From the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, the Medes and Persians fell under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire based in Mesopotamia.

Media Empire Map based on Herodotus

Medes are believed to have moved southwards through the Zagros from a still undetermined region (perhaps in Central Asia) during the Iron Age. The Persians eventually settled in Fars in southwestern Iran, while the Medes were present in the region of Hamadan in western Iran by the 9th century BC. The disparate Median groups were unified into a kingdom by Cyaxares in the late 7th century, when an alliance between the Medes, the Scythians and the newly resurgent Babylonian kingdom attacked and overthrew the Neo-Assyrian empire (between 614 and 612 BC). In the mid 6th century BC, the Persian king Cyrus overran the Medes.

Persian Empire, during King Cyrus

The Medes had exactly the same equipment as the Persians; and indeed the dress common to both is not so much Persian as Median. These (Medes & Persians) were called anciently by all people Aryans. Apart from a few personal names, the language of the Medes is almost entirely unknown. It was most likely similar to the Avestan and Scythian languages, however a number of words from the Median language are still in use, and there are languages being geographically and comparatively traced to the northwestern Iranian language of Median. The Medes had an Ancient Iranian Religion (a form of pre-Zoroastrian Mazdaism or Mithra worshipping) with a priesthood named as "Magi". Later and during the reigns of the last Median kings, the reforms of Zarathustra spread in western Iran.

The Medes as well as their compatriots the Persians, the Parsa or Parsu, first enter recorded history in an Assyrian inscription from 844 BCE. The inscription records that an Assyrian military expedition encountered Medes and Persians in the area around Lake Urmia (or Urmiya) in the northwest of present-day Iran. 

The inscription records a successful military expedition by King Shalmaneser III (859-824 BCE) that enabled him to exact tribute from 27 chieftains in Parua. The predecessors to the Medes and the Persians were organised as loose federations of autonomous districts, each with its own chief.

Median Artefacts of a mythical creature with wings.

One of the stolen artefacts, are now in Tokyo National Museum

Gold Rhyton found in Ecbatana

A Rhyton is a ceremonial drinking cup shaped like an animal head or horn. Rhyta were favoured ceremonial wine vessels in Media, Persia (from the second millennium BC onwards), the Ancient Near East and Minoan Crete. The Rhyta found in ruins of palaces were often decorated with an animal's head with the mouth forming the rim around the opening of the vessel.