Scythians

Scythians are the name given to some of the equestrian nomadic peoples who, from about the 8th/7th century BC, inhabited the Eurasian steppes north of the Black Sea in what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, from the lower Volga and Kuban rivers to the Dnister. They were subjugated and assimilated in the 4th/3rd century BC by the culturally close Sarmatians, who had previously formed as a tribal confederation between the lower Volga and the southern tip of the Urals; a part fled to the Crimea, where Scythian tribal confederations continued to live until the 3rd century AD.

They left no known written records, and all that is known about them is based on ground finds and ancient sources from other cultures. According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the ruling clan called themselves Skolotes; the name Scythians comes from Greek sources, but is not Greek. Their language is attributed to the (ancient) northeastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.

Greek and Roman sources sometimes refer to the entire area of the culturally and probably also linguistically closely related equestrian nomads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the 1st millennium BC as Scythia. There lived among others also the tribal groups of the Saks (compare also the Greek designation of the Saks who emigrated to India as "Indo-Scythians"), Sarmatians and Massagets. In archaeology this cultural area of Scythia is called in a broader sense "Scythian-Sacian cultural area" or "Scythian-Sacian horizon". It also includes as the oldest cultures (since the 9th century BC) some archaeological cultures of southern Siberia such as the Tagar culture (Minussinsk Basin), Pasyryk culture (Altai), Aldy-Bel culture (Tuva) and the Tes stage (Tuva). These are not known from written sources, and the linguistic and ethnic affiliation of their bearers is unknown, but their material culture resembles that of the Black Sea Scythians. Based on the age of these southern Siberian cultures, the archaeologically researched spread of this culture from the east to the west and southwest, and Herodotus' statements that the Scythians came from the east, archaeologists assume that the Scythians, Saks, and others originated in this region. A splinter group that migrated to the east formed the Ordos culture.

According to previous archaeological findings, the tribal groups of the Scythian-Sakic cultural area were the first in the history of the steppes of Asia and Europe to abandon (with a few exceptions) seasonal fixed settlements with modest agriculture and to switch to a year-round nomadic life as a people on horseback.

Historical use of the name

From the 3rd century BC, the Greeks divided the peoples in the north into two groups: Celts west of the Rhine and Scythians east of the Rhine, especially north of the Black Sea. The term Scythians thus later served mostly as a rough generic term for a large number of different barbarian peoples.

The use of the term Germanic for the tribes settling east of the Rhine was first recorded by the Greek historian Poseidonios around the year 80 BC. The tribes living west of the Rhine were generally referred to as Celts. This scheme was finally introduced by Gaius Iulius Caesar. When Tacitus wrote his Germania, this was a designation known as new, but already in common use. Thus a threefold division of the peoples of the north and east into Celts, Teutons and Scythians was now common. The above divisions are "wrong" or at least inaccurate according to today's knowledge and modern requirements.

In the 3rd century AD (for instance by Dexippos) as well as at the time of the migration of peoples (late 4th to late 6th century) all peoples at the northern edge of the Black Sea were called Scythians by the classicist oriented historians, for instance the Goths and later the Huns. Examples include Ammianus Marcellinus (20,8,1) or the accounts of the historian Jordanes. Like later Huns, the word had become a general designation of steppe nomadic peoples. For Jordanes, Scythia bordered Germania, extending from the Ister (the lower Danube) to the Tyras (Dnister), Danaster (Donez), and Vagosola, and to the Caucasus and the Araxes, a tributary of the Kura in the southern Caucasus region. To the east it bordered on the land of the Seren (Caspian Sea), and to the north on the Vistula on that of the Teutons. In the Scythian country lay the Riphaean Mountains (Ural), which separate Asia from Europe, and the cities of Borysthenes, Olbia, Kallipodia, Chesona, Theodosia, Kareon, Myrmikon, and Trapezunt, which the savage Scythian peoples had the Greeks found so that they could trade with them (History of the Goths, 5). Also in many Byzantine historical works, which were in the classicist tradition, foreign peoples on the Danube were called Scythians.

Herodotus reports that the Scythians were called Saks by the Persians. As in late antique and medieval Europe, Scythe/Sake was often simply a general term for any barbarian steppe dweller among the Persians (see Ethnogenesis, Equestrian Peoples). Old Persian inscriptions from the 6th century name three groups of the Saka: Paradraya, Tigraxauda and Haumawarga. At least the Haumawarga are also known in India as Hauma or soma-drinking Indo-Aryans, so that here we are probably only talking about the Scythians living east of the Tigris, who were strongly present east of the Caspian Sea and in northern India at this time, which is also very well attested by thousands of kurgans of this epoch. In a narrower sense, this name refers to tribes of the Saks, whose settlement areas were mainly in the Kazak steppe.

Social Structure

According to Herodotus, the Scythians were ruled by kings and kept slaves, whom they blinded and used for milk processing. The servants of the kings were from the less prestigious tribes and were buried with them.

According to Lucian, the social position was determined by the livestock. So-called "eight-footers" - that is, people who owned only two oxen - were in the lowest position. Pindar even mentions Scythians who owned neither livestock nor chariots and therefore lacked civil rights. He also knows of an aristocracy, the pilophorioi, that is, the wearers of felt caps.

According to Herodotus, the Scythians knew a form of sweating ritual similar to that of the North American Lakota Indians. Whole hemp plants were smoked on the stones.

Furthermore, Herodotus reports about the custom of the Scythians to cut their faces during funeral ceremonies. This custom can also be found later among the Mongols and Turks.