The Argippaeans or Argippaei are a people mentioned by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

in his '' The Histories.'' They were cited to be living north of the Scythians and much of the scholarship points to them being a tribe near the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

. There are scholars who believe that Herodotus could be talking about the

Mongolians The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...

based on their physical description as well as their culture. Herodotus only relied on secondary sources for his account, drawing from descriptions of Greeks and Scythians such as the detail about the Argippaeans as bald people. They were said to have settled in a land that is flat and deep-soiled. This was believed to be in the outliers of the

Altai mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The m ...

while the T'ien Shan lies on the other side. just before an impenetrable barrier of mountains called ''eremos''.

In Herodotus

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Further reading