The other democracy: Medes in the Iron Age

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This project aims to use evidence from archaeology and historical texts to develop a new understanding of the consensus-based political system of the Medes of the Zagros Mountains in the first millennium BCE. In spite of the enduring presence of the Medes in the historical texts of Ancient Greece and the Near East, this research project would be the first major piece of scholarship to address the nature of Median communities. This research seeks to create a new model for how these agro-pastoral groups may have responded to imperial incursions by the Assyrian Empire. Its goal is to benefit scholarship by developing a better understanding of how democratic systems can develop as a flexible response to external pressures.