The Medes first appeared on the historical scene in the ninth cebtury BC, When they were mentioned in contemporary Assyrian texts. They were an Indo-European tribe who, like the related people the Persians, had enetered western Iran at some earlier and as yet undetermined date. Thereafter they were in frequent conflict with Assyrians, their powerful neighbours to the west. Herodotus includes an account of the Medes in his "Histories", in which he provides a great deal of information, but for the early periods of Median history his account is not entirely credible.

   During the early stages of their history the Medes were probably little more than a loose confederation of tribes, but by the seventh century BC they controlled a wide area around their capital at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), while the subject Persians were setteled in Fars. By the 612 BC the Medes, under their king Cyaxares, were sufficiently powerful to overthrow in alliance with the Babylonians the ailing Assyrian state. The major Assyrian cities, including Nimrud and Nineveh, were sacked.

   Subsequent events in Assyria are not completely clear, but from atleast 590 BC onwards, the Medes were probably the dominant power in northern Iraq. There is some evidence that the Medes settled the Sagartians, a tribe of Iranian nomads, in the district of Erbil, which probably became an important Median centre. Control over the former centre of the great Assyrian empire would have given the Medes a quick and easy route to Turkey, and in the years after the collapse of Assyria much of eastern Anatolia fell under Median control.

   This brought the Medes into direct confrontation with powerful kingdom of Lydia, which had become well established in west and central Anatolia. Five years of warfare, from 590 BC onwards, culminated in famous battle in 585 BC that was dramatically interrupted by a solar eclipse. Peace was made, and the frontier between the Medes and the Lydians was established on the river Halys, with the king of Babylon acting as one of the mediators. It is possible that Median arms were carried at least into Bactaria (northern Afghanistan) and perhaps as far as the river Oxus (Amu Darya). Thus, in the first half of the sixth century BC, the Medes may have loosely controlled a vast tract of territory stretching from tha Halys to the Oxus.

   It might be assumed that, with the increase in plitical power and wealth, a distinctive artistic court style would have developed, but traces of the art and material culture of the Medes remain elusive even though in the past many splendid objects have been claimed as Median.

   For evidence of the Medes, our investigation should begin in the Median heartland, an area bounded by Hamadan, Malayer and Kangavar that has been called "the Median triangle". Apart from Hamadan itself, only two major sites in the appropriate period have yet been excavated. These are Godin Tepe and Tepe Nush-iJan.

Ancient Persia
John Curtis