300px in the 1st century BC is shown in orange
The Scythians
or Scyths
[1] (Greek: S?????, S?????) were an Ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists [2] [3] who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia
. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians
came to dominate the Scyths in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scyths comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories
, and archaeologically from the exquisite goldwork found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia.
The name "Scythian" has also been used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in a vast area covering present-day Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia — known until medieval times as Scythia. [4]
|
SCYTHIAN TICKETS
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History and archeology
Origins and pre-history (to 700 BC)
thumb (ruled 117-38 AD), showing the location of the Scythae Basilaei ("Royal Scyths") along the north shore of the
Black sea
Scholars generally classify the
Scythian language as a member of the
Eastern Iranian languages, and the Scythians as a branch of the
ancient Iranian peoples expanding into the steppe regions north of
Greater Iran from around 1000 BC.
[5] [6] [7]
The
Histories
of
Herodotus provide the most important literary sources relating to ancient Scyths. According to Sulimirski,
Herodotus provides a broadly correct depiction but apparently knew little of the eastern part of Scythia. According to Herodotus the ancient Persians called all the Scyths "Saca" (Herodotus .VII 64). Their principal tribe, the
Royal Scyths
, ruled the vast lands occupied by the nation as a whole (Herodotus .IV 20); and they called themselves
Skolotoi
.
Oswald Szemerényi devotes a thorough discussion to the etymology of the word
Scyth
in his work "Four old Iranian ethnic names: Scythian - Skudra - Sogdian - Saka".
The related words derive from *skuza, an ancient Indo-European word for archer (cf. English shoot), hence Iranian
Ishkuzi
= archers.
The Scythians first appeared in the historical record in the 8th century BC.
Herodotus reported three versions as to the origins of the Scythians, but placed greatest faith in this version:
[8]
| “
| There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetae, but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria.
| ”
|
Around 676 BC, the Scythians (led by Ishpaki — Old Iranian
*Spakaaya
) in alliance with the
Mannaens attacked
Assyria. The group first appears in Assyrian annals under the name
Ishkuzai
. According to the brief assertion of
Esarhaddon's inscription, the Assyrian empire defeated the alliance. Subsequent mention of Scythians in
Babylonian and Assyrian texts occurs in connection with
Media. Both Old Persian and Greek sources mention them during the period of the
Achaemenid empires, with Greek sources locating them in the steppe between the
Dnieper and
Don rivers.
Josephus claimed that the Scythians were descended from
Magog, the grandson of
Noah.
Interpreting literary and archaeological evidence, contemporary scholars posit two major theories. The first major theory follows Herodotus' (third) account, stating that the Scythians were an Iranic group who arrived from
Inner Asia. A second school of thought suggests a development autochthonous to the Pontic steppe/ trans-Caucasian region. They argue that the Scythians emerged from local groups of the Timber Grave culture (broadly associated with the "Cimmerians"), who rose as the new leaders of the region. This second theory is supported by antrhopological evidence which found that Scythian skulls are similar to preceding findings from the Timber Grave culture, and distinct from those of the Central Asian
Sacae
.
[9]
Classical Antiquity (600 BC to AD 300)
thumb
thumb, king of the
Saka tigraxauda
("wearing pointed caps Sakae," a group of Scythian tribes). Detail of
Behistun Inscription.
thumb cup from the
Kul-Oba kurgan burial near
Kerch. The warrior on the right strings his bow, bracing it behind his knee; note the typical pointed hood, long jacket with fur or fleece trimming at the edges, decorated trousers, and short boots tied at the ankle. Scythians apparently normally wore their hair long and loose, and all adult men apparently wore beards. The
gorytos
appears clearly on the left hip of the bare-headed spearman; his companion has an interesting shield, perhaps representing a plain leather covering over a wooden or wicker base. (
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg)
thumb, near
Kerch.
thumb (r.c. 35-12 BC). Buddhist
triratna symbol in the left field on the reverse.
Herodotus provides the first detailed description of the Scythians. He classes the
Cimmerians as a distinct autochthonous tribe, expelled by the Scythians from the northern Black Sea coast (
Hist.
4.11-12). Herodotus also states (4.6) that the Scythians consisted of the
Auchatae,
Catiaroi,
Traspians and
Paralatae or "Royal Scythians." Throughout his work Herodotus specifically distinguished between the nomadic Scythians in the south and the agricultural Scythians to the north.
In 512 BC, when king
Darius the Great of
Persia attacked the Scythians, he allegedly penetrated into their land after crossing the
Danube. Herodotus relates that the nomad Scythians succeeded in frustrating the designs of the Persian army by letting it march through the entire country without an engagement. According to Herodotus, Darius in this manner came as far as the
Volga river.
During the
5th to
3rd centuries BC the Scythians evidently prospered. When Herodotus wrote his
Histories
in the 5th century BC, Greeks distinguished
Scythia Minor in present-day
Romania and
Bulgaria from a
Greater Scythia that extended eastwards for a 20-day ride from the
Danube River, across the
steppes of today's East
Ukraine to the lower
Don basin. The Don, then known as
Tanaïs
, has served as a major trading route ever since. The Scythians apparently obtained their wealth from their control over the
slave-trade from the north to Greece through the Greek
Black Sea colonial ports of
Olvia,
Chersonesos,
Cimmerian Bosporus, and
Gorgippia. They also grew grain, and shipped
wheat, flocks, and
cheese to Greece.
Strabo (c. 63 BC - 24 AD) reports that king
Ateas united under his power the Scythian tribes living between the
Maeotian marshes and the Danube. His westward expansion brought him in conflict with
Philip II of Macedon (reigned 359 to 336 BC), who took military action against the Scythians in 339 BC. Ateas died in battle and his empire disintegrated. In the aftermath of this defeat, the
Celts seem to have displaced the Scythians from the
Balkans, while in south Russia a kindred tribe, the
Sarmatians, gradually overwhelmed them.
By the time of Strabo's account (the first decades of the first millennium AD), the Crimean Scythians had created a new kingdom extending from the lower
Dnieper to the
Crimea. The kings
Skilurus and
Palakus waged wars with
Mithridates the Great (reigned 120–63 BC) for control of the Crimean littoral, including
Chersonesos and the
Cimmerian Bosporus. Their capital city,
Scythian Neapolis, stood on the outskirts of modern
Simferopol. The
Goths destroyed it later, in the mid-3rd century AD.
Sakas
Asians, especially
Persians, knew the Scythians in Asia as
Sakas. The Indo-Scythians had the name "Shaka" in
South Asia, an extension on the name "Saka".
Herodotus (VII.64) describes them as Scythians, called by a different name:
| “
| The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point. They bore the bow (weapon)
| ”
|
In
Mahabharta Sakas,
Pahlavas and
Kambojas are mention as related tribes.
Indo-Scythians
In the 2nd century BC, a group of Scythian tribes, known as the
Indo-Scythians, migrated into
Bactria,
Sogdiana and
Arachosia. The migrations in 175-125 BC of the
Kushan (Chinese: "
Yuezhi") tribes, who originally lived in eastern
Tarim Basin before the
Huns (Chinese: "
Xiongnu") tribes dislodged them, displaced the Indo-Scythians from
Central Asia. Led by their king
Maues, they ultimately settled in modern-day
Punjab and
Kashmir from around 85 BC, where they replaced the kingdom of the
Indo-Greeks by the time of
Azes II (reigned circa 35 - 12 BC). Kushans invaded again in the 1st century, but the Indo-Scythian rule persisted in some areas of Central
India until the 5th century.
Hellenic-Scythian contact still focused on the Hellenistic cities and settlements of the
Crimea (especially in the
Bosporan Kingdom). Greek craftsmen from the colonies north of the Black Sea made spectacular Scythian-style gold ornaments (see below), applying Greek realism to depict Scythian motifs of lions, antlered reindeer and
gryphons.
Late Antiquity (AD 300 to 600)
In
Late Antiquity the notion of a Scythian ethnicity grew more vague, and outsiders might dub any people inhabiting the
Pontic-Caspian steppe as "Scythians", regardless of their language. Thus,
Priscus, a Byzantine emissary to
Attila, repeatedly referred to the latter's followers as "Scythians". But Eunapius, Claudius Cladianus and Olympiodorus usually mean "Goths" when they write "Scythians".
The
Goths had displaced the
Sarmatians in the 2nd century from most areas near the Roman frontier, and by early medieval times, the
Turkic migration marginalized East Iranian dialects, and assimilated the
Saka linguistically.
Archaeology
Archaeological remains of the Scythians include
kurgan tombs (ranging from simple exemplars to elaborate "Royal kurgans" containing the "Scythian triad" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild-animal art),
gold,
silk, and animal sacrifices, in places also with suspected
human sacrifices
[10] [11] Mummification techniques and
permafrost have aided in the relative preservation of some remains. Scythian archaeology also examines the remains of North Pontic Scythian cities and fortifications
[12]
The spectacular Scythian grave-goods from Arzhan, and others in
Tuva have been dated from about 900 BC onward. One grave find on the lower Volga gave a similar date, and one of the Steblev graves from the eastern, European end of the Scythian area was dated to the late 8th century BC.
[13]
Archaeologists can distinguish three periods of ancient Scythian archaeological remains:
- 1st period - pre-Scythian and initial Scythian epoch: from the 9th to the middle of the 7th centuries BC
- 2nd period - early Scythian epoch: from the 7th to the 6th centuries BC
- 3rd period - classical Scythian epoch: from the 5th to the 4th centuries BC
From the 8th century BC to the 2nd century BC, archeology records a split into two distinct settlement areas: the older in the Sayan-Altai area in Central Asia, and the younger in the North Pontic area in Eastern Europe.
[14]
Kurgans
thumb in 1905. On exhibit at the
Hermitage Museum.
Large burial mounds (some over 20 metres high), provide the most valuable archaeological remains associated with the Scythians. They dot the Ukrainian and south Russian steppes, extending in great chains for many kilometers along ridges and watersheds. From them archaeologists have learned much about Scythian life and art.
[15]
The Ukrainian term for such a burial mound, "kurhan" (Ukrainian: ??????) as well as the Russian term
kurgan
, derives from a
Turkic word for "castle".
[16]
Tamgas
Scythian tribes and clans have left behind them as important ethnological markers their
tamgas
(brand-marks which identify individual possession), a must for pastoral societies with shared grazing-ranges. Tamgas allow reconstruction of movements and family links where no written records have survived.
Besides identifying property, tamgas marked participation of members of the clan in collective actions (treaties, religious ceremonies, fraternization, public functions), and served as symbols of authority for minting coins. The tamga forms stayed unchanged for about 2000 years within kindred ethnic groups, but after the decline of some famous clan another clan would adopt its tamga.
Wide use of tamgas originated from western
Turkestan and
Mongolia no later than the beginning of the 6th century BC. Analysis of tamgas for most powerful clans and for the kings of the
Bosporus has allowed scholars to define precisely their genealogy and their relations with territories from where their forefathers migrated to Europe:
Chorasm,
Kang-Kü,
Bactria,
Sogdiana.
[17]
Pazyryk culture
thumb
felt artifact, ca. 300 BC.
Some of the first
Bronze Age Scythian burials documented by modern archaeologists include the
kurgans at
Pazyryk in the
Ulagan district of the
Altay Republic, south of
Novosibirsk in the
Altay Mountains of southern
Siberia. Archaeologists have extrapolated the
Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist
Sergei Rudenko. The burial mounds concealed chambers of larch-logs covered over with large
cairns of boulders and stones.
Pazyryk culture flourished between the
7th and
3rd centuries BC in the area associated with the
Sacae
.
Ordinary Pazyryk graves contain only common utensils, but in one, among other treasures, archaeologists found the famous
Pazyryk Carpet, the oldest surviving wool-pile
oriental rug. Another striking find, , survived superbly preserved from the 5th century BC.
Although some scholars sought to connect the Pazyryk nomads with indigenous ethnic groups of the Altay, Rudenko summed up the cultural context in the following dictum:
| “
| All that is known to us at the present time about the culture of the population of the High Altay, who have left behind them the large cairns, permits us to refer them to the Scythian period, and the Pazyryk group in particular to the fifth century BC. This is supported by radiocarbon dating.
| ”
|
Belsk excavations
Recent digs(see:
Gelonus) in
Belsk near
Poltava (Ukraine) have uncovered a "vast city", with the largest area of any city in the world at that time. It has been tentatively identified by a team of archaeologists led by
Boris Shramko as the site of
Gelonus, the purported capital of Scythia. The city's commanding ramparts and vast area of 40 square kilometers exceed even the outlandish size reported by
Herodotus. Its location at the northern edge of the Ukrainian steppe would have allowed strategic control of the north-south
trade-route. Judging by the finds dated to the
5th and
4th centuries BC, craft workshops and Greek pottery abounded.
Tillia tepe treasure
thumb
A site found in 1968 in
Tillia tepe (literally "The golden hill") in northern
Afghanistan (former
Bactria) near
Shebergan consisted of the graves of five women and one man with extremely rich jewelry, dated to around the 1st century BC, and generally thought to belong to Scythian tribes. Altogether the graves yielded several thousands of pieces of fine jewelry, usually made from combinations of
gold,
turquoise and
lapis-lazuli.
thumb
A high degree of cultural
syncretism pervades the findings, however.
Hellenistic cultural and artistic influences appear in many of the forms and human depictions (from
amorini to rings with the depiction of
Athena and her name inscribed in Greek), attributable to the existence of the
Seleucid empire and
Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the same area until around 140 BC, and the continued existence of the
Indo-Greek kingdom in the northwestern Indian sub-continent until the beginning of our era. This testifies to the richness of cultural influences in the area of
Bactria at that time.
Scythian influences
China
thumb and
steatite plaques, in the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes. 4th-3rd century BC.
British Museum.
Ancient influences from Central Asia became identifiable in China following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories from the 8th century BC.Chinese jade-carvers began to make imitations of the designs of the
steppes. The Chinese adopted the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat), particularly the rectangular belt-plaques made of gold or bronze, and created their own versions in
jade and
steatite.
[18]
Following their expulsion by the
Yuezhi, some Scythians may also have migrated to the area of
Yunnan in southern China. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the
Dian civilization of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of
Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing.
[19]
Northeastern Asia
170px.
Scythian influences have been identified as far as Korea and Japan. Various Korean artifacts, such as the royal crowns of the kingdom of
Silla, are said to be of Scythian design.
[20] Similar crowns, brought through contacts with the continent, can also be found in
Kofun era Japan.
Scythian language
The
Scythian language and its various dialects formed part of the
Indo-European language-family. The personal names found in the contemporary Greek literary and
epigraphic texts suggest that the language of the Scythians and the
Sarmatians (who spoke a dialect of Scythian according to ) belonged to the
Northeast Iranian branch. An alternative theory suggests that at least some Scythian tribes, such as the
Meotians (
Sindi), spoke
Indo-Aryan dialects.
[21]
Naming and etymology
The Scythians known to
Herodotus (
Hist
. 4.6) called themselves
Skolotoi
. The Greek word
Skythes
probably reflects an older rendering of the very same name, *
Skuda-
(whereas Herodotus transcribes the unfamiliar sound with
?;
-toi
represents the North-east Iranian plural ending
-ta
). The word originally means "shooter, archer", and it ultimately derived from the
Proto-Indo-European root *
skeud-
"to shoot, throw" (compare
English shoot
,
German Schütze
).
The
Sogdians' name for themselves,
Sw?d
, may represent a related word (*
Skuda
> *
Su?uda
with an
anaptyctic vowel). The name also occurs in
Assyrian in the form
Aškuzai
or
Iškuzai
("Scythian"). It may have provided the source for biblical
Hebrew Ashkenaz
(original *?????
’škuz
got misspelled as ?????
’šknz
), later a Jewish name of the Germanic areas of Central Europe and hence a self-descriptor of the
Central European Jews who lived there among the
Ashkenazim
("Germans") at that time called Teutons or Wendels.
The Old Persians used another name for the Scythians, namely
Saka
, which perhaps derived from the Iranian
verbal root
sak-
"to go, to roam", i.e. "wanderer, nomad". The Chinese knew the Saka (Asian Scythians) as
Sai (
Chinese character: ?, Old Sinitic
*s?k
). The modern Iranian province of
Sistan takes its name from the classical Sakestan (place of Saka).
[22] [23] [24]
Scythian society
Scythians lived in confederated tribes, a political form of voluntary association which regulated pastures and organized a common defence against encroaching neighbors for the pastoral tribes of mostly
equestrian herdsmen. While the productivity of domesticated animal-breeding greatly exceeded that of the settled agricultural societies, the pastoral economy also needed supplemental agricultural produce, and stable nomadic confederations developed either symbiotic or forced alliances with sedentary peoples — in exchange for animal produce and military protection.
Herodotus relates that three main tribes of the Scythians descended from three brothers, Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais:
[25]
| “
| Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
| ”
|
thumb,
Crimea.
British Museum.
Herodotus also mentions a royal tribe or clan, an elite which dominated the other Scythians:
| “
| Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
| ”
|
This royal clan is also named in other classical sources the "Royal Dahae". The rich burials of Scythian kings in (
kurgans) is independent evidence for the existence of this powerful royal elite.
Although scholars have traditionally treated the three tribes as geographically distinct,
Georges Dumézil interpreted the divine gifts as the symbols of social occupations, illustrating his
trifunctional vision of early
Indo-European societies: the plough and yoke symbolised the farmers, the axe — the warriors, the bowl — the priests.
[29]
According to Dumézil, "the fruitless attempts of Arpoxais and Lipoxais, in contrast to the success of Colaxais, may explain why the highest strata was not that of farmers or magicians, but rather that of warriors."
[30]
Ruled by small numbers of closely-allied élites, Scythians had a reputation for their
archers, and many gained employment as
mercenaries. Scythian élites had
kurgan tombs: high barrows heaped over chamber-tombs of
larch-wood — a deciduous conifer that may have had special significance as a tree of life-renewal, for it stands bare in winter. Burials at
Pazyryk in the
Altay Mountains have included some spectacularly preserved Scythians of the "Pazyryk culture" — including the
Ice Maiden of the 5th century BC.
Scythian women dressed in much the same fashion as men. A Pazyryk burial found in the 1990s contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe.
As far as we know, the Scythians had no
writing system. Until recent archaeological developments, most of our information about them came from the
Greeks. The
Ziwiye hoard, a treasure of gold and silver metalwork and ivory found near the town of
Sakiz south of
Lake Urmia and dated to between 680 and 625 BC, includes objects with Scythian "
animal style" features. One silver dish from this find bears some inscriptions, as yet undeciphered and so possibly representing a form of Scythian writing.
thumb
Homer called the Scythians "the mare-milkers".
Herodotus described them in detail: their costume consisted of padded and quilted leather trousers tucked into boots, and open tunics. They rode with no
stirrups or saddles, just saddle-cloths. Herodotus reports that Scythians used
cannabis, both to weave their clothing and to cleanse themselves in its smoke (Hist. 4.73-75); archaeology has confirmed the use of cannabis in funeral rituals. The Scythian philosopher
Anacharsis visited
Athens in the 6th century BC and became a legendary sage.
Scythians also had a reputation for the use of barbed and poisoned arrows of several types, for a
nomadic life centered around horses — "fed from horse-blood" according to Herodotus — and for skill in
guerrilla warfare.The Scythians gold was made by dipping and pegging a sheep skin in a river that had gold and then it was lifted out and the skin was burnt leaving the gold to run out.
Art
thumb has preserved by far the greatest collection of Scythian gold, including one of the most famous of all Scythian finds: the golden comb, featuring a battle-scene, from the 4th century
Solokha
royal burial mound.
Scythian contacts with craftsmen in Greek colonies along the northern shores of the Black Sea resulted in the famous Scythian gold adornments that feature among the most glamorous artifacts of world museums.
Ethnographically extremely useful as well, the gold depicts Scythian men as bearded, long-haired
Caucasoids. "Greco-Scythian" works depicting Scythians within a much more
Hellenic style date from a later period, when Scythians had already adopted elements of Greek culture.
Scythians had a taste for elaborate personal jewelry, weapon-ornaments and horse-trappings. They executed Central-Asian animal motifs with Greek realism: winged
gryphons attacking horses, battling
stags,
deer, and
eagles, combined with everyday motifs like milking
ewes.
In 2000, the touring exhibition 'Scythian Gold' introduced the North American public to the objects made for Scythian nomads by Greek craftsmen north of the
Black Sea, and buried with their Scythian owners under burial mounds on the flat plains of present-day
Ukraine, most of them unearthed after 1980.
In 2001, the discovery of an undisturbed royal Scythian burial-barrow illustrated for the first time Scythian animal-style gold that lacks the direct influence of Greek styles. Forty-four pounds of gold weighed down the royal couple in this burial, discovered near
Kyzyl, capital of the
Siberian republic of
Tuva.
Religion
The religious beliefs of the Scythians was a type of Pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion and differed from the post-Zoroastrian Iranian thoughts.
[31] Foremost in the Scythian pantheon stood Tabiti, who was later replaced by
Atar, the fire-pantheon of Iranian tribes, and
Agni, the fire deity of Indo-Aryans.
The Scythian belief was a more archaic stage than the
Zoroastrian and
Hindu systems. The use of hemp to induce trance and divination by soothsayers was a characteristic of the Scythian belief system.
Culture
Clothing
Men and women dressed similarly. The men wore quilted cotton pants with boots in which the ends were tucked in.The shirt was made of sheep skin or hide. Women wore the same except the shirt was longer like the Mongolian
deel.
Historiography
Herodotus
Herodotus wrote about an enormous city,
Gelonus, in the northern part of Scythia
[32]
| “
| The Budini are a large and powerful nation: they have all deep blue eyes, and bright red hair. There is a city in their territory, called Gelonus, which is surrounded with a lofty wall, thirty furlongs [Polytonic
| ”
|
Herodotus and other classical historians listed quite a number of tribes who lived near the Scythians, and presumably shared the same general milieu and nomadic steppe culture, often called "Scythian culture", even though scholars may have difficulties in determining their exact relationship to the "linguistic Scythians". A partial list of these tribes includes the
Agathyrsi,
Geloni,
Budini, and
Neuri.
Herodotus presented four different versions of Scythian origins:
# Firstly (4.7), the Scythians' legend about themselves, which portrays the first Scythian king, Targitaus, as the child of the sky-god and of a daughter of the
Dnieper. Targitaus allegedly lived a thousand years before the failed Persian invasion of Scythia, or around 1500 BC. He had three sons, before whom fell from the sky a set of four golden implements — a plough, a yoke, a cup and a battle-axe. Only the youngest son succeeded in touching the golden implements without them bursting with fire, and this son's descendants, called by Herodotus the "Royal Scythians", continued to guard them.
# Secondly (4.8), a legend told by the
Pontic Greeks featuring Scythes, the first king of the Scythians, as a child of
Hercules and
Echidna.
# Thirdly (4.11), in the version which Herodotus said he believed most, the Scythians came from a more southern part of Central Asia, until a war with the
Massagetae (a powerful tribe of steppe nomads who lived just northeast of Persia) forced them westward.
# Finally (4.13), a legend which Herodotus attributed to the Greek bard
Aristeas, who claimed to have got himself into such a Bachanalian fury that he ran all the way northeast across Scythia and further. According to this, the Scythians originally lived south of the
Rhipaean mountains, until they got into a conflict with a tribe called the
Issedones, pressed in their turn by the
Cyclopes; and so the Scythians decided to migrate westwards.
Persians and other peoples in Asia referred to the Scythians living in Asia as
Sakas.
Herodotus (IV.64) describes them as Scythians, although they figure under a different name:
| “
| The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point. They bore the bow of their country and the dagger; besides which they carried the battle-axe, or sagaris
. They were in truth Amyrgian (Western) Scythians, but the Persians called them Sacae, since that is the name which they gave to all Scythians.
| ”
|
Strabo
In the 1st century BC, the Greek-Roman geographer
Strabo gave an extensive description of the eastern Scythians, whom he located in north-eastern Asia beyond
Bactria and
Sogdiana:
[33]
| “
| Then comes Bactriana, and Sogdiana, and finally the Scythian nomads.
| ”
|
Strabo went on to list the names of the various tribes among the Scythians, probably making an amalgam with some of the tribes of eastern Central Asia (such as the
Tocharians):
| “
| Now the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Dahae
| ”
|
Indian sources
thumb King
Azes II (r.c. 35-12 7BC). Note the royal tamga on the coin.
Sakas receive numerous mentions in Indian texts, including the
Puranas, the
Manusmriti, the
Ramayana, the
Mahabharata, the
Mahabhashya of
Patanjali, the
Brhat Samhita of
Varaha Mihira, the
Kavyamimamsa, the
Brhat-Katha-Manjari and the
Ka?ha-
Saritsagara.
Genetics
Mitochondrial DNA extracted from skeletal remains obtained from excavated Scythian
kurgans have produced a myriad of results and conclusions. Analysis of the HV1 sequence obtained from a male Scytho-Siberian's remains at the Kizil site in the Altai Republic revealed the individual possessed the N1a maternal lineage. The study also noted that haplogroup mtDNA N1a was found at a relatively high frequency in the southern fringes of the
Eurasian steppe,
Iran (8.3%), and within the
Indian
Havik group (8.3%), an upper
Brahmin caste. From this, a possible link to ancient populations presumed to have come from Europe that lived in the neighboring Central Asian parts of
India and
Iran was suggested.
[34]
Additionally, mitochondrial DNA has been extracted from two Scytho-Siberian skeletons found in the Altai Republic (Russia) dating back 2,500 years. Both remains were determined to be of males from a population who had characteristics "of mixed Euro-
Mongoloid origin". However it should be noted that "European individual ancestry" does not necessarily mean that these individuals were from Europe, as no test to distinguish between European and Asian Caucasoids was performed
[35]. One of the individuals was found to carry the F2a maternal lineage, and the other the D lineage, both of which are characteristic of East Eurasian populations.
[36]
Maternal genetic analysis of Saka period male and female skeletal remains from a double inhumation kurgan located at the Beral site in Kazakhstan determined that the two were most likely not closely related and were possibly husband and wife. The HV1 mitochondrial sequence of the male was similar to the Anderson sequence which is most frequent in European populations. Contrary, the HV1 sequence of the female suggested a greater likelihood of Asian origins. The study's findings were in line with the hypothesis that mixings between Scythians and other populations occurred. This was buttressed by the discovery of several objects with a Chinese inspiration in the grave. No conclusive associations with haplogroups were made though it was suggested that the female may have derived from either mtDNA X or D.
[37]
Y-Chromosome DNA testing performed on ancient Scythian skeletons from the Krasnoyarsk region found that all but one of 11 subjects to carry Y-DNA
R1a1. Additional testing on the Xiongnu specimens revealed that the Scytho-Siberian skeleton (dated to the 5th century BCE) from the Sebÿstei site exhibited R1a1 haplogroup
[38].
Post-classical "Scythians"
Migration period
Although the classical Scythians may have largely disappeared by the 1st century BC, Eastern Romans continued to speak conventionally of "Scythians" to designate
Germanic tribes and confederations
[39] or mounted
Eurasian nomadic barbarians in general: in 448 AD two mounted "Scythians" led the emissary
Priscus to
Attila's encampment in
Pannonia. The Byzantines in this case carefully distinguished the Scythians from the Goths and
Huns who also followed Attila.
The
Sarmatians (including the
Alans and finally the
Ossetians) counted as Scythians in the broadest sense of the word — as speakers of Northeast Iranian languages — but nevertheless remain distinct from the Scythians proper.
[40]
Byzantine sources also refer to the
Rus raiders who
attacked Constantinople around 860 AD in contemporary accounts as "
Tauroscythians", because of their geographical origin, and despite their lack of any ethnic relation to Scythians.
Patriarch Photius may have first applied the term to them during the
Siege of Constantinople (860).
Early Modern usage
Owing to their reputation as established by Greek historians, the Scythians long served as the epitome of savagery and barbarism in the early modern period.
Shakespeare, for instance, alluded to the legend that Scythians ate their children in his play
King Lear
:
| “
| Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
| ”
|
Characteristically, early modern English discourse on
Ireland frequently resorted to comparisons with Scythians in order to confirm that the indigenous population of Ireland descended from these ancient "bogeymen", and showed themselves as barbaric as their alleged ancestors.
Edmund Spenser wrote that
As proofs for this origin Spenser cites the alleged Irish customs of blood-drinking, nomadic lifestyle, the wearing of mantles and certain haircuts and
| “
| Cryes allsoe vsed amongeste the Irishe which savor greatlye of the Scythyan
Barbarisme.
| ”
|
William Camden, one of Spenser's main sources, comments on this legend of origin that
thumb:
Battle between the Scythians and the Slavs
(
Viktor Vasnetsov, 1881).
The 15th-century Polish chronicler
Jan Dlugosz was the first to connect the
prehistory of Poland with Sarmatians, and the connection was taken up by other historians and chroniclers, such as
Marcin Bielski,
Marcin Kromer and
Maciej Miechowita. Other Europeans depended for their view of Polish
Sarmatism on Miechowita's
Tractatus de Duabus Sarmatiis
, a work which provided a substantial source of information about the territories and peoples of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a language of international currency.
[44]
Tradition specified that the Sarmatians themselves were descended from
Japheth, son of
Noah.
[45]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, foreigners regarded the
Russians as descendants of Scythians. It became conventional to refer to Russians as Scythians in 18th century poetry, and
Alexander Blok drew on this tradition sarcastically in his last major poem,
The Scythians
(1920). In the nineteenth century, romantic revisionists in the West transformed the "
barbarian" Scyths of literature into the wild and free, hardy and democratic ancestors of all blond
Indo-Europeans.
Descent-claims
Traditions of
Ossetians,
Pashtuns, the Turkic
Kazakhs and
Yakuts (whose endoethnonym is "
Sakha
"), and
Parthians (whose
homelands laid to the east of the
Caspian Sea and thought to have come there from north of the Caspian), were possible descendants of a Scythian groups. Their physical features, and big stature, which is very evident from their coins etc., link them to the Scythians. Some legends of the
Picts; the
Gaels; the
Hungarians;
Serbs and
Croats (among others) also include mention of Scythian origins. In the second paragraph of the 1320
Declaration of Arbroath the élite of
Scotland claim Scythia as a former homeland of the Scots. Some writers claim that Scythians figured in the formation of the empire of the
Medes and likewise of
Caucasian Albania.
The
Carolingian kings of the
Franks traced
Merovingian ancestry to the
Germanic tribe of the
Sicambri.
Gregory of Tours documents in his
History of the Franks
that when
Clovis was baptised, he was referred to as a Sicamber with the words
"Mitis depone colla, Sicamber, adora quod incendisti, incendi quod adorasti."
. The
Chronicle of Fredegar in turn reveals that the Franks believed the Sicambri to be a tribe of Scythian or Cimmerian descent, who had changed their name to
Franks in honour of their chieftain Franco in 11 BC. The Scythians also feature in some post-
Medieval national origin-legends of the
Celts.
Based on such accounts of Scythian founders of certain
Germanic as well as
Celtic tribes, British historiography in the
British Empire period such as
Sharon Turner in his
History of the Anglo-Saxons
, made them the ancestors of the
Anglo-Saxons.
The idea was taken up in the
British Israelism of
John Wilson, who adopted and promoted the "idea that the "European 'race', in particular the Anglo-Saxons, were descended from certain Scythian tribes, and these Scythian tribes (as many had previously stated from the Middle Ages onward) were in turn descended from the ten Lost Tribes of Israel."
[46]
See Also
References
- ''Scythian'' is pronounced {{IPA-en|'s????n|}} or {{IPA-en|'s?ð??n|}}. ''Scyth'' is pronounced {{IPA-en|'s??|}}. From Greek {{polytonic|S?????}}. Note ''Scytho-'' {{IPA|/'sa??o?/}} in composition (OED).
- Scythian, member of a nomadic people originally of Iranian people who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th and 7th centuries BC - ''The New Encyclopedia Britannica'', 15th edition - Micropaedia on "Scythian", 10:576
- Scythian mummy shown in Germany, BBC News
- Frozen Siberian Mummies Reveal a Lost Civilization, DISCOVER Magazine
-
Oswald Szemerényi, "Four old Iranian ethnic names: Scythian - Skudra - Sogdian - Saka" (''Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften'' 371), Vienna, 1980 = ''Scripta minora,'' vol. 4, pp. 2051-2093. [1]
-
Sulimirski, T. "The Scyths" in ''Cambridge History of Iran,'' vol. 2: 149-99 [1]
- Grousset, Rene. "The empire of the Steppes," Rutgers University Press, 1989, pg 19
;
Jacbonson, Esther. "The Art of Scythians," Brill Academic Publishers, 1995, pg 63 ISBN 90-04-09856-9
;
Gamkrelidze and Ivanov ''Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Typological Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture'' (Parts I and II). Tbilisi State University., 1984
;
Mallory, J.P. . In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language Archeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson. Read Chapter 2 and see 51-53 for a quick reference.(1989)
;
Newark, T. ''The Barbarians: Warriors and wars of the Dark Ages,'' Blandford: New York. See pages 65, 85, 87, 119-139. ,1985
;
Renfrew, C. ''Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European origins,'' Cambridge University Press, 1988
;
Abaev, V.I. and H. W. Bailey, "Alans," ''Encyclopaedia Iranica,'' Vol. 1. pp. 801-803. ;
''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' (translation of the 3rd Russian-language edition), 31 vols., New York, 1973-1983.
;
Vogelsang, W J ''The rise & organisation of the Achaemenid empire — the eastern evidence'' (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East Vol. III). Leiden: Brill. pp. 344., 1992 ISBN 90-04-09682-5.
;
Sinor, Denis. ''Inner Asia: History — Civilization — Languages,'' Routledge, 1997 pg 82 ISBN 0-7007-0896-0 ;
"Scythian." (2006). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved September 7, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service
;
Masica, Colin P. ''The Indo-Aryan Languages'', Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 48 ISBN 0-521-29944-6
- Herodotus 4.11 trans. G. Rawlinson.
- Pavel Dolukhanov. ''The Early Slavs. Eastern Europe from the initial Settlement to the Kievan Rus''. Longman, 1996. Pg 125 (& references therin)
- Hughes, Dennis. (1991) ''Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece.'' Routledge pp. 10, 64-65, 118.
- Baldick, Julian. (2000) ''Animals and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia.'' I.B. Tauris. pp.35-36.
- Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. (2001) ''North Pontic Archaeology: Recent Discoveries and Studies.'' BRIL. pp. 5-474.
- Some problems in the study of the chronology of the Ancient Nomadic Cultures in Eurasia (9th - 3rd centuries BC. A. Yu. Alekseev, N. A. Bokovenko, Yu. Boltrik, et alia. Geochronometria Vol. 21, pp 143-150, 2002. Journal on Methods and Applications of Absolute Chronology.
- A. Yu. Alekseev ''et al.'', "Chronology of Eurasian Scythian Antiquities..."
-
John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, N. G. L. Hammond. ''The Cambridge Ancient History''. Cambridge University Press. January 16, 1992, pg 550.
-
"kurgan." Merriam-Webster, 2002. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (10 October 2006).
-
S. A. Yatsenko, ''Tamgas ...''
- Mallory and Mair, ''The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West'', 2000)
- "Les Saces", Iaroslav Lebedynsky, p.73 ISBN 2877723372
- Crowns similar to the Scythian ones discovered in Tillia Tepe "appear later, during the 5th and 6th century at the eastern edge of the Asia continent, in the tumulus tombs of the Kingdom of Silla, in South-East Korea. "Afganistan, les trésors retrouvés", 2006, p282, ISBN 9782711852185
-
Rjabchikov 2004
- Donna Rosenberg, "World Mythology: An Anthology of Great Myths and Epics ", NTC Pub. Group, 1999. pg 58. excerpt:
"Later, in the second century B.C., related Saka tribes moved southwest from Sakestan ("the land of the Sakas")
to the area that become Seistan and Zabulistan on the eastern border of Persia."
- B.N. Puri, "The Sakas and Indo-Parthians" in Ahmad Hasan Dani, Vadim Mikhailovich Masson, János Harmatta, Boris Abramovich Litvinovskii,
Edmund Bosworth. History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Motilal Banarsidass Publ, 1999. excerpt:""The Indo-Greeks in Kabul impeded further Saka progress and compelled them to move westwards in the direction of Herat and thence to Sistan. This country was finally named Sakastan after them."
- Jane Hathaway, "A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen".SUNY Press, 2003. excerpt:"Sistan (Sakastan) takes its name from the Scythians"
-
Traces of the Iranian root ''xšaya'' — "ruler" — may persist in all three names.
- History
- History
- History
-
The first scholar to compare the three strata of Scythian society to the Indian castes, Arthur Christensen, published ''Les types du premiere homme et du premier roi dans l'histoire legendaire des Iraniens'', I (Stockholm, Leiden, 1917).
-
Quoted in Wouter Wiggert Belier. ''Decayed Gods: Origin and Development of Georges Dumezil’s "Ideologie Tripartie"''. Brill Academic Publishers, 1991. ISBN 90-04-06195-9. Page 69.
- J.Harmatta: "Scythians" in UNESCO Collection of History of Humanity - Volume III: From the Seventh Century BC to the Seventh Century AD. Routledge/UNESCO. 1996. pg 182
- Herodotus 4.108 trans. Rawlinson.
- Strabo, ''Geography'', 11.8.1
- Ricaut, F. et al. 2004. Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations. ''Human Biology''. 76 (1): 109–125
- Bouakaze, 2009 :Pigment phenotype and biogeographical ancestry from ancient skeletal remains: inferences from multiplexed autosomal SNP analysis
- Ricaut,F. et al. 2004. Genetic Analysis and Ethnic Affinities From Two
Scytho-Siberian Skeletons. ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology''. 123:351–360
- Clisson, I. et al. 2002. Genetic analysis of human remains from a double inhumation in a frozen kurgan in Kazakhstan (Berel site, Early 3rd Century BC). ''International Journal of Legal Medicine''. 116:304–308
- C. Keyser et al. 2009. Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people. Human Genetics.
- see Zosimus, ''Historia Nova'', 1.23 & 1.28, also Zonaras, ''Epitome historiarum'', book 12. Also the title "Scythika" of the lost work of the 3rd century Greek historian Dexippus who narrated the Germanic invasions of his age
-
The Ossetes, the only Iranian people {{As of|2007|alt=presently}} resident in Europe, call their country ''Iriston'' or ''Iron'', though North Ossetia {{As of|2006|alt=now}} officially has the designation ''Alania''. They speak an North-Eastern Iranian language Ossetic, whose more widely-spoken dialect, ''Iron'' or ''Ironig'' (i.e. Iranian), preserves some similarities with the Gathic Avestan language, another Iranian language of the Eastern branch.
- King Lear Act I, Scene i.
- ''A View of the Present State of Ireland'', c. 1596.
- ''Britannia'', 1586 etc., English translation 1610.
- Andrzej Wasko, Sarmatism or the Enlightenment: The Dilemma of Polish Culture, ''Sarmatian Review'' XVII.2.
- Colin Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism; Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800,'' Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 29
- Parfitt, Tudor (2003). The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth. Phoenix. p. 54.