Medes

Median Empire
Median Empire; Mādai
	c. 678 BC–549 BC
	A map of the Median Empire; based on Herodotus
Caipital	Ecbatana
Common leids	Median
Releegion	Old Iranian religion (related to Mithraism, early Zoroastrianism)
Govrenment	Monarchy
King
• 678–665 BC	Deioces or Kashtariti
• 665–633 BC	Phraortes
• 625–585 BC	Cyaxares
• 589–549 BC	Astyages
Historical era	Iron Age
• Established	c. 678 BC
• Conquered by Cyrus the Great	549 BC
Aurie
585 BC	2,800,000 km2 (1,100,000 sq mi)
Precedit bi	Succeedit bi
	Neo-Assyrian Empire
	Urartu
Achaemenid Empire

The Medes^{[N 1]} (/miːdz/, Auld Persie Māda-, Ancient Greek: Μῆδοι, Hebrew: מָדַי‬) war an auncient Iranian fowk^{[N 2]} wha lived in an aurie kent as Medie (northwestren Iran) an who spoke the Median leid.

Notes

↑ Accordin tae the OED entry "Mede", the wird is frae Clessical Laitin Mēdus (uisually as plural, Mēdī) frae auncient Greek (Attic an Ionic) Μῆδος (Cypriot ma-to-i Μᾶδοι, plural) frae Auld Persie Māda.^[3]
↑ A) "..and the Medes (Iranians of what is now north-west Iran).." EIEC (1997:30). B) "Archaeological evidence for the religion of the Iranian-speaking Medes of the .." (Diakonoff 1985, p. 140). C) ".. succeeded in uniting into a kingdom the many Median tribes" (frae Encyclopædia Britannica ^[4]). D) "Proto-Iranian split into Western (Median, and others) and Eastern (Scythian, Ossetic, Saka, Pamir and others)..." (Kuz'mina, Elena E. (2007), The origin of the Indo-Iranians, J. P. Mallory (ed.), BRILL, p. 303, ISBN 978-90-04-16054-5)

↑ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of world-systems research. 12 (2): 223. ISSN 1076-156X. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
↑ Taagepera, Rein (1979). "Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 600 B.C. to 600 A.D." Social Science History. 3 (3/4): 121. doi:10.2307/1170959. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
↑ OED Online "entry Mede, n.".:
↑ Encyclopædia Britannica Online Media (ancient region, Iran)