1
Medes, Media
SABRINA MARAŠ
The Medes were an Iranian people, closely
related to the Persians, who began to make
their presence felt in the northwestern part of
the Iranian Plateau in the late second or early
first millennium BCE. Assyrian annals first refer
to the Medes in 836 BCE, and subsequent
Assyrian references continue to belie, as late as
the reign of ESARHADDON (r. 680–669), any early
unification of the Medes. Such contemporary
records indicate that HERODOTUS’ colorful treat-
ment of the history of pre-Achaemenid Media
(Hdt. 1.95–106) is not to be trusted and that the
only reliable sources remain contemporary
cuneiform documents, combined with the
mute testimony of archaeology. Accordingly, it
is possible to dismiss Herodotus’ description of
a long, stable line of Median kings reaching back
to the last quarter of the eighth century, as well
as his vision, no doubt partly inspired by his
own experience of living in the extended Achae-
menid realm, of a well-established Median
empire stretching westwards to the Halys River
in central Anatolia (see HALYS). Babylonian
cuneiform sources do nevertheless indicate
that the Medes, under the leadership of CYA-
XARES, participated in the capture and destruc-
tion of the last Assyrian capital, NINEVEH, in 612
BCE, and they affirm that ASTYAGES, the last ruler
of independent Media, lost his throne and his
“royal city” to Cyrus II of Persia in 550.
The first brief excavations at Hamadan (see
ECBATANA), in 1913, were abortive. Later, in
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 4374–4375.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah24141
the absence of any other evidence for the
Medes on the ground, it was popularly sup-
posed that a series of rock-cut tombs near
the High Road between Hamadan and BISITUN
were of Median date – a supposition that had
to be abandoned when chisel marks clearly
revealed the hands of Achaemenid or post-
Achaemenid stonemasons. Then, in 1964,
when Dyson’s excavations at Ziwiye revealed
the existence of hitherto unstudied fine buff
wares of late seventh century date, this informa-
tion was used to identify sites with similar pot-
tery which, located in the heartland of Media,
could hardly be anything but Median. The main
excavations in question are those that took place
in the late 1960s and 1970s at Tepe Nush-e Jan
and Godin Tepe. In view of more recent, parallel
discoveries of similar distinctive mud-brick
architecture, at such outlying sites as Tell
Gubba in the west and Ozbaki Tepe in the east,
there is a genuine prospect that the bounds of
pre-Achaemenid Media will one day be reliably
reflected through excavations.
SEE ALSO: Achaemenid Dynasty; Persian,
Persians.
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING
Stronach, D. and Roaf, M. (2007) Tepe Nush-i Jan I.
The major buildings of the Median settlement.
London.
Stronach, D. (2003) “Independent Media:
archaeological notes from the homeland.” In
G. Lanfranchi, M. Roaf, and R. Rollinger, eds.,
Continuity of empire: Assyria, Media, Persia:
233–48. Padua.