Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by a group of Iranian people speaking Indo-Iranian languages, known as the Scythians. The location and extent of Scythia varied over time, from the Altai region where Mongolia, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan come together, across South of Ukraine to the lower Danube river area, Bulgaria and Georgia. The Saka were Asian Scythians and were known as Sai (Chinese character: 塞, Old Sinitic *sək) to the Chinese.
The Scythians first appear in Assyrian annals as Ishkuzai, who are reported as pouring in from the north some time around 700 BC, settling in Ascania and modern Azerbaijan as far as to the southeast of Lake Urmia. The Scythians were possibly a branch of the Gimirru mentioned in Assyrian annals at approximately the same time, (Ivančik), even though the ancient Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus describes the Kimmerioi, or Cimmerians, as a distinct tribe, the autochthonous population of the Northern Black Sea Coast, which was expelled by the Scythians (Hist. 4.11-12).
The most significant Scythian tribes mentioned in the Greek sources resided in the steppe between the Dnipro and Don rivers.
Archaeological remains of the Scythians include elaborate tombs containing gold, silk, horses and human sacrifices. Mummification techniques and permafrost have aided in the relative preservation of some remains.
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According to Herodotus (Hist. 4.6), the Scythians called themselves Skolotoi. The Greek Skythēs is probably an older rendering of the very same name, *Skuδa- (whereas Herodotus transcribes the unfamiliar [ð] as Λ; -toi is the North east Iranian plural ending -ta). The word originally means "shooter, archer", and it was ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *skeud- "to shoot, throw" (cf. English shoot).
The Sogdian name of themselves, Swγδ, is probably the same name (*Skuδa > *Suγuδa with an anaptyctic vowel). The name also occurs in Assyrian in the form Aškuzai or Iškuzai "Scythian". This is probably the source of biblical Hebrew Ashkenaz (original *אשכנז ’škuz was misspelled as אשכוז ’šknz), later the name of the Central European Jews.
Polish and Ukrainian folk songs call the steppe people Sokoli which may be from Skolotoi.[citation needed]
The Old Persians used another name for the Scythians, namely Saka, which is perhaps a derivation from the Iranian verbal root sak- "to go, to roam", i.e. "wanderer, nomad".
The Scythians formed a loose network of nomadic tribes of equestrian herdsmen and raiders. They invaded many areas in the steppes of Eurasia, including areas in present-day Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and southern Ukraine and Russia. Ruled by small numbers of closely allied elites, Scythians had a reputation for their archers, and many gained employment as mercenaries.
Scythian elite were buried in kurgans, 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 Altai 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 the men, and at times fought alongside them in battle. A Pazyryk burial found in the 1990s confirms this. It contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe. "The woman was dressed exactly like a man. This shows that certain women, probably young and unmarried, could be warriors, literally Amazons. It didn't offend the principles of nomadic society", according to one of the archaeologists interviewed for the 1998 NOVA documentary "The Ice Mummies".
Scythian warrior-women are a popular contender for having inspired the Greek myths of the Amazons. The work of Jeannine Davis-Kimball (Secrets of the Dead August 4, 2004) provides archaeological and genetic evidence that the Sarmatians may be the source of the Greek myths of the Amazons.
The Scythians were not known to have had any writing system, so 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, dated to between 680 and 625 BC, includes objects with Scythian "animal style" features. One silver dish from this find bears some inscriptions that are as yet undeciphered and so possibly a form of Scythian writing.
Homer called them "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 saddlecloths. Herodotus reports that Scythians used cannabis, both to weave their clothing and to cleanse themselves in its smoke (Hist. 4.73-75); the use of cannabis in funeral rituals has been confirmed by archaeology. The Scythian philosopher Anacharsis visited Athens in the 6th century BC and became a legendary sage. Scythians were also known for their usage of barbed and poisoned arrows of several types, a nomadic life centered around horses — "fed from horse-blood" according to Herodotus — and skill in guerrilla warfare. The Scythians are thought to have been the first to tame the horse and use it in combat as well.
Gold clothing appliqué, showing two Scythian archers, 400-350 BCE. Probably from Kul Oba, Crimea. British Museum.
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Gold clothing appliqué, showing two Scythian archers, 400-350 BCE. Probably from Kul Oba, Crimea. British Museum.
To date, no widely accepted explanation exists for the origin of the Scythians, nor how they migrated to the Caucasus and Ukraine; but many scholars conjecture that they migrated westward from Central Asia between 800 BC and 600 BC.
Herodotus says that the land where the Scythians originated was called Gerrhos. They would prepare their dead and travel with them long distances to bring them for burial in Gerrhos.
Assyrian records are the first to mention the Iskuzai, from around the end of the 8th century BC. Herodotus even confirms that their king Partatua was allied with Assyria, and recognized by Mannai. In 653 BC, Partatua's son Madius (Madyes), at the request of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, defeated the king of the Medes, Phraortes (Kshathrita), assuming control over the Medes until 625 BC. By the end of his reign, he had led the Scythians, and the Cimmerians, who seem to have been close relatives, on a pillaging spree, overrunning and plundering Assyria, Anatolia, Northern Syria, Phoenicia, Damascus, and Philistia. They plundered the Temple of Venus in Ashkelon, and Jeremiah 4:7-13 mentioned them as "a destroyer of nations… [whose] chariots shall be as the whirlwind."
After 625, however, the Scythians left the Median Empire — whether they did so voluntarily, or were expelled, is debated. At any rate, following the Mede sack of Assur in 614 BC, they were compelled to switch sides and ally themselves with the Medes. They comprised part of the force that sacked Nineveh 612 BC. Some time afterwards, the Scythians returned to the steppes.
In 512 BC, when the Scythians were attacked by king Darius the Great of Persia, they were apparently reached by crossing the Danube. Herodotus relates that being nomads, they were able to frustrate the designs of the Persian army by letting them march through the entire country without an engagement. If he is to be believed, Darius in this manner reached 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 a 'Greater Scythia' that extended a 20-day ride from the Danube River in the west, across the steppes of today's Ukraine to the lower Don basin, from 'Scythia Minor'. The Don, then known as Tanaïs, has been 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. They also grew grain, and shipped wheat, flocks, and cheese to Greece.
The Crimean Scythians created a kingdom extending from the lower Dnipro river to the Crimea. Their capital city, Scythian Neapol, existed on the outskirts of modern Simferopol. It was destroyed much later, in the 5th century AD, by the Goths.
By far the greatest collection of Scythian gold is preserved at the Hermitage Museum. It includes one of the most famous of all Scythian finds: the golden comb, featuring a battle scene, from the 4th century Solokha royal burial mound.
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By far the greatest collection of Scythian gold is preserved at the Hermitage Museum. It includes one of the most famous of all Scythian finds: the golden comb, featuring a battle scene, from the 4th century Solokha royal burial mound.
In the southeasternmost corner of the plains, north of the woods of Thrace, Philip II of Macedon settled Macedonian trading towns along routes as far north as the Danube during the 330s BC (Fox 1973). Greek craftsmen from the colonies north of the Black Sea, made spectacular Scythian gold ornaments (see below), applying Greek realism to depict Scythian motifs of lions, antlered reindeer and griffons. The centerpoint of Hellenic-Scythian contact was focused on the Hellenistic cities and small kingdoms of the Cimmerian Bosporus and the Crimea.
Shortly after 300 BC, the Celts seem to have displaced the Scythians from the Balkans, while in south Russia, they were gradually overwhelmed by a kindred tribe, the Sarmatians.
