ancient Iranic religion Zoroastrianism possibly also Proto-Iranian religions such as Yazidism
Government	Monarchy
King
Historical era	Iron Age
• Cyaxares united Median tribes[1]	c. 625 BCE
• Cyrus the Great	549 BCE
Preceded by Succeeded by Neo-Assyrian Empire Achaemenid Empire

By the 6th century BC, the Medes were able to make their own empire.^[10] It stretched from southern shore of the Black Sea and Aran province (in modern Azerbaijan) to north and central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The Medes are credited with the foundation of the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified Iranian empire of the Medes and Persians, often referred to as the Achaemenid Empire.

Controversy

Mare Erithrean. Medes

Historical Atlas of Iran -Medes

Modern scholars question whether a Median empire even existed. It is argued that even if it existed, it must have been just a political alliance among highland neighbors of the Assyrians.^[source?] The alliance might include Armenia in southeastern Anatolia, Sagartians in modern northern Iraq, and the actual Medians in the area between what is today Hamadan-Kirmanshah in cental Zagros. Neither cuneiform sources, archaeological evidence, or biblical accounts,^[11] support Herodotus, who claimed there really was a Median empire.

Median language

Strabo mentions the affinity of Median with other Iranian languages in his "Geography":

The name of Ariana is farther extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians, Scythians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations.

— Geography, 15.8

Herodotus, mentions the word "Spaga" ("Dog",^[12] still present in current Iranian languages such as Tat and Talysh, and different from Persian). Much like these languages and Kurdish, the Median language belonged to the Northwestern branch of the Iranic languages.