a historical region, later a kingdom in the northwestern part of the Iran Plateau.
The Medes are first mentioned in Assyrian annals of the second half of the ninth century B.C. As early as the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., an Iranian-speaking element appeared in Media, later becoming predominant. The ninth and eighth centuries B.C. in Media evidently constituted a period of transition from a military democracy to an early slaveholding society. During that time, the Medes waged a struggle against Assyria, which had seized part of their lands.
Judging from Assyrian sources, the kingdom of Media arose in the 670’s B.C., and Ecbatana became its capital. Under King Cyaxares (ruled from 625 or 624 to 584 B.C.), Media became a great power in the ancient East. In a short time the Medes seized Manna and, in alliance with Babylonia, crushed the Assyrian state and conquered Urartu and other territories.
In 550 or 549 B.C., Media was conquered by the Persians and made a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire. An independent Median state was restored only in the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., but it occupied only part of the former territory of Media, that in southern Azerbaijan, which later came to be called Media (or Media Minor, Median Atropatene, and Atropatene).
Media occupies a prominent place in the political, economic, and cultural history of antiquity. Zoroastrianism became widespread in Media. The Avesta was evidently codified in Atropatene in the fourth century B.C. Some of the Medes, having merged into the autochthonic tribes of Atropatene, played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijanis.
I. ALIEV