Meden: verschil tussen versies

[[Bestand:Median Empire.svg|right|thumb|300px|Het rijk van de Meden bij zijn grootste uitbreiding rond 600 v.Chr. (de oostelijke uitbreiding is echter slechts zeer globaal bekend)]]

De '''Meden''' (van het [[Perzisch|Oudperzisch]]e ''Māda-'') waren een [[Iraanse volkeren|Iraans volk]] dat een gebied bewoonde in het tegenwoordige [[Iran]]. Volgens [[Herodotus]] zou er sprake zijn geweest van een Medisch rijk met als hoofdstad [[Ecbatana]], het huidige [[Hamadan]]. [[Deioces]] zou de verschillende stammen verenigd hebben in een rijk dat onder [[Cyaxares]] zijn grootste macht zou hebben gehad. Tegenwoordig wordt het bestaan van een verenigd Medisch rijk echter sterk betwijfeld, omdat archeologische aanwijzingen ontbreken en omdat het verhaal van Herodotus niet overeenkomt met [[Nieuw-Assyrische Rijk|Assyrische]] en [[Nieuw-Babylonische Rijk|Nieuw-Babylonische]] bronnen.<ref>''In recent years, a number of scholars have cast considerable doubt on the historicity of a Median empire as presented in Classical sources, particularly Herodotus. They have emphasized the absence of any archaeological evidence for the Herodotean account of Media, and a perceived lack of consistency between this account and contemporary treatments of the Medes in Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian documentary sources. A conference held in Padua in 2001 provided the opportunity for a comprehensive review of the sources on which modern reconstructions of the Median kingdom have been based. In their summing up of the proceedings, the editors (Lanfranchi ''et al.'', 2003: 397—406) noted that recent re-examinations of the sources relating to Media have led to a radical reduction of the extent of the 'Median empire' before it was incorporated into the Persian empire. But they observed that opinions still vary between two extremes — a 'maximalist' and a 'minimalist' view. The former 'might extend Median power from the west of the former kingdom of Urartu to the borders of Fars and from the western outliers of the Zagros mountains on the plains of eastern Assyria to the fringes of the central Iranian desert beyond Rayy', while the latter 'would abandon the whole of the north, east and central western Iran to bands of nomads roaming freely over an extensive territory, and consider Median influence to be negligible'. The 'truth', the editors say, may well lie between these extremes.'' {{aut|Trevor Bryce|Bryce}} (2009)</ref><ref>''While elements of Herodotus' story agree with the bits of information we have on the Medes from Assyrian and Babylonian sources, Tthe whole is a fictional account. No Median empire ever existed. Why was it concocted then? Herodotus imagined there had been a sequence of world empires in Asia before the Persian one that the Greeks confronted. He knew about Assyria and Persia, but in between them was a void. This he filled with the Medes, and thereby he created a phantom empire whose image is still widely accepted today.'' {{aut|Marc Van De Mieroop|Mieroop}} (20092015)</ref>