Aral Sea, more precisely across the large area stretching from the lands around the Amu Darya and Zarafshan rivers up to the steppes and the deserts to the north of the Khorasan mountain corridor, that is in the region including the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts and the Ustyurt Plateau, especially the area between the Araxes and Iaxartes rivers and around Chorasmia. The territory of the Massagetae thus included the area corresponding to modern-day Turkmenistan and might possibly have extended to parts of Hyrcania as well. One of the Massagetaean sub-groups, the Apasiacae, lived either on the east coast of the Aral Sea between the Oxus and Tanais/Iaxartes rivers, or possibly along the Oxus in western Bactria. Another Massagetaean sub-group, the Derbices, lived in the area bordered by the Caspian Sea to the west and by Hyrcania to the south, and the Balkhan Mountain and the Ochus river and its estuary were in their territory. The imprecise description of where the Massagetae lived by ancient authors has however led modern scholars to ascribe to them various locations, such as the Oxus delta, the Iaxartes delta, between the Caspian and Aral seas or further to the north or north-east, but without basing these suggestions on any conclusive arguments. History Early history The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they migrated from the east into Central Asia, from where they expelled the Scythians, another nomadic Iranian tribe to whom they were closely related. After this, they came to occupy large areas of the region, including the Caspian Steppe where they supplanted the Scythians. The Massagetae displacing the early Scythians and forcing them to the west across the Araxes river and into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes started a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe, following which the Scythians displaced the Cimmerians and the Agathyrsi, who were also nomadic Iranian peoples closely related to the Massagetae and the Scythians, conquered their territories, and invaded Western Asia. There, their presence had an important role in the history of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran. The had close contact with the Median Empire, whose influence had stretched to the lands east of the Caspian Sea, before it was replaced by the Persian Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. It has also been speculated that the Orthocorybantians may have lived in Eastern Armenia, which bordered