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 (Ass. Madai). The formation of the Median Empire must have taken place about the middle of the 7th cent., but the existence of the people in their later seats (E of the Zagros mountains and S of the Caspian Sea) appears to be traceable in the monuments back to the 9th cent. They are thus the earliest branch of the Aryan family to make their mark in Asiatic history. See Mey. GA$1$, i. § 422 ff.; KAT$3$, 100 ff.; ATLO$2$, 254.

(7)  is the Greek, and denotes primarily the Greek settlements in Asia Minor, which were mainly Ionian: Ezk. 27$13$, Is. 66$19$. After Alexander the Great it was extended to the Hellenes generally: Jl. 4$6$, Zech. 9$13$, Dn. 8$21$ 10$20$ 11$2$. In Ass. Yamanai is said to be used but once (by Sargon, KIB, ii. 43); but the Persian Yauna occurs, with the same double reference, from the time of Darius (cf. Æsch. Pers. 176, 562). Whether the word here includes the European Greeks cannot be positively determined. —The 'sons' of Javan are (v.$2$) to be sought along the Mediterranean, and probably at spots known to the Heb. as commercial colonies of the Phœnicians (on which see Mey. EB, 3736 f.). Very few of them, however, can be confidently identified.

(8)  is mentioned only in Ezk. 27$4$ as a place supplying Tyre with purple. The older verbal identifications with the (Jos. Jer.; so De.),  (T$7$),, etc., are valueless; and modern opinion is greatly divided. Some favour Carthage, because of Elissa, the name of the legendary foundress of the city (Sta. Wi. Je. al.); others (Di. al.) southern Italy with Sicily. The most attractive solution is that first proposed by Conder (PEFS, 1892, 45; cf. 1904, 170), and widely accepted, that the Alašia of the TA Tablets is meant (see KIB, v. 80-92). This is now generally recognised as the name of Cyprus, of which the Tyrian purple was a product: see below on. Jensen now (KIB, vi. 1, 507) places beyond the Pillars of Hercules on the African coast, and connects it with the Elysium of the Greeks.

(9)  is identified (since Bochart) with (Tartesos), the Phœnician mining and trading station in the S of Spain; and no other theory is nearly so plausible. The OT Tarshish was rich in minerals (Jer. 10$J$, Ezk. 27$O$), was a Tyrian colony (Is. 23$7$), and a remote coast-land reached by sea (Is. 66$9$, Jn. 1$12$ 4$1. 6. 10$, Ps. 72$19$); and to distinguish the Tarshish of these pass. from that of Gn. 10 (De. Jast. al.), or to consider the latter a doublet of (Che. Mü.), are but counsels of despair. The chief rival theory is Tarsus in Cilicia (Jos.