Scythian comb.jpg

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 Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism."
* : "Near the end of the 19th century V.F. Miller (1886, 1887) theorized that the Scythians and their kindred, the Sauromatians, were Iranian-speaking peoples. This has been a popular point of view and continues to be accepted in linguistics and historical science ..
* : "From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central- Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians ..
* : "All contemporary historians, archeologists and linguists are agreed that since the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes were of the Iranian linguistic group ..
* : "During the first half of the first millennium B.C., c. 3,000 to 2,500 years ago, the southern part of Eastern Europe was occupied mainly by peoples of Iranian stock ..The main Iranian-speaking peoples of the region at that period were the Scyths and the Sarmatians ..
* : "When we speak of Scythians, we refer to those Scytho-Siberians who inhabited the Kuban Valley, the Taman and Kerch peninsulas, Crimea, the northern and northeastern littoral of the Black Sea, and the steppe and lower forest steppe regions now shared between Ukraine and Russia, from the seventh century down to the first century B.C ..They almost certainly spoke an Iranian language .. Iranian
* : "Scythians, a nomadic people of Iranian origin ..
* : " th Cimmerians and Scythians were Iranian peoples."
* : "During the first half of the first millennium B.C., c. 3,000 to 2,500 years ago, the southern part of Eastern Europe was occupied mainly by peoples of Iranian stock .. e population of ancient Scythia was far from being homogeneous, nor were the Scyths themselves a homogeneous people. The country called after them was ruled by their principal tribe, the "Royal Scyths" (Her. iv. 20), who were of Iranian stock and called themselves "Skolotoi" ..
* : " ue Scyths seems to be those whom erodotuscalls Royal Scyths, that is, the group who claimed hegemony ..apparently warrior-pastoralists. It is generally agreed, from what we know of their names, that these were people of Iranian stock ..
* : "The physical characteristics of the Scythians correspond to their cultural affiliation: their origins place them within the group of Iranian peoples."
* : "The Scythian kingdom ..was succeeded in the Russian steppes by an ascendancy of various Sarmatian tribes — Iranians, like the Scythians themselves."
* : "The general view is that both agricultural and nomad Scythians were Iranian." equestrian nomadic people who had migrated from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia from approximately the 7th century BC until the 3rd century BC.

Skilled in mounted warfare, the Scythians replaced the Cimmerians as the dominant power on the Pontic Steppe in the 8th century BC. In the 7th century BC, the Scythians crossed the Caucasus Mountains and frequently raided West Asia along with the Cimmerians. After being expelled from West Asia by the Medes, the Scythians retreated back into the Pontic Steppe and were gradually conquered by the Sarmatians. In the late 2nd century BC, the capital of the largely Hellenized Scythians at Scythian Neapolis in the Crimea was captured by Mithridates VI and their territories incorporated into the Bosporan Kingdom. By the 3rd century AD, the Sarmatians and last remnants of the Scythians were overwhelmed by the Goths, and by the early Middle Ages, the Scythians and the Sarmatians had been largely assimilated and absorbed by early Slavs.: "Indeed, it is now accepted that the Sarmatians merged in with pre-Slavic populations.": "In their Ukrainian and Polish homeland the Slavs were intermixed and at times overlain by Germanic speakers (the Goths) and by Iranian speakers (Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans) in a shifting array of tribal and national configurations." The Scythians were instrumental in the ethnogenesis of the Ossetians, who are believed to be descended from the Alans.

After the Scythians' disappearance, authors of the ancient, mediaeval, and early modern periods used the name "Scythian" to refer to various populations of the steppes unrelated to them.

The Scythians played an important part in the Silk Road, a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China, perhaps contributing to the prosperity of those civilisations. Settled metalworkers made portable decorative objects for the Scythians, forming a history of Scythian metalworking. These objects survive mainly in metal, forming a distinctive Scythian art.

Names

Etymology

The English name or is derived from the Ancient Greek name () and (), derived from the Scythian endonym , which, due to a sound change from /δ/ to /l/ in the Scythian, evolved into the form . This designation was recorded in Greek as (), which, according to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, was the self-designation of the tribe of the Royal Scythians.

The Assyrians rendered the name of the Scythians as ( Akkadian: , romanized: ) or ( Akkadian: , romanized: , , romanized: , , romanized: ).

The ancient Persians meanwhile called the Scythians " who live beyond the Sea" (, romanized: ) in Old Persian and simply (, romanized: ; , romanized: ) in Ancient Egyptian, from which was derived the Graeco-Roman name ( grc, Σακαι, Sakai; Latin: ).
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism."
* : "The Scythians lived in the Early Iron Age, and inhabited the northern areas of the Black Sea (Pontic) steppes. Though the 'Scythian period' in the history of Eastern Europe lasted little more than 400 years, from the 7th to the 3rd centuries BC, the impression these horsemen made upon the history of their times was such that a thousand years after they had ceased to exist as a sovereign people, their heartland and the territories which they dominated far beyond it continued to be known as 'greater Scythia'."
* : "From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central- Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians .." may be confidently stated that from the end of the 7th century to the 3rd century B.C. the Scythians occupied the steppe expanses of the north Black Sea area, from the Don in the east to the Danube in the West."
* : "Scythians, a nomadic people of Iranian origin who flourished in the steppe lands north of the Black Sea during the 7th–4th centuries BC (Figure 1). For related groups in Central Asia and India, see ..
* : "During the first half of the first millennium B.C., c. 3,000 to 2,500 years ago, the southern part of Eastern Europe was occupied mainly by peoples of Iranian stock ..The main Iranian-speaking peoples of the region at that period were the Scyths and the Sarmatians .. e population of ancient Scythia was far from being homogeneous, nor were the Scyths themselves a homogeneous people. The country called after them was ruled by their principal tribe, the "Royal Scyths" (Her. iv. 20), who were of Iranian stock and called themselves "Skolotoi" (iv. 6); they were nomads who lived in the steppe east of the Dnieper up to the Don, and in the Crimean steppe ..The eastern neighbours of the "Royal Scyths," the Sauromatians, were also Iranian; their country extended over the steppe east of the Don and the Volga."
* : "The name 'Scythian' is met in the classical authors and has been taken to refer to an ethnic group or people, also mentioned in Near Eastern texts, who inhabited the northern Black Sea region."
* : "Ordinary Greek (and later Latin) usage could designate as Scythian any northern barbarian from the general area of the Eurasian steppe, the virtually treeless corridor of drought-resistant perennial grassland extending from the Danube to Manchuria. Herodotus seeks greater precision, and this essay is focussed on his Scythians, who belong to the North Pontic steppe ..These true Scyths seems to be those whom he calls Royal Scyths, that is, the group who claimed hegemony ..apparently warrior-pastoralists. It is generally agreed, from what we know of their names, that these were people of Iranian stock ..
* : "When we speak of Scythians, we refer to those Scytho-Siberians who inhabited the Kuban Valley, the Taman and Kerch peninsulas, Crimea, the northern and northeastern littoral of the Black Sea, and the steppe and lower forest steppe regions now shared between Ukraine and Russia, from the seventh century down to the first century B.C ..They almost certainly spoke an Iranian language ..
* : "The first historical steppe nomads, the Scythians, inhabited the steppe north of the Black Sea from about the eight century B.C."
*

Modern terminology

The Scythians were part of the wider Scytho-Siberian world, stretching across the Eurasian Steppes of Kazakhstan, the Russian steppes of the Siberian, Ural, Volga and Southern regions, and eastern Ukraine. In a broader sense, Scythians has also been used to designate all early Eurasian nomads, although the validity of such terminology is controversial, and other terms such as "Early nomadic" have been deemed preferable.

Although the Scythians, Saka and Cimmerians were closely related nomadic Iranian peoples, and the ancient Babylonians, ancient Persians and ancient Greeks respectively used the names "Cimmerian," "Saka," and "Scythian" for all the steppe nomads, and early modern historians such as Edward Gibbon used the term Scythian to refer to a variety of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples across the Eurasian Steppe, the name "Scythian" in contemporary modern scholarship generally refers to the nomadic Iranian people who dominated the Pontic Steppe from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century BC, while the name "Saka" is used specifically for their eastern members who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin; and while the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they formed a different tribe from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians in the Pontic Steppe.

The Scythians share several cultural similarities with other populations living to their east, in particular similar weapons, horse gear and Scythian art, which has been referred to as the ''Scythian triad''.: "Even though there were fundamental ways in which nomadic groups over such a vast territory differed, the terms "Scythian" and "Scythic" have been widely adopted to describe a special phase that followed the widespread diffusion of mounted nomadism, characterized by the presence of special weapons, horse gear, and animal art in the form of metal plaques. Archaeologists have used the term "Scythic continuum" in a broad cultural sense to indicate the early nomadic cultures of the Eurasian Steppe. The term "Scythic" draws attention to the fact that there are elements – shapes of weapons, vessels, and ornaments, as well as lifestyle – common to both the eastern and western ends of the Eurasian Steppe region. However, the extension and variety of sites across Asia makes Scythian and Scythic terms too broad to be viable, and the more neutral "early nomadic" is preferable, since the cultures of the Northern Zone cannot be directly associated with either the historical Scythians or any specific archaeological culture defined as Saka or Scytho-Siberian." Cultures sharing these characteristics have often been referred to as Scythian cultures, and its peoples called ''Scythians''. Peoples associated with Scythian cultures include not only the Scythians themselves, who were a distinct ethnic group,: "Horse-riding nomadism has been referred to as the culture of 'Early Nomads'. This term encompasses different ethnic groups (such as Scythians, Saka, Massagetae, and Yuezhi) .. but also Cimmerians, Massagetae, Saka, Sarmatians and various obscure peoples of the East European Forest Steppe, such as early Slavs, Balts and Finnic peoples. Within this broad definition of the term ''Scythian'', the actual Scythians have often been distinguished from other groups through the terms ''Classical Scythians'', ''Western Scythians'', ''European Scythians'' or ''Pontic Scythians''.

Scythologist Askold Ivantchik notes with dismay that the term "Scythian" has been used within both a broad and a narrow context, leading to a good deal of confusion. He reserves the term "Scythian" for the Iranian people dominating the Pontic Steppe from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century BC. Nicola Di Cosmo writes that the broad concept of "Scythian" to describe the early nomadic populations of the Eurasian Steppe is "too broad to be viable," and that the term "early nomadic" is preferable.

History

Early history

The Scythians originated in the region of the Volga-Ural steppes of Central Asia, possibly around the 9th century BC, as a section of the population of the Srubnaya culture, to which the Scythians themselves belonged, and continuity between the Scythians and the Srubnaya culture is suggested by both archaeological, genetic and anthropological evidence.

During the 9th to 8th centuries BC, some Scythian tribes had migrated westwards into the steppe adjacent to the northern shore of the Black Sea, which they occupied along with the Cimmerians, who were also a nomadic Iranian people closely related to the Scythians; and over the course of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, the Scythians migrated in several waves became the dominant population of the Caucasian Steppe as part of a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe which started when another nomadic Iranian tribe closely related to the Scythians from eastern Central Asia, either the Massagetae or the Issedones, migrated westwards, forcing the early Scythians of the to the west across the Araxes river, following which the Scythians moved into the Caspian Steppe, where they conquered the territory of the Cimmerians and assimilated most of this latter people and displaced the rest, before settling in the area between the Araxes, the Caucasus and the Lake Maeotis.

The Scythian migration destroyed earlier cultures, with the settlements of the in the Dnipro valley being largely destroyed and the centre of Cimmerian bronze production stopping existing at the time, and the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk being disturbed during the 8th to 7th centuries BC. The migration of the Scythians also displaced other populations, including some North Caucasian groups who retreated to the west and settled in Transylvania and the Hungarian Plain where they introduced Novocherkassk culture type swords, daggers, horse harnesses, and other objects: among these displaced populations from the Caucasus were the Sigynnae, who were displaced westward into the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin.

During this early migratory period, some groups of Scythians settled in Ciscaucasia and the Caucasus Mountains' foothills to the east of the Kuban river, where they settled among the native populations of this region, and did not migrate to the south into West Asia.

Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south along the coast of the Black Sea and reached Anatolia, and the Scythians in turn later expanded to the south, following the coast of the Caspian Sea and arrived in the Ciscaucasian steppes, from where they expanded into the region of present-day Azerbaijan, where they settled and turned eastern Transcaucasia into their centre of operations in West Asia until the early 6th century BC, with this presence in West Asia being an extension of the Scythian kingdom of the steppes. During this period, the Scythian kings' headquarters were located in the Ciscaucasian steppes, and contact with the civilisation of West Asia would have an important influence on the formation of Scythian culture. This presence in Transcaucasia influenced Scythian culture: the sword and socketed bronze arrowheads with three edges, which are considered as typically "Scythian weapons," were of Transcaucasian origin and had been adopted by the Scythians during their stay in the Caucasus.

From their base in the Caucasian Steppe, during the period of the 8th to 7th centuries BC itself, the Scythians conquered the Pontic Steppe to the north of the Black Sea up to the Danube river, which formed the western boundary of Scythian territory onwards, although the Scythians may also have had access to the Wallachian and Moldavian plains. This expansion displaced another nomadic Iranian people related to the Scythians, the Agathyrsi, who were the oldest Iranian population to have dominated the Pontic Steppe, and who were pushed westwards by the Scythians, away from the steppes and from their original home around Lake Maeotis, after which the relations between the two populations remained hostile. In the Pontic Steppe, the Scythians spread throughout the territory of the Early Iranian populations of the Catacomb culture and intermarried with them.

The westward migration of the Scythians was accompanied by the introduction into the north Pontic region of articles originating in the Siberian Karasuk culture and which were characteristic of Early Scythian archaeological culture, consisting of cast bronze cauldrons, daggers, swords, and horse harnesses. Several smaller groups were likely also displaced by the Scythian expansion.

Beginning in this period, remains associated with the early Scythians started appearing within interior Europe, especially in the Thracian and Hungarian plains, although it is yet unclear whether these represent any actual Scythian migration into these regions or whether these arrived there through trade or raids.

West Asia

During the earliest phase of their presence in West Asia, the Scythians under their king Išpakaia were allied with the Cimmerians, and the two groups, in alliance with the Medes, who were an Iranian people of West Asia to whom the Scythians and Cimmerians were distantly related, as well as the Mannaeans, were threatening the eastern frontier of the kingdom of Urartu and the then superpower of West Asia, the Neo-Assyrian Empire. These allied forces were defeated by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, and Išpakaia was later killed in a retaliatory military campaign by Esarhaddon.

Išpakaia was succeeded by Bartatua, who sought a rapprochement with the Assyrians and married Esarhaddon's daughter Serua-eterat. Bartatua's marriage to Serua-eterat required that he would pledge allegiance to Assyria as a vassal, with the territories ruled by him would be his fief granted by the Assyrian king, thus making the Scythian presence in West Asia an extension of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and henceforth, the Scythians remained allies of the Assyrian Empire, with Bartatua helping the Assyrians by defeating the state of Mannai and imposing Scythian hegemony over it.

The marital alliance between the Scythian king and the Assyrian ruling dynasty, as well as the proximity of the Scythians with the Assyrian-influenced Mannai and Urartu, placed the Scythians under the strong influence of Assyrian culture.

Bartatua was succeeded by his son with Serua-eterat, Madyes, who in 653 BC invaded the Medes who were engaged in a war against Assyria, thus starting a period which Herodotus of Halicarnassus called the "Scythian rule over Asia." Madyes soon expanded the Scythian hegemony to the state of Urartu, and, soon after 635 BC, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under Madyes entered Anatolia and defeated the Cimmerians. Scythian power in West Asia thus reached its peak under Madyes, with the territories ruled by the Scythians extending from the Halys river in Anatolia in the west to the Caspian Sea and the eastern borders of Media in the east, and from Transcaucasia in the north to the northern borders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the south.

By the 620s BC, the Assyrian Empire began unravelling after the death of Esarhaddon's son and successor, Ashurbanipal: in addition to internal instability within Assyria itself, Babylon revolted against the Assyrians in 626 BC under the leadership of Nabopolassar, and in 625 BC the Median king Cyaxares overthrew the Scythian yoke over the Medes by assassinating the Scythian leaders, including Madyes. The Scythians soon took advantage of the power vacuum created by the crumbling of the power of their former Assyrian allies to overrun the Levant and Palestine until the borders of Egypt, from where they turned back after their advance was stopped by the marshes of the Nile Delta and the pharaoh Psamtik I met them and convinced them to turn back by offering them gifts; they retreated through Askalōn largely without any incident, although some stragglers looted the temple of Astarte in the city; the perpetrators of this sacrilege and their descendants were allegedly afflicted by the goddess with a "female disease," due to which they became a class of transvestite diviners called the (meaning "unmanly" in Scythian). Starting around 615 BC, the Scythians were operating as allies of Cyaxares and the Medes in their war against Assyria.

The Scythians were finally expelled from West Asia by the Medes in the 600s BC, after which they retreated to the Pontic Steppe. Some splinter Scythian groups nevertheless remained in West Asia and settled in Transcaucasia, and one group formed a kingdom in the area corresponding to modern-day Azerbaijan in eastern Transcaucasia. By the middle of the 6th century BC, the Scythians who had remained in West Asia had completely assimilated culturally and politically into Median society and no longer existed as a distinct group.

The Pontic Steppe

After their expulsion from West Asia, and beginning in the later 7th and lasting throughout much of the 6th century BC, the majority of the Scythians, including the Royal Scythians, migrated into the Kuban Steppe around 600 BC, and from Ciscaucasia into the Pontic Steppe, which became the centre of Scythian power, and in the western Ciscaucasia, from where the Scythians, not large in number enough to spread throughout Ciscaucasia, instead took over the steppe to the south of the Kuban river's middle course; the northwards migration of the Scythians continued throughout the 6th century BC. Using the Pontic Steppe as their base, the Scythians often raided into the adjacent regions, with Central Europe being a frequent target of their raids. In many parts of their north Pontic kingdom, the Scythians established themselves as a ruling class over already present sedentary populations, including Thracians in the western regions, Maeotians on the eastern shore of Lake Maeotis, and later the Greeks on the north coast of the Black Sea.

Outside of the Pontic Scythian kingdom itself, some splinter Scythian groups formed the Vorskla and Sula-Donets groups of the Scythian Culture in the East European Forest Steppe.

Between 650 and 625 BC, the Scythians of the northern Pontic region came into contact with the Greeks, who were starting to create colonies in the areas under Scythian rule; the Greeks carried out thriving commercial ties with the sedentary peoples of the East European Forest Steppe who lived to the north of the Scythians, with the large rivers of eastern Europe which flowed into the Black Sea forming the main access routes to these northern markets. This process put the Scythians into permanent contact with the Greeks, and the relations between the latter and the Greek colonies remained peaceful.

In 513 BC, the king Darius I of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which had succeeded the Median, Lydian, Egyptian, and Neo-Babylonian empires which the Scythians had once interacted with, carried out a campaign against the Pontic Scythians, with the reasons for this campaign being unclear. Darius's invasion was resisted by the Scythian king Idanthyrsus, and the results of this campaign were also unclear, with the Persian inscriptions themselves referring to the Pontic Scythians as having been conquered by Darius, while Greek authors instead claimed that Darius's campaign failed and from then onwards developed a tradition of idealising the Scythians as being invincible thanks to their nomadic lifestyle.

In the 5th century BC, the Scythians embarked on expansionist ventures, including in the west, where they raided south of the Danube into Thrace until the formation of the Thracian Odrysian kingdom blocked their advances, after which the Scythians formed an alliance with the Odrysians; as well as in the north, where they imposed their rule on the peoples of the forest steppe; and in the south, where they brought the Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea under their power.

The peak of the Scythian kingdom of the Pontic Steppe happened in the 4th century BC, at the same time when the Greek cities of the coast were prospering, and the relations between the two were mostly peaceful; the rule of the Spartocid dynasty in the Bosporan Kingdom was also favourable for the Scythians, and the Bosporan aristocracy had contacts with the Scythians. This period saw Scythian culture not only thriving, with most known Scythian monuments date from then, but also rapidly undergoing significant Hellenisation.

The most famous Scythian king of the 4th century BC was Ateas, whose rule started around the 360s BC, and under whom the Greek cities to the south of the Danube were brought under Scythian hegemony; Ateas's main activities in Thrace and south-west Scythia, such as his wars against the Triballi and the Histriani, attest of the power that the Scythians held to the south of the Danube in his time. Ateas initially allied with Philip II of Macedonia, but eventually this alliance fell apart and Ateas was killed during a war with the Macedonians in 339 BC.

In the 3rd century BC, the expansion in the northern Pontic region of the Sarmatians, who were another nomadic Iranian people related to the Scythians, as well as of the Thracian Getae, the Germanic Bastarnae and Sciri, and of the Celts, the Scythian kingdom disappeared from the Pontic Steppe and the Sarmatians replaced the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic Steppe, due to which the appellation of "Scythia" for the region became replaced by that of "" (European Sarmatia).

Scythia Minor

The Scythians fled to the in Crimea, where they were able to securely establish themselves against the Sarmatian invasion despite tensions with the Greeks, and to the in Dobrugea, as well as in nearby regions, where they became limited in enclaves. The remnants of the Scythians on the Pontic Steppe settled down in a series of fortified settlements located along the main rivers of the region. By then, these Scythians were no longer nomadic: they had become sedentary farmers and were Hellenised, and the only places where the Scythians could still be found by the 2nd century BC were in the s of Crimea and Dobrugea, as well as in the lower reaches of the Dnipro river.

By 50 to 150 AD, most of the Scythians had been assimilated by the Sarmatians. The remaining Scythians of Crimea, who had mixed with the Tauri and the Sarmatians, were conquered in the 3rd century AD by the Goths and other Germanic tribes who were then migrating from the north into the Pontic Steppe.

Legacy

In subsequent centuries, remaining Scythians and Sarmatians were largely assimilated by early Slavs. The Scythians and Sarmatians played an instrumental role in the ethnogenesis of the Ossetians, who are considered direct descendants of the Alans.: "Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes, specifically the Scythians and Sarmatians, are special among the North Caucasian peoples. The Scytho-Sarmatians were instrumental in the ethnogenesis of some of the modern peoples living today in the Caucasus. Of importance in this group are the Ossetians, an Iranian-speaking group of people who are believed to have descended from the North Caucasian Alans."

In Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the name "Scythians" was used in Greco-Roman and Byzantine literature for various groups of nomadic " barbarians" living on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe who were not related to the actual Scythians, such as the Huns, Goths, Ostrogoths, Turkic peoples, Pannonian Avars, Slavs, and Khazars.: "Greek authors ..frequently applied the name Scythians to later nomadic groups who had no relation whatever to the original Scythians" For example, Byzantine sources referred to the Rus' raiders who attacked Constantinople in 860 AD in contemporary accounts as " Tauroscythians" because of their geographical origin, and despite their lack of any ethnic relation to Scythians. Scythian descent claims have been frequent throughout history.

The New Testament includes a single reference to Scythians in Colossians 3:11.

Culture and society

Since the Scythians did not have a written language, their non-material culture can only be pieced together through writings by non-Scythian authors, parallels found among other Iranian peoples, and archaeological evidence.

In a fragment from the comic writer Euphron quoted in '' Deipnosophistae'' poppy seeds are mentioned as a "food which the Scythians love."

Language

The Scythians spoke a language belonging to the Scythian languages, most probably a branch of the Eastern Iranian languages. Whether all the peoples included in the "Scytho-Siberian" archaeological culture spoke languages from this family is uncertain.

The Scythian languages may have formed a dialect continuum: "Scytho-Sarmatian" in the west and "Scytho-Khotanese" or Saka in the east. The Scythian languages were mostly marginalised and assimilated as a consequence of the late antiquity and early Middle Ages Slavic and Turkic expansion. The western (Sarmatian) group of ancient Scythian survived as the medieval language of the Alans and eventually gave rise to the modern Ossetian language.

Lifestyle

The early Scythians tribes were nomadic pastoralists, and their lifestyle and customs were inextricably linked to their nomadic way of life; the Scythians were able to raise large herds of horses, cattle and sheep thanks to the abundance of grass growing in the steppe, while hunting was primarily done for sport and entertainment; among the more nomadic Scythian tribes, the women and children spent their time in wagons where they lived, while the men spent their lives on horseback and were trained as fighters and in archery since an early age. But by the time the Scythians were living in the Pontic Steppe, beginning in the 7th century BC, they had become semi-nomadic and practised both nomadism and farming, although the Scythian tribes living in the steppe zone remained primarily nomadic.

The Scythians did not use saddles or stirrups, which were a later Sarmatian invention, and they rode their horses sitting only on a piece of cloth.

Unlike the other Scythic peoples such as the Sarmatians, where women were allowed to go hunting, ride horses, learn archery and fight with spears just like the men, the society of the Scythians proper was patriarchal and Scythian women possessed little freedom. Due to the Scythians' nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, Scythian women nevertheless learnt to use weapons because they were in charge of the herds and the home when the men were away fighting in wars.

The tribe of the , who were a population of either Scythian or mixed Thracian and Scythian origin, were sedentary farmers who cultivated wheat, onions, garlic, lentils and millet.

Wine was primarily consumed by the Scythian aristocracy during the earlier phase of their kingdom in the Pontic Steppe, and its consumption became more prevalent among the wealthier members of the populace in the Late Scythian period.

Clothing

The Scythians wore clothing typical of the steppe nomads: the clothing of Scythian men included trousers and belts, they wore pointed caps during earlier periods, but they went bareheaded in later times; Scythian women wore long dresses and mantles decorated with triangular or round metallic plates, which were made of gold for wealthier women and of bronze for poorer women, and women belonging to the upper classes wore cloaks over their dresses and a veil over their head.

Scythian men and women both wore golden and brazen jewellery: both wore bracelets made of silver or bronze wire and neckrings and torcs made of gold and whose terminals were shaped like animal figures or animal heads; necklaces worn by the Scythians were made of gold and semi-precious stone beads; men wore only one earring. Scythian men also grew their hair long and their beards to significant sizes.

Costume has been regarded as one of the main identifying criteria for Scythians. Women wore a variety of different headdresses, some conical in shape others more like flattened cylinders, also adorned with metal (golden) plaques.

Men and women wore long trousers, often adorned with metal plaques and often embroidered or adorned with felt appliqués; trousers could have been wider or tight fitting depending on the area. Materials used depended on the wealth, climate and necessity.

Men and women wore belts. Warrior belts were made of leather, often with gold or other metal adornments and had many attached leather thongs for fastening of the owner's gorytos, sword, whet stone, whip etc. Belts were fastened with metal or horn belt-hooks, leather thongs and metal (often golden) or horn belt-plates.

Scythian women used mirrors, and many Scythian women's burials contained Greek-made bronze mirrors. Bronze mirrors made in Pontic Olbia and whose handles were decorated with animal figures such as those of stags, panthers, and rams, were popular during the early Scythian periods.

Social organisation

Scythian society was stratified along class lines, and was composed of a tribal aristocracy and freemen. A rudimentary form of slavery existed in Scythia, and slaves were only used domestically by the Scythians.

The Scythians were monarchical, and the Scythians were ruled by tribal kings who held power over their respective tribes and who in turn owed allegiance to the king of the Royal Scythians, with the subject tribes paying tribute to the Royal Scythians and provided servants to the king and the Scythian tribal aristocracy. The power of the king among the Scythians was passed on hereditarily, although it was limited by an assembly of warriors. Royal power among the Scythians was considered as having been divinely ordained: this conception of royal power, which is well documented in the ritual symbols depicted on Late Scythian toreutics, was initially foreign to Scythian culture and originated in West Asia during the period of Scythian presence there in the 7th century BC. According to the Scythologists Askold Ivantchik and Mikhail Bukharin, the Scythians had been ruled by at least three dynasties, including that of Bartatua, that of Spargapeithes, and that of Ariapeithes. The historian and anthropologist Anatoly Khazanov instead suggested that the Scythians had been ruled by the same dynasty from the time of their stay in West Asia until the end of their kingdom in the Pontic Steppe.

By the 4th century BC, the Scythians had become organised into a rudimentary state after the king Ateas united all the Scythian tribes. This early state was itself based on the exploitation of the freemen within its social community.

The tribe of the Aroteres consisted of a large sedentary populace of Thracian origin over which ruled an Iranic Scythian ruling class. These Aroteres were a war-like people who were organised into small territorial units settled in who lived in open undefended settlements and strongholds covering between sixteen and twenty-four hectares, each possessing a large industrial centre, and which each functioned as industrial centres, attesting of the complexity of the Tiasmyn group's society. The earthworks of the Aroteres contained within them kurgan cemeteries, lasting from the 6th to 3rd centuries, that each included up to 400 kurgans where their inhabitants were buried, showing that these sites had dense populations. Among the Aroteres, the sedentary Thracians were cremated or buried, usually laid on their backs or sometimes crouched, in poorly furnished shaft tombs, while the Scythian ruling class were buried in large, almost square, underground burial chambers with timber sepulchres and wooden posts in each corner and in the centre supporting their rooves, with some having a corridor and steps cut from the ground, and whose grave goods included Greek pottery, weapons, and jewellery. During the Early Scythian period, the country of the Scythian Husbandsmen had close connections to the Greek colony of Pontic Olbia which ended during the late 5th century BC, when the Scythians imposed their rule over the Greek cities on the Black Sea shore.

The Callipidae also consisted of a large settled Thracian population with a Scythian ruling class who were considerably Hellenised. The Callipidae lived in open settlements and earthworks, and cultivated crops including wheat and millet, and also engaged in animal husbandry and fishing at sea. The Callipidae lived in rammed earth houses built on stone foundations, and they buried their dead in flat graves while their Scythian ruling class were buried in kurgans.

The class and social differences among the Scythians were reflected in Scythian art, which primarily represented concepts of importance for the aristocracy, but not for the commoner population.

Warfare

The Scythians were a warlike people. When engaged at war, almost the entire adult population, including a large number of women, participated in battle. The Athenian historian Thucydides noted that no people in either Europe or Asia could resist the Scythians without outside aid.

The main Scythian weapon was the short composite recurve bow; presently so-called "Scythian type" arrows were not a Scythian invention but had been borrowed during the Scythian period in West Asia from the peoples of Transcaucasia, were made either of reed or of wood, and their arrowheads were typically socketed and had three edges; the combination of arrowheads shape and short recurve bow used by the Scythians constituted the most powerful firing weapon of their time, due to which these were borrowed from the Scythians by ancient West Asian armies in the late 2nd century BC, and soon after by most of the ancient world. When not used, Scythian bows were carried in a combined quiver-bowcase, made of bark or leather and decorated with golden or bronze plaque, called a , of which each could contain up to 300 arrows. The sword, which was a 50 to 70 centimetres short iron dagger, which whose haft was richly decorated, and shaft-hole war axes, which are also considered to be "typically Scythian" weapons, were also adopted by the Scythians from the Transcaucasian populations, and more specifically were derived from Georgian Bronze Age weapons. The Scythians also used long swords during their earlier history, and both the and the Scythian long swords had heart- or similarly "butterfly"- or "kidney"-shaped cross-guards and bar-shaped terminals. The battle-pickaxes, which had bronze sockets and iron blades, were among the many types of war axes used by the Scythians. Other Scythian weapons included spears which were between 1.70 and 2.20 metres in length and had a bay leaf-shaped spearhead and sometimes a ferrule at the bottom, as well as lances, darts, lassoes, and slings.

The Scythians used leather or hide armour, although the aristocracy commonly used scale armour

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