What is "medes"

The Medes (, Old Persian , , ) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in an area known as Media (northwestern Iran) and who spoke the Median language. They mainly inhabited the mountainous area of northwestern Iran and the northeastern and eastern region of Mesopotamia and located in the Kermanshah- Hamadan (Ecbatana) region Their arrival in the region is associated with the first wave of migrating Iranian peoples into Iran from the Late Bronze Age collapse from around 1000 BC to around 900 BC.

This period of migration coincided with a power vacuum in the Near East with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 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.

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, but which stretched from Cyprus to Iran, and from the Caucasus to Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. Assyrian kings such as Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Ashur-etil-ilani imposed Vassal Treaties upon the Median rulers, and also protected them from predatory raids by marauding Scythians and Cimmerians.

During the reign of Sinsharishkun (622–612 BC) the Assyrian empire, which had been in a state of constant civil war since 626 BC, began to unravel. Subject peoples, such as the Medes, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Lydians and Arameans quietly ceased to pay tribute to Assyria.

An alliance between the Medes and rebelling Neo-Babylonian Empire, Scythians, Chaldeans, and Cimmerians, helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BC, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Kızılırmak River in Anatolia. After the fall of Assyria between 616 BC and 605 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.

The Median kingdom was eventually conquered in 550 BC by Cyrus the Great, who established the Achaemenid Empire. 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.

A few archaeological sites (discovered in the " Median triangle" in western Iran) and textual sources (from contemporary Assyrians and also ancient Greeks in later centuries) provide a brief documentation of the history and culture of the Median state. Apart from a few personal names, the language of the Medes is unknown. The Medes had an Ancient Iranian Religion (a form of pre- Zoroastrian Mazdaism or Mithra worshipping) with a priesthood named as " Magi". Later during the reigns of the last Median kings, the reforms of Zoroaster spread into western Iran.

Medes can refer to the Medes, an ancient Iranian people. It can also refer to: