The Cimmerians (
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
: ,
romanized: ;
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
: ,
romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
: ;
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
: ,
romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
: ;
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ) were an
ancient
Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian language, Sumerian c ...
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
equestrian
The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse".
Horseback riding (or Riding in British English)
Examples of this are:
* Equestrian sports
*Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...
ic people originating in the
Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were
culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.
[: "As the Cimmerians cannot be differentiated archeologically from the Scythians, it is possible to speculate about their Iranian origins. In the Neo-Babylonian texts (according to D’yakonov, including at least some of the Assyrian texts in Babylonian dialect) and similar forms designate the Scythians and Central Asian Saka, reflecting the perception among inhabitants of Mesopotamia that Cimmerians and Scythians represented a single cultural and economic group"]
The Cimmerians themselves left no written records, and most information about them is largely derived from
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
records of the 8th to 7th centuries BC and from
Graeco-Roman
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
authors from the 5th century BC and later.
Name
The English name is derived from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, itself derived from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
(), of an ultimately uncertain origin for which there have been various proposals:
*according to
János Harmatta
János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca and papyri of Dura Europos and was the first to decipher a major Bactrian inscription.Ritoók, Zsigmond. (1997"The contribution of ...
, it was derived from
Old Iranian
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian plateau, Iranian Pl ...
, meaning "union of clans."
* and
Igor Diakonoff
Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (occasionally spelled Diakonov, russian: link=no, И́горь Миха́йлович Дья́конов; 12 January 1915 – 2 May 1999) was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on th ...
derive it from an
Old Iranian
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian plateau, Iranian Pl ...
term or , meaning "mobile unit."
*
Askold Ivantchik
Askold Igorevich Ivantchik (russian: Аско́льд И́горевич Ива́нчик; born 2 May 1965) is a Russian historian. Receiving his Ph.D. in history in 1996, Ivantchik was made a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ...
derives the name of the Cimmerians from an original form or , of uncertain meaning.
Identification
The Cimmerians were a nomadic
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
people of the
Eurasian Steppe.
Archaeologically, there was no difference between the material cultures of the pre-Scythian populations living in the areas corresponding to the Caucasian steppe and the Volga and Don river regions around it, and there were also no other significant differences between the Cimmerians and the Scythians, who were related populations indistinguishable from each other in terms of culture and origins.
Other suggestions for the ethnicity for the Cimmerians include the possibility of their being
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
, or Thracians with an Iranian ruling class, or a separate group closely related to Thracian peoples, as well as a
Maeotian
The Maeotians (; grc, Μαιῶται, translit=Maiōtai; la, Maeōtae) were an ancient people dwelling along the Sea of Azov, which was known in antiquity as the "Maeotian marshes" or "Lake Maeotis".James, Edward Boucher"Maeotae" and "Maeoti ...
origin. However, the proposal of a Thracian origin of the Cimmerians has been criticised as arising from a confusion by
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
between the Cimmerians and their allies, the Thracian tribe of the
Treri Treri ( grc, Τρηροι, Trēroi, or , romanized: ; Latin: or ) is the name of a Thracian tribe.
In Thrace
The Treri lived in northwest Thrace, in the region of Serdica (now the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia). The Treri of the Serdica region ...
.
Location
The original homeland of the Cimmerians before they migrated into West Asia was in the steppe situated to the north of the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
and to the west of the
Araxēs river until the
Cimmerian Bosporus
The Kerch Strait, uk, Керченська протока, crh, Keriç boğazı, ady, Хы ТӀуалэ is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west f ...
, and some Cimmerians might have nomadised in the
Kuban steppe; the Cimmerians thus originally lived in the Caspian and Caucasian steppes, in the area corresponding to present-day
Southern Russia
Southern Russia or the South of Russia (russian: Юг России, ''Yug Rossii'') is a colloquial term for the southernmost geographic portion of European Russia generally covering the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasian Feder ...
.
The region of the Pontic Steppe until the
Lake Maiōtis was instead inhabited by the
Agathyrsi
The Agathyrsi ( Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a people belonging to the Scythian cultures. The Agathyrsi were a people of mixed Iranian Scythic and Geto-Thracian origin whose bulk were Thracian while their aristocracy was closely related to ...
, who were another nomadic Iranian tribe related to the Cimmerians.
The later claim by Greek authors that the Cimmerians lived in the Pontic Steppe around the
Tyras river was a retroactive invention dating from after the disappearance of the Cimmerians.
During the initial phase of their presence in West Asia, the Cimmerians lived in a country which Mesopotamian sources called (), that is the , located around the
Kuros river, to the north and north-west of
Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan ( hy, Սևանա լիճ, Sevana lich) is the largest body of water in both Armenia and the Caucasus region. It is one of the largest freshwater high-altitude (alpine) lakes in Eurasia. The lake is situated in Gegharkunik Province, ...
and the south of the Darial or Klukhor passes, in a region of
Transcaucasia
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...
to the east of
Colchis
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia (country), Georgia.
Its population, the Colchians a ...
corresponding to the modern-day
Gori, in southern
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
.
The Cimmerians later split into two groups, with a western horde located in
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, and an eastern horde which moved into
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
and later
Media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
.
History
![Urartu 715 713-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Urartu_715_713-en.svg)
Origins
The Cimmerians were originally part of a larger group of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
n nomadic populations who migrated to the west and formed new tribal groupings in the
Pontic and Caspian steppes, with their success at expanding into
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
happening thanks to the development of mounted nomadic pastoralism and the adoption of effective weapons suited to equestrian warfare by these nomads. The steppe cultures to which the Cimmerians belonged in turn influenced the cultures of Central Europe such as the
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western Europe, Western and Central European Archaeological culture, culture of Late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe ...
, and the Cimmerians themselves lived in the steppe situated to the north of the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
and to the west of the
Araxēs river, while the region of the Pontic Steppe until the
Lake Maiōtis was instead inhabited by the
Agathyrsi
The Agathyrsi ( Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a people belonging to the Scythian cultures. The Agathyrsi were a people of mixed Iranian Scythic and Geto-Thracian origin whose bulk were Thracian while their aristocracy was closely related to ...
, who were another nomadic Iranian tribe related to the Cimmerians.
The Cimmerians are first mentioned in the 8th century BC in
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's
as a people living beyond the
Oceanus
In Greek mythology, Oceanus (; grc-gre, , Ancient Greek pronunciation: , also Ὠγενός , Ὤγενος , or Ὠγήν ) was a Titan son of Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys, and the father of the river gods a ...
, in a land permanently deprived of sunlight at the edge of the world and close to the entrance of
Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
; this mention is poetic and contains no reliable information about the real Cimmerians. Homer's story might however have used as its source the story of the
Argonauts
The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, '' Argo'', ...
, which itself focused on the kingdom of Colchis, on whose eastern borders the Cimmerians were living in the 8th century BC.
This corresponds to the 6th century BC records of
Aristeas of Proconnesus and the later writings of
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
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 for having ...
, according to whom the Cimmerians lived in the steppe to the immediate north of the Caspian Sea, with the
Araxēs river forming their eastern border which separated them from the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
,
although some tribes of the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
, a nomadic Iranian tribe living in Central Asia related to the Cimmerians, nomadised in the Caspian Steppe along the Cimmerians. The Cimmerians thus never formed the mass of the population of the Pontic Steppe, and neither Aristeas nor
Hesiod
Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
ever recorded them as living in this area.
The social structure of the Cimmerians, according to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, comprised two groups of roughly equal numbers: the Cimmerians proper, or "commoners", and the "kings" or "royal race" – implying that the ruling classes and lower classes originally constituted two different peoples, who retained distinct identities as late as the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Hence the "kings" may have originated as an element of an Iranian-speaking people (such as the Scythians), who had imposed their rule on a section of the people of the
Catacomb culture
The Catacomb culture (russian: Катакомбная культура, Katakombnaya kul'tura, uk, Катакомбна культура, Katakombna kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2500–1950 BC.Par ...
, who were the Cimmerian "commoners."
In the 8th to 7th centuries BC, the Cimmerians were disturbed by a significant movement of the
nomads
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
of the
Eurasian Steppe: this movement started when the bulk of the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
migrated westwards across the
Araxēs river, under the pressure of another related Central Asian nomadic Iranian tribe, either the
Massagetae
The Massagetae or Massageteans (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Sakā tigraxaudā (Old Persian: , "wearer of pointed caps") or Orthocorybantians (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ),: As for the term “Orthocorybantii”, this is a translati ...
or the
Issedones The Issedones (Ἰσσηδόνες) were an ancient people of Central Asia at the end of the trade route leading north-east from Scythia, described in the lost ''Arimaspeia'' of Aristeas, by Herodotus in his ''History'' (IV.16-25) and by Ptolemy in ...
,
following which the Scythians moved into the Caspian and Caucasian Steppes, assimilated most of the Cimmerians and conquered their territory, while the rest of the Cimmerians were displaced and forced to migrate to the south into West Asia. This displacement of the Cimmerians by the Scythians is attested archaeologically in a disturbance of the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture associated with the Cimmerians.
Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south into West Asia. The story recounted by Greek authors, according to which the Cimmerian aristocrats, unwilling to leave their lands, killed each other and were buried in a
kurgan
A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central As ...
near the
Tyras river, after which only the Cimmerian "commoners" migrated to West Asia, is contradicted by how powerful the Cimmerians were according to Assyrian sources contemporaneous with their presence in West Asia; this story was thus was either a Pontic Greek folk tale which originated after the disappearance of the Cimmerians
or a later Scythian legend reflecting the motif of vanished ancient lost peoples which is widespread in folk traditions.
In West Asia
The Cimmerians who migrated into West Asia fled through the ,
Alagir
Alagir (russian: Алаги́р; os, Алагир) is an industrial town and the administrative center of Alagirsky District in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia, located on the west bank of the Ardon River, west of the republic's ...
and
Darial Gorge
The Darial Gorge ( ka, დარიალის ხეობა, ''Darialis Kheoba''; russian: Дарьяльское ущелье; os, Арвыком, ''Arvykom''; inh, Даьра Аьле, ''Dära Äle''; Chechen: Теркан чӀаж, ''Te ...
passes in the Greater Caucasus mountains,
that is through the western Caucasus and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
into
Kolkhis, where the Cimmerians initially settled during the 720s BC. During this period, Cimmerians lived in a country which Mesopotamian sources called , the , located around the
Kuros river, to the north and north-west of
Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan ( hy, Սևանա լիճ, Sevana lich) is the largest body of water in both Armenia and the Caucasus region. It is one of the largest freshwater high-altitude (alpine) lakes in Eurasia. The lake is situated in Gegharkunik Province, ...
and the south of the Darial or Klukhor passes, in a region of
Transcaucasia
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...
to the east of
Kolkhis corresponding to the modern-day
Gori, in southern
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
.
Transcaucasia would remain the Cimmerians' centre of operations during the early phase of their presence in West Asia until the early 660s BC.
The Scythians later also expanded to the south, appearing in West Asia forty years after the Cimmerians, although they followed the coast of the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
and arrived in the region of present-day
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
.
The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 6th centuries BC would destabilise the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the states of
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
,
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
,
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
and
Elam
Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...
on one side and the mountain and tribal peoples on the other.
In Transcaucasia
![Kimerian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Kimerian.jpg)
The Cimmerians might have defeated attacks by the
Urartian
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...
kings against Colchis and the nearby areas during the 720s BC.
The first mention of the Cimmerians in the records of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
was from between
720
__NOTOC__
Year 720 ( DCCXX) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 720 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
and
714
__NOTOC__
Year 714 ( DCCXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 714 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
BC, when Assyrian intelligence by the crown prince
Sennacherib
Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynast ...
reported to the king
Sargon II
Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is general ...
that the Cimmerians had attacked
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
's province of through the territory of the kingdom of
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
. A counter-attack against the Cimmerians at in what is now
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
by the Urartian king
Rusa I
Rusa I (ruled: 735–714 BC) was a King of Urartu. He succeeded his father, king Sarduri II. His name is sometimes transliterated as ''Rusas'' or ''Rusha''. He was known to Assyrians as ''Ursa'' (which scholars have speculated is likely a more ac ...
, during a campaign where Rusa I himself, his commander in chief, as well as thirteen governors united all the armed forces of the kingdom, was however heavily defeated by the Cimmerians, and the governor of the Urartian province of
was killed. This defeat weakened Urartu significantly enough that Sargon II was able to successfully attack and defeat it, and Rusa I committed suicide in consequence.
During the period corresponding to Sargon II's reign, a section of the Cimmerians moved into the area of the kingdom of
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
.
The Cimmerians' presence in Anatolia might have started around 709 BC, and the king
Midas II of
Muški
The Mushki (sometimes transliterated as Muški) were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Georg ...
(
Phrygia
In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...
), who had previously been a bitter opponent of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in Anatolia, consequently ended hostilities with the Assyrians after and sent a delegation to Sargon II to attempt to form an alliance against the Cimmerians.
In 705 BC, Sargon II died in battle, most likely during a campaign against the
Anatolian
Anatolian or anatolica may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the region Anatolia
* Anatolians, ancient Indo-European peoples who spoke the Anatolian languages
* Anatolian High School, a type of Turkish educational institution
* Anatol ...
kingdom of
Tabal
Tabal (c.f. biblical ''Tubal''; Assyrian: 𒋫𒁄) was a Luwian speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom (and/or collection of kingdoms) of South Central Anatolia during the Iron Age. According to archaeologist Kurt Bittel, references to Tabal first appeare ...
, or possibly during a battle in which the Cimmerians were participants in either the region of Tabal or in Nedia.
After Sargon II's death, his son and successor
Sennacherib
Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynast ...
secured the northwestern Assyrian borders, and the Cimmerians ceased being mentioned in Assyrian records during Sennacherib's reign (from 705 to 681 BC); the Cimmerians would start being mentioned again by the Assyrians only under the reign of Sennacherib's own son and successor,
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of hi ...
. During this time, the Cimmerians were allied with the Scythians, and the two groups, in alliance with the
Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
, who were an Iranian people of West Asia to whom the Scythians and Cimmerians were distantly related, were threatening the eastern frontier of
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
during the reign of its king
Argishti II Argishti may refer to:
*Argishtis I of Urartu
Argishti I (), was the sixth known king of Urartu, reigning from 786 BC to 764 BC. He founded the citadel of Erebuni in 782 BC, which is the present capital of Armenia, Yerevan. Alternate translite ...
. Argishti II's successor,
Rusa II
Rusa II was king of Urartu between around 680 BC and 639 BC. It was during his reign that the massive fortress complex, Karmir-Blur, was constructed.Ian Lindsay and Adam T. Smith, ''A History of Archaeology in the Republic of Armenia'', Journal ...
, built several fortresses in the east of Urartu's territory, including that of
Teishebaini
Teishebaini (also Teshebani, modern Karmir Blur ( hy, Կարմիր Բլուր) referring more to the hill that the fortress is located upon) was the capital of the Transcaucasian provinces of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. It is located near the ...
, to monitor and repel attacks by the Cimmerians, the Mannaeans, the Medes, and the Scythians.
During the period coinciding with the rule of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (reigned 681–669 BC), the bulk of the Cimmerians migrated from Transcaucasia into Anatolia, while a smaller group remained in the area near the kingdom of
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
where they had been settled since the time of Sargon II, respectively forming a "western" and an "eastern" division of Cimmerians.
In
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
Between 680/679 and 678/677 BC, the eastern group of Cimmerians allied with the
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
ns and the Scythian king
Išpakaia
Ishpakaia (Scythian ; Akkadian: ) was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in Western Asia in the 7th century BCE.
Name
is the Akkadian form of the Scythian name , which was a hypocorostic derivation of the word ...
to attack Assyria, with the Scythians raiding far in the south till the Assyrian province of
Zamua Zamua (also Mazamua) was an ancient Pre-Iranian kingdom, corresponding with the earlier kingdom of Lullubi,''The Cambridge History of Iran'', Volume 2, (1985) Cambridge University Press, p. 59Direct link Last retrieved 11.12.2013 which stretched fr ...
. These allied forces were defeated by Esarhaddon, who had become the king of the Neo-Assyrian empire.
By 677 BC, the Cimmerians were present on the territory of Mannai, and in 676 BC they were its allies against an Assyrian attack, after which the eastern Cimmerians remained allied to Mannai against Assyria. In the western Iranian plateau, these eastern Cimmerians might have introduced Bronze articles from the
Koban culture
The Koban culture (c. 1100 to 400 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. It is preceded by the Colchian culture of the western Caucasus and the Kharachoi culture further east.
It is named after the ...
into the
Luristan bronze
Luristan bronzes (rarely "Lorestān", "Lorestāni" etc. in sources in English) are small cast objects decorated with bronze sculpture from the Early Iron Age which have been found in large numbers in Lorestān Province and Kermanshah in wester ...
culture. The Mannaeans, in alliance with the eastern Cimmerians and the Scythians (the latter of whom attacked the borderlands of Assyria from across the territory of the kingdom of
Ḫubuškia), were able to expand their territories at the expense of Assyria and capture the fortresses of
Šarru-iqbi and
Dūr-Ellil. Negotiations between the Assyrians and the Cimmerians appeared to have followed, according to which the Cimmerians promised not to interfere in the relations between Assyria and Mannai, although a Babylonian diviner in Assyrian service warned Esarhaddon not to trust either the Mannaeans or the Cimmerians and advised him to spy on both of them.
The eastern Cimmerian group later moved to the south, into
Media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, with the Scythians as their northern neighbours and occasional allies, and in the mid 670s BC, these eastern Cimmerians were recorded by the Assyrians as a possible threat against the collection of tribute from Media. Around the same time, in alliance with the Scythians, the eastern Cimmerians were menacing the Assyrian provinces of
Parsumaš and
Bīt Ḫamban, and these joint Cimmerian-Scythian forces together were threatening communication between the Assyrian Empire and its vassal of
Ḫubuškia. In 676 BC, Esarhaddon responded by carrying out a military campaign against Mannai during which he killed Išpakaia.
By the late 670s BC, the Scythians had become the allies of the Assyrians after Išpakaia's successor,
Bartatua
Bartatua (Scythian: ; Akkadian: or : "Though Madyes himself is not mentioned in Akkadian texts, his father, the Scythian king , whose identification with of Herodotus is certain.) or Protothyes (Ancient Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ) was a Scy ...
, had married
a daughter of Esarhaddon, while the eastern Cimmerians remained hostile to Assyria and were allied to
Ellipi
Ellipi was an ancient kingdom located on the western side of the Zagros (modern Iran), between Babylonia at the west, Media at the north east, Mannae at the north and Elam at the south. The inhabitants of Ellipi were close relatives of the Elam ...
and the
Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
. When Ellipi and the Medes successfully rebelled against Assyria under
Kashtariti Kashtariti (Akkadian: ; Median: ; fl. 670s BCE) was a Median chieftain. He is mentioned as "King of the Medes" in an inscription dated 678 BCE.: "In an inscription dated in 678 B.C., Kash-tariti, according to Boscawen, is called "King of the Medes ...
from 671 to 669 BC, the eastern Cimmerians were allied to them.
In Anatolia
By the later 7th century BC, the centre of operations of the larger, western, division of the Cimmerians was located in Anatolia.
In 679 BC the Cimmerian king
Teušpa
Teushpa (Akkadian: , and ) was an early 7th-century BC king of the Cimmerians.
Name
and are Akkadian forms of a name which originates from a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian Scythian language.
The linguist János Harmatta reconstructed t ...
was defeated and killed by Esarhaddon near
Ḫubušna in Cappadocia.
Despite this victory, the military operations of the Assyrians were not fully successful and they were not able to firmly occupy the areas around Ḫubušna, nor were they able to secure their borders, and the Assyrian province of Quwê was left vulnerable to invasions from
Tabal
Tabal (c.f. biblical ''Tubal''; Assyrian: 𒋫𒁄) was a Luwian speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom (and/or collection of kingdoms) of South Central Anatolia during the Iron Age. According to archaeologist Kurt Bittel, references to Tabal first appeare ...
,
Kuzzurak and
Ḫilakku; the Cimmerians had thus ended all Assyrian control in Anatolia.
An Assyrian contract dating to the same as Esarhaddon's victory over Teušpa records of the existence of a "Cimmerian detachment" in
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, although it is uncertain whether this refers to Cimmerian mercenaries in Assyrian service, or simply of Assyrian soldiers armed in the "Cimmerian-style", that is using Cimmerian bows and horse harnesses.
Around 675 BC, the Cimmerians, under their king
Tugdammi (the Lugdamis of the Greek authors), in alliance with the Urartian king
Rusa II
Rusa II was king of Urartu between around 680 BC and 639 BC. It was during his reign that the massive fortress complex, Karmir-Blur, was constructed.Ian Lindsay and Adam T. Smith, ''A History of Archaeology in the Republic of Armenia'', Journal ...
carried out a military campaign to the west, against Muški (Phrygia), Ḫate (the Neo-Hittite state of
Melid
Melid, also known as Arslantepe, was an ancient city on the Tohma River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains. It has been identified with the modern archaeological site of Arslantepe near Malatya, Turkey.
It was ...
), and
Ḫaliṭu (either the
Alizōnes or the
Khaldoi); this campaign resulted in the invasion and destruction of Phrygia, whose king
Midas II committed suicide.
The Cimmerians plundered the Phrygian capital of
Gordion
Gordion ( Phrygian: ; el, Γόρδιον, translit=Górdion; tr, Gordion or ; la, Gordium) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, about southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the ...
, but they neither settled there nor destroyed its fortifications, although they appear to have consequently partially subdued the
Phrygians
The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. They were related to the Greeks.
Ancient Greek authors used ...
, and an Assyrian oracular text from the later 670s BC mentioned the Cimmerians and the Phrygians, who had possibly been subdued by the Cimmerians, as allies against the Assyrians' newly conquered province of
Melid
Melid, also known as Arslantepe, was an ancient city on the Tohma River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains. It has been identified with the modern archaeological site of Arslantepe near Malatya, Turkey.
It was ...
.
A document from 673 BC records Rusa II as having recruited a large number of Cimmerian mercenaries, and Cimmerian allies of Rusa II probably participated in a military expedition of his in 672 BC. From 671 to 669 BC, Cimmerians in service of Rusa II attacked the Assyrian province of
Šubria near the Urartian border.
Between 671 and 670 BC, some Cimmerian divisions were recorded as serving in the Assyrian army, although these divisions might have instead simply referred to the "Cimmerian style" armed Assyrian soldiers.
At yet unknown dates, the Cimmerians imposed their rule on Cappadocia, invaded
Bithynia
Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Pa ...
,
Paphlagonia
Paphlagonia (; el, Παφλαγονία, Paphlagonía, modern translit. ''Paflagonía''; tr, Paflagonya) was an ancient region on the Black Sea coast of north-central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east, and s ...
and the
Troad
The Troad ( or ; el, Τρωάδα, ''Troáda'') or Troas (; grc, Τρῳάς, ''Trōiás'' or , ''Trōïás'') is a historical region in northwestern Anatolia. It corresponds with the Biga Peninsula ( Turkish: ''Biga Yarımadası'') in the Ç ...
, and took the recently founded Greek colony of
Sinope, whose initial settlement was destroyed and whose first founder Habrōn was killed in the invasion, and which was later re-founded by the Greek colonists Kōos and Krētinēs.
Along with Sinope, the Greek colony of
Cyzicus
Cyzicus (; grc, Κύζικος ''Kúzikos''; ota, آیدینجق, ''Aydıncıḳ'') was an ancient Greek town in Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peni ...
was also destroyed during these invasions and had to be later re-founded. In the beginning of that decade, the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of
Lydia
Lydia (Lydian language, Lydian: 𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the mod ...
, which had been filling the power vacuum in Anatolia created by the destruction of Phrygia by establishing itself as a new rising regional power. The Lydian king
Gyges, attempting to find help to face the Cimmerian invasions, contacted Esarhaddon's successor who had succeeded him as king of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
,
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian language, Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Ashur (god), Ashur is the creator of the heir") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BCE to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king o ...
, beginning in 667 BC, and his struggle against Cimmerians soon turned in his favour.
Gyges soon defeated the Cimmerians in 665 BC without Assyrian help, and he sent Cimmerian soldiers captured while attacking the Lydian countryside as gifts to Ashurbanipal.
According to the Assyrian records describing these events, the Cimmerians already had formed sedentary settlements in Anatolia.
![Peltaste](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Peltaste.JPG)
Assyrian records in 657 BC of a "bad omen" for the "Westland" might have referred to either another Cimmerian attack on Lydia,
or a conquest by Tugdammi of the western possessions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, possibly Quwê or somewhere in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, following their defeat by Gyges. These Cimmerian aggressions worried Ashurbanipal about the security of the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire enough that he sought answers concerning this situation through divination, and as a result of these Cimmerian conquests, by 657 BC the Assyrian divinatory records were calling the Cimmerian king by the title of ("
"), a title which in the Mesopotamian worldview could belong to only a single ruler in the world at any given time and was normally held by the King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. These divinatory texts also assured to Ashurbanipal that he would eventually regain the , that is the world hegemony, captured by the Cimmerians: the , which was considered to rightfully belong to the Assyrian king, had been usurped by the Cimmerians and had to be won back by Assyria. Thus, the Cimmerians had become a force feared by Ashurbanipal, and Tugdammi's successes against Assyria meant that he had become recognised in the ancient Near East as equally powerful as Ashurbanipal. This situation remained unchanged throughout the rest of the 650s BC and the early 640s BC.
As the result of these Assyrian setbacks, Gyges could not rely on Assyrian support against the Cimmerians and he ended diplomacy with the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and Ashurbanipal responded to Gyges's disengagement from Assyria by cursing him.
The Cimmerians attacked Lydia for a third time in 644 BC: this time, they defeated the
Lydians
The Lydians (known as ''Sparda'' to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the ...
and captured their capital,
Sardis
Sardis () or Sardes (; Lydian: 𐤳𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣 ''Sfard''; el, Σάρδεις ''Sardeis''; peo, Sparda; hbo, ספרד ''Sfarad'') was an ancient city at the location of modern ''Sart'' (Sartmahmut before 19 October 2005), near Salihli, ...
, and Gyges died during this attack.
Gyges was succeeded by his son
Ardys, who resumed diplomatic activity with Assyria;
Ashurbanipal, whose Anatolian borders were still in a delicate situation due to the Cimmerians, was himself willing to form alliances with any state in Anatolia which was capable of successfully fighting the Cimmerians.
After sacking Sardis, Lygdamis led the Cimmerians into invading the Greek city-states of
Ionia
Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...
and
Aeolis
Aeolis (; grc, Αἰολίς, Aiolís), or Aeolia (; grc, Αἰολία, Aiolía, link=no), was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islan ...
on the western coast of Anatolia, which caused the inhabitants of the
Batinētis region to flee to the islands of the
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...
, and later Greek writings by
Callimachus
Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety ...
and
Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria ( grc, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Hēsýchios ho Alexandreús, lit=Hesychios the Alexandrian) was a Greek grammarian who, probably in the 5th or 6th century AD,E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (2007 ...
preserve the record that Lygdamis had destroyed the
Artemision of
Ephesus
Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in t ...
. Among the other Greek cities destroyed during these invasions was
Magnesia on the
Meander
A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex bank ...
.
![Cimmerian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Cimmerian.jpg)
After this third invasion of Lydia and the attack on the Asiatic Greek cities, around 640 BC the Cimmerians moved to
Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
on the north-west border of the Assyrian empire, where Tugdammi allied with Mugallu, the king of
Tabal
Tabal (c.f. biblical ''Tubal''; Assyrian: 𒋫𒁄) was a Luwian speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom (and/or collection of kingdoms) of South Central Anatolia during the Iron Age. According to archaeologist Kurt Bittel, references to Tabal first appeare ...
, against Assyria, during which period the Assyrian records called him a "mountain king and an arrogant
Gutian (that is a
barbarian
A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either Civilization, uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by som ...
) who does not know how to fear the gods." However, after facing a revolt against himself, Tugdamme allied with Assyria and acknowledged Assyrian overlordship, and sent tribute to Ashurbanipal, to whom he swore an oath. Tugdammi soon broke this oath and attacked the Assyrian Empire again, but he fell ill and died in 640 BC, and was succeeded by his son
Sandakšatru
Sandakshatru or Sandakuru ( Akkadian: or ) was the last known Cimmerian king.
Name
The name of this Cimmerian king is attested in a form which can be read as either or , which are derived from a name in a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian ...
, who attempted to continue Tugdammi's attacks against Assyria but failed just like his father.
By the later part of the 7th century BC, the Cimmerians were nomadising in West Asia together with the
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
Treri Treri ( grc, Τρηροι, Trēroi, or , romanized: ; Latin: or ) is the name of a Thracian tribe.
In Thrace
The Treri lived in northwest Thrace, in the region of Serdica (now the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia). The Treri of the Serdica region ...
tribe who had migrated across the
Thracian Bosporus and invaded
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.
In 637 BC, Sandakšatru's Cimmerians participated in another attack on Lydia, this time led by the Treres under their king Kōbos, and in alliance with the
Lycians
Lycians is the name of various peoples who lived, at different times, in Lycia, a geopolitical area in Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor).
History
The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the ''Solymoi'' (or ''Solymi''), also kno ...
.
During this invasion, in the seventh year of the reign of Gyges's son
Ardys, the Lydians were defeated again and for a second time Sardis was captured, except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack.
Ardys's son and successor,
Sadyattes
Sadyattes ( grc, Σαδυαττης, Saduattēs; la, Sadyattēs; reigned 637–) was the third king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Ardys and the grandson of Gyges of Lydia. Sadyattes reigned 12 years according to Herodotus.
Reign ...
, might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia in .
The power of the Cimmerians had eventually dwindled quickly after Tugdammi's death, and soon these Cimmerian attacks on Lydia, with Assyrian approval
and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king
Madyes
Madyes ( Median: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ;: " “intoxicating drink” (in )" Latin: ) was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in West Asia in the 7th century BCE. Madyes was the son of the Scythian king Ba ...
entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia
until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from West Asia in the 600s BC.
This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, who
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
credits with expelling the Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Gyges's great-grandson, the king
Alyattes
Alyattes (Lydian language: ; grc, Ἀλυάττης ; reigned c. 635-585 BC), sometimes described as Alyattes I, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. ...
of Lydia, whom
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
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 for having ...
and
Polyaenus
Polyaenus or Polyenus ( ; see ae (æ) vs. e; grc-gre, Πoλύαινoς, Polyainos, "much-praised") was a 2nd-century CE Greek author, known best for his ''Stratagems in War'' ( grc-gre, Στρατηγήματα, Strategemata), which has been pr ...
claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.
![Britishmuseumbintepehorserelief](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Britishmuseumbintepehorserelief.jpg)
Following this final defeat, the Cimmerians likely remained in the region of Cappadocia, whose name in Armenian, , may have been derived from the name of the Cimmerians. A group of Cimmerians might also have subsisted for some time in the Troas, around
Antandrus
Antandrus or Antandros ( grc, Ἄντανδρος) was an ancient Greek city on the north side of the Gulf of Adramyttium in the Troad region of Anatolia. Its surrounding territory was known in Greek as (''Antandria''),Aristotle, ''Historia Anim ...
, until they were finally defeated by Alyattes of Lydia.
The remnants of the Cimmerians were eventually assimilated by the populations of Anatolia,
and they completely disappeared from history after their defeat by Madyes and Alyattes.
In Europe
It has been hypothesised that some Cimmerians might have migrated into
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
,
South-east and
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...
, although such identification is presently considered very uncertain.
Impact
The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 6th centuries BC had destabilised the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the states of
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
,
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
,
Mannaea
Mannaea (, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: ''Mannai'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Minni'', (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urart ...
and
Elam
Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...
on one side and the mountain and tribal peoples on the other, resulting in the destruction of these former kingdoms and their replacement by new powers, including the kingdoms of the
Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
and of the
Lydians
The Lydians (known as ''Sparda'' to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the ...
.
Legacy
After the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the scribes of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the List of kings of Babylon, King of B ...
which replaced it used the term indiscriminately to refer to all the nomads of the steppes, including both the Pontic
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
and the Central Asian
Saka
The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...
.
The
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
s who conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire continued this tradition of using the name of the Cimmerians to refer to all steppe nomads in the Akkadian language, as attested in the
Behistun inscription.
The
Byzantines from a millennium and onwards later similarly referred to the
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
,
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
, and other populations as "Scythians."
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's mention of the Cimmerians as living deprived from sunlight and close to the entrance of
Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
influenced later Graeco-Roman authors who, writing centuries after the disappearance of the historical Cimmerians, conceptualised of this people as the one described by Homer, and therefore assigned to them various fantastical locations and histories:
*
Ephorus of Cyme
Ephorus of Cyme (; grc-gre, Ἔφορος ὁ Κυμαῖος, ''Ephoros ho Kymaios''; c. 400330 BC) was an ancient Greek historian known for his universal history.
Biography
Information on his biography is limited. He was born in Cyme, A ...
in the 4th century BC placed the Cimmerians near the city of
Cumae
Cumae ( grc, Κύμη, (Kumē) or or ; it, Cuma) was the first ancient Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC and soon becoming one of the strongest colonies. It later became a rich Ro ...
in
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
, where there was located a
Ploutonion
A ploutonion ( grc, Πλουτώνιον, lit. "Place of Plouton") is a sanctuary specially dedicated to the ancient Greek god Plouton (i.e., Hades). Only a few such shrines are known from classical sources, usually at locations that produce pois ...
and an
oracle of the dead, as well as the
Lake Avernus
__NOTOC__
Lake Avernus ( it, Lago d'Averno) is a volcanic crater lake located in the Avernus crater in the Campania region of southern Italy, around west of Pozzuoli. It is near the volcanic field known as the Phlegraean Fields (') and comprises ...
, which possessed strange properties. According to Ephorus's narrative, these Cimmerians lived underground and would go out only at night because of a tradition of theirs to never see the Sun.
*
Hecataeus of Abdera :''See Hecataeus of Miletus for the earlier historian.''
Hecataeus of Abdera or of Teos ( el, Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης), was a Greek historian and Pyrrhonist philosopher who flourished in the 4th century BC.
Life
Diogenes La ...
placed the "Cimmerian city" in
Hyperborea
In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans ( grc, Ὑπερβόρε(ι)οι, ; la, Hyperborei) were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek , "beyond Boreas" (the God of ...
*
Posidonius of Apamea wrote that the Cimmerians who passed into West Asia were merely a small body of exiles, while the bulk of the Cimmerians lived in the thickly wooded and sun-less far north, between the shores of the Oceanus and the
Hercynian Forest, and were the same people known as the
Cimbri
The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, ''Kímbroi''; Latin ''Cimbri'') were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that ...
. Both the Cimmerians and the Cimbri were perceived by the Greeks as fierce barbarian tribes who had caused significant destruction for the peoples they had invaded, and since their names were similar, the Greek traditions progressively equated and then identified them with each other.
** This assertion was criticised by
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
as being conjectural rather than based on concrete historical evidence.
** Strabo and
Diodorus of Sicily
Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...
, using Posidonius as their sources, also equated the Cimmerians and the Cimbri.
The Cimmerians appear in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
under the name of
(), where is closely linked to
(), that is to the Scythians.
In sources beginning with the
Royal Frankish Annals
The ''Royal Frankish Annals'' (Latin: ''Annales regni Francorum''), also called the ''Annales Laurissenses maiores'' ('Greater Lorsch Annals'), are a series of annals composed in Latin in the Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state ...
, the
Merovingian
The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...
kings of the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
traditionally traced their lineage through a pre-Frankish tribe called the
(or ), mythologized as a group of "Cimmerians" from the mouth of the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
river. The historical Sicambri, however, were a Germanic tribe from
Gelderland
Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
in modern
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and are named for the
Sieg river
The Sieg is a river in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Rhine.
The river is named after the Sicambri. It is in length.
The source is located in the Rothaargebirge mountains. From here t ...
.
Early modern historians asserted Cimmerian descent for the
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
or the
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
, arguing from the similarity of to
or
, noted by 17th-century Celticists. But the word "Welshman" (plural: ) is now accepted by Celtic linguists as being derived from a
Brythonic word , meaning "compatriot".
According to
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
national historiography, the Cimmerians, in Georgian known as , played an influential role in the development of the
Colchian
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia.
Its population, the Colchians are generally thou ...
and
Iberian cultures. The modern Georgian word for "hero", , is said to derive from their name.
It has also been speculated that the modern Armenian city of
Gyumri
Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...
(
Arm. ), founded as Kumayri (
Arm. ), derived its name from the Cimmerians who conquered the region and founded a settlement there.
In popular culture
The character of
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...
, created by
Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy stories published in
from 1932, is canonically a Cimmerian: in Howard's fictional
Hyborian Age
The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.
The word "Hyborian" is derived from the l ...
, the Cimmerians are a pre-Celtic people who were the ancestors of the Irish and Scots (
Gaels
The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic langu ...
).
, a novel by
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon ( ;
born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...
, includes a chapter describing the (fictional) oldest book in the world, "The Book of Lo", created by ancient Cimmerians.
Manau's song "
La Tribu de Dana" recounts an imaginary battle between Celts and enemies identified by the narrator as Cimmerians.
![Thraco-Cimmerian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Thraco-Cimmerian.png)
Archaeology
Archaeologically, the Cimmerians are associated with the
Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk Culture of the west Eurasian steppe, which itself showed strong influences originating from the east in Central Asia and
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
(more specifically from the
Karasuk.
Arzhan
Arzhan (russian: Аржан) is a site of early Scythian kurgan burials in the Tuva Republic, Russia, some northwest of Kyzyl. It is on a high plateau traversed by the Uyuk River, a minor tributary of the Yenisei River, in the region of Tuva ...
, and
Altai cultures), as well as from the
Kuban culture
Kuban (Russian and Ukrainian: Кубань; ady, Пшызэ) is a historical and geographical region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, the Volga Delta and the Caucasus, and separated fr ...
of the Caucasus which contributed to its development,
although an alternative view is that the Cimmerians instead belonged, materially, to the
Early Scythian culture.
Cimmerian remains from the period of their presence in Anatolia include a burial from the village of
İmirler in the
Amasya Province
Amasya Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey, situated on the Yeşil River in the Black Sea Region to the north of the country.
The provincial capital is Amasya, the antique ''Amaseia'' mentioned in documents from the era of Alexander the Gre ...
of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
which contains typically Early Scythian weapons and horse harnesses. Another Cimmerian burial, located at about 100 km to the east of İmirler and 50 km from
Samsun
Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun reco ...
, contained 250 Scythian-type arrowheads.
Language
According to the historian
Muhammad Dandamayev
Muhammad Abdulkadyrovich Dandamayev ( lbe, Мухаммад Абдулкадырович Дандамаев; September 2, 1928 – August 28, 2017 ), Chief Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM- ...
and the linguist
János Harmatta
János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca and papyri of Dura Europos and was the first to decipher a major Bactrian inscription.Ritoók, Zsigmond. (1997"The contribution of ...
, the Cimmerians spoke a dialect belonging to the
Scythian
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...
group of
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are grouped ...
, and were able to communicate with
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
proper without needing interpreters.
The Iranologist Ľubomír Novák considers Cimmerian to be a relative of Scythian which exhibited similar features as Scythian, such as the evolution of the sound /d/ into /l/.
The recorded personal names of the Cimmerians were either Iranian, reflecting their origins, or
Anatolian
Anatolian or anatolica may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the region Anatolia
* Anatolians, ancient Indo-European peoples who spoke the Anatolian languages
* Anatolian High School, a type of Turkish educational institution
* Anatol ...
, reflecting the cultural influence of the
native populations of Asia Minor on them after their migration there.
Only a few personal names in the Cimmerian language have survived in
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n inscriptions:
*:
**According to the linguist
János Harmatta
János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca and papyri of Dura Europos and was the first to decipher a major Bactrian inscription.Ritoók, Zsigmond. (1997"The contribution of ...
, it goes back to Old
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
, meaning "swelling with strength",
although Askold Ivantchik has criticised this proposal on phonetic grounds.
**
Askold Ivantchik
Askold Igorevich Ivantchik (russian: Аско́льд И́горевич Ива́нчик; born 2 May 1965) is a Russian historian. Receiving his Ph.D. in history in 1996, Ivantchik was made a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ...
instead posits three alternative suggestions for an Old Iranian origin of :
*** "abductor of horses"
*** "abductor dog"
*** "divine dog"
* or (), and recorded as () and () by Greek authors
**According to János Harmatta, it goes back to Old Iranian "giving happiness."
**
Edwin M. Yamauchi also interprets the name as Iranian, citing
Ossetic
Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetia ...
(), meaning "ruling with strength," although this proposal has been criticised because represents the modern phonetics of Ossetian and its form during the Old Iranian period when the Cimmerians lived would have been .
**Askold Ivantchik instead suggests that the name / was a loanword from an
Anatolian language
The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language.
...
, more specifically
Luwian
The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fam ...
, while also accepting the alternative possibility of a derivation from a variant of the name of the
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
deity
/
.
**Ľubomír Novák has noted that the attestation of this name in the forms and in Akkadian and the forms and in Greek shows that its first consonant had experienced the change of the sound /d/ to /l/, which is consistent with the phonetic changes attested in the Scythian languages.
*: this is an Iranian reading of the name, and
Manfred Mayrhofer
Manfred Mayrhofer (26 September 1926 – 31 October 2011) was an Austrian Indo-Europeanist who specialized in Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer served as professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionar ...
(1981) points out that the name may also be read as .
:*According to János Harmatta, it goes back to
Old Iranian
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian plateau, Iranian Pl ...
"splendid son."
:*Askold Ivantchik derives the name from a compound term consisting of the name of the Anatolian deity
, and of the Iranian term .
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
attempted to trace various place names to Cimmerian origins. He suggested that gave rise to the
Turkic toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
(which in turn gave rise to the
name "Crimea").
Genetics
A genetic study published in
Science Advances
''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science, incl ...
in October 2018 examined the remains of three Cimmerians buried between around 1000 and 800 BC. The two samples of
Y-DNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
extracted belonged to
haplogroups R1b1a and
Q1a1, while the three samples of
mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...
extracted belonged to haplogroups
H9a,
C5c and
R.
Another genetic study published in ''
Current Biology
''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research articles, var ...
'' in July 2019 examined the remains of three Cimmerians. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroups
R1a-Z645 and
R1a2c-B111, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups
H35,
U5a1b1 and
U2e2.
Cimmerian kings
Kings of the western (Anatolian) Cimmerians
*
Teušpa
Teushpa (Akkadian: , and ) was an early 7th-century BC king of the Cimmerians.
Name
and are Akkadian forms of a name which originates from a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian Scythian language.
The linguist János Harmatta reconstructed t ...
(?-679 BC)
*
Tugdamme
Tugdamme or Dugdammi (Akkadian: or ; Ancient Greek: , ; Latin: ) was a Cimmerian king of the mid-seventh century BC.
Name
Akkadian ( or ) and Ancient Greek () are derived from a name in a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian Scythian lang ...
(679-640 BC)
*
Sandakšatru
Sandakshatru or Sandakuru ( Akkadian: or ) was the last known Cimmerian king.
Name
The name of this Cimmerian king is attested in a form which can be read as either or , which are derived from a name in a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian ...
(640-)
See also
*
Agathyrsi
The Agathyrsi ( Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a people belonging to the Scythian cultures. The Agathyrsi were a people of mixed Iranian Scythic and Geto-Thracian origin whose bulk were Thracian while their aristocracy was closely related to ...
*
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
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Scythian cultures
The Scytho-Siberian world was an archaeological horizon which flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromati ...
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Umman Manda
Umman Manda (Akkadian language: ) is a term used in the early second and first millennia BC for a poorly known people in the Ancient Near East. They have been identified in different contexts as Hurrians, Elamites, Medes, Cimmerians, and Scyt ...
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Medes
The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
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Cimbri
The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, ''Kímbroi''; Latin ''Cimbri'') were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that ...
References
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*Terenozhkin A.I., Cimmerians, Kiev, 1983
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*Collection of Slavonic and Foreign Language Manuscripts – St.St Cyril and Methodius – Bulgarian National Library: http://www.nationallibrary.bg/slavezryk_en.html
{{Authority control
Cimmerians
Peoples of the Caucasus
History of the North Caucasus
Historical Iranian peoples
Iranian nomads
Ancient history of Ukraine
Ancient Russia
Tribes described primarily by Herodotus
Eastern Iranian languages
Extinct languages of Asia