Who were the Medes?

Question

Who were the Medes? Where was Media? Who are the Medes now? What are some facts about the Medes and Media?

Answer 1

Μηδία

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medes

Answer 2

What we know about the Medes comes nearly all from Greek sources and modern archaeology.
The Medes were an Iranian people that coalesced out of tribes in the 7th century BC. Their capital was Ecbatana, modern Hamadan, to the north of Persia proper (Fars).
Under the king Uvakshatara or Cyaxares they united with the Babylonians to destroy the power of Assyria, sacking Nineveh in 612 BC.
They moved west and fought a war with Lydia, which was ended by treaty in 585 BC. The river Halys or Kizil Irmak was agreed on as the boundary.
Cyaxares was succeeded by Astyages (Ushtuwugu), who was dethroned in about 550 BC by his grandson Cyrus of Persia.
So in between 612 and 550 scholars assumed there had been a powerful Median Empire. But archaeology has cast doubt on this, because precisely in this period, previously impressive Median towns and castles seem to have declined into poor squatter settlements. The question might be resolved by excavating Hamadan, but that's impossible as it's completely built over by the modern city.

Answer 3

Most Bibles have a Map section in the back of them. Media (Madai) Take one finger place it on (MAP) the shat al-Arab where it meets the Persian Gulf and move it north until you have it at about the 35th degree latitude in this mountainous region of what is now Iran(meaning "Land of the Iraians"). The Persians (Elam) Territory stretched along parts of modern Iran and Iraq (From Arabic: al-Iraq "Along the shore or length of" i.e. Mesopotamia (From Greek: "Between the waters" i.e. the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.) The name Persian comes from the Greek: Perseus because we are told by Herodotus that the Persians are the Sons of Perseus. Herodotus also tells us that the Medes have three Tribal groups one of which is a priestly tribe which buried its dead in wax among many other odd practices. These Magi (From which we derive our word "Magic" are the group that show up at the birth of Jesus Christ in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The Biblical King Cyrus the Great (Not to be confused with Cyrus the brother of Artic Xerxes who makes war with his brother in Xenophon's Anabasis.) was 1/2 Persian and 1/2 Median. Historians refer to the empire as the media Persian Empire because it was controlled both the Meads and Persians. However the Persians seem to have had the hegemony. Nevertheless, there laws where referred to as the "Laws of the Meads and Persians". The Empire was vast stretching from India to Ethiopia and as far north as modern Turkmenistan. The Medio-Persian Empire try unsuccessfully to annex parts of Europe namely the realm of the Hellenic peoples (Greece) and the land of Scythia (Modern Ukraine) where history records the 1st example of gorilla style war-fear. Because of the vastness of the Empire the Persian created elaborate roads and had a postal service (the worlds first state post) of which the Anatolian Historian gave up the "Rain, sleet, or shine" quote that the US Post Office uses to this day. The Persians also used conquered peoples to rule over other conquered people. The Persians would rule the Mesopotamians who intern would rule the Syrians who would intern rule the Anatolians who in turn would rule the Libyans and so on thus giving the impetus towards continual expansion. They are also the 1st world empire with a set of Laws which the King was not allowed to change even if he himself decreed a given law. Well that’s all I can think of right now. I would be grateful for 5 points.

Answer 4

modern day persia or iran. it is thought that three kings of bethlehem originated in medea since that country was known for astrology. the medes spoke a language of the indo-iranian family. no much evidence survives of their language, only a handful of vocabualry.