Who were Scythians?

Europeans:

vikings, saxons, celts

also, the vikings may also have been descendents of the scythians, however that is not yet 100% proven.

100 %?? There's a few hints-nothing more.Every speculation can be easily explained through common IE "ancestry".

also, the nazi's believed that they were of the saxon tribes, which were descendants of the scythians, therefore they were aryans.  and germans today still believe that their ancestors came from central asia, and ofcourse, the germans are indo european.

All of this is highly dubious...not to mention that what that painter wanna be claimed had nothing to do with reality...

 

An interesting exerpt from some work by Fred Hamori based on works by Gyula Mészáros on Scythian roots:

REAL SCYTHAINS OF MESOPOTAMIA

It is a common fallacy to call Scythians Iranians based on the fact that the Greeks continued to use the Scythian name long after the disappearance of the Northern Mesopotamian & Anatolian Scythians who were conquered and absorbed by the Iranian Suoramata. The association of the conquered with the conqueror however is common but still inaccurate. After this event there occurred such a confusion in the minds of the Greeks concerning their previous northern neighbors that they applied the term to other nomadic or equestrian people with similar outward habits, including the Saurmatians, Huns, Turks and later even Germanic tribes. This progression only occurred over a long time when the "Scythian" term became a gross generalization of a horse-nomad. Yet the original Scythians were not nomads and had cities, ships arts and trades, which the early Greeks admired. The later Pseudo Scythians often copied some of their arts and habits but were but a poor imitation of the original.

The real Scythians, however lived first in Anatolia before the 7th century BC, then moved in large numbers to the Kuban Region in early 6th century BC, then to the Pontic Steppes and later to eastern Europe and to Turkestan. Before this time they must have conducted long term trade with the region also. They greatly influenced the culture of the peoples they interacted with including the so called Finnougrians in the north and also the Hunic-Turkic peoples in the east and probably also some Indo Europeans. The important question which we may never be able to answer with absolute certainty is, were they the real ancestors of the common language strata in Ural-Altaic? This can only be partially true unless their influence was from a much much earlier time then their northern migration. The reason I even mention this is that it appears that the decoded words I have found in Scythian is often found in these languages also, as well as their late descendants in the Kartwelian Languages of the lace wt="on">Caucasuslace>. Following this historical introduction a systematic review of the Scythian language remains will be introduced using early Anatolian languages as comparison, based on the linguistic researches of Gyula Mészáros (Hattic and Pakhy languages), with some addition from my own review of Hurrian and Sumerian.

We know relatively little of the early Scythian language, except that it came from ancient lace wt="on">Anatolialace> and therefore must be related to the languages of that region such as Hattic, Hurrian, Subarian. Indeed if these are used as a guide much of the language of these "real Scythians" from 6century BC to the 2nd century BC can be decyphered, whereas they cannot be understood with the help of Iranian languages. Only the later Sauromata and later pseudo Scyth language remains can be understood with Iranian. To make the confusion more complete, the conquering Sauromata also must have absorbed large Scythic elements which often kept many of their old customs, but were forced to change their languages. Therefore outwardly they must have seemed to be the same people. The explosion of Scythic peoples in the east could not just be a population explosion of one people but the whole conquered patchwork of peoples.

First of all a comparison of early Scythian customs, art forms, religious beliefs and even their first historic mention is all from Anatolia and Northern Messopotamia. First in Assyrian documents. The early Greek writers confirm this also. Therefore they were not a northern people at all ! Nor an eastern one from lace wt="on">Central Asialace>. Plinius writes of their origins "Ultra sunt Scytharum populi, Persae illos Sacas in universum appellavere a proxima gente, antiqui Arameos." They came from an area in Northern Messopotamia often called Arameos, which is but a name of Urartu whose first king was called t="on">lace wt="on">Aramlace>. Later the term was also applied to t="on">Syria where another colony of Scythians & Hati-Hittites (2000BC to 714BC) settled after the collapse of their old empire in lace wt="on">Anatolialace>. Indeed this was but one of the reasons for the spreading of Anatolian people to the north also. Both Assyrian and Mede attacks forced them to look for new lands to settle./Meszaros

Herodotus also tells of the origin of the Scythians from the area of eastern Anatolia watered by the laceName wt="on">AraxeslaceName> laceType wt="on">RiverlaceType> (modern Turkish Aras) and not the lace wt="on">Amu Daryalace> which the historians of Alexander invented to enlarge their own conquests. Herodotus writes: "The nomad Scythians living in Asia (once only the near east) were attacked by the Sarmatians and were forced to cross the lace wt="on">Araxeslace> and wander to the land of the Kimmerians."

This is but one late version of a confused story, other early Greeks tell it differently that the warlike Scythians crossed over on their own account. The Sarmatian attack was a later event, but they must have been a long time thorn in their side because Herodotus mentioned them living to the north of the Scythians of the Black Sea regions and not close to their old homelands along the lace wt="on">Araxeslace>.

Hesiod, 7th Century BC, writes: The inventors of bronze working were the Scythians. The early Messopotamian name of the metal Zubur, indicates that the northern Messopotamian Subartuan's or a people of the region were indeed the inventors of the process. The Scythians also of this region were therefore but a different designation of such people that the Greeks associated with them.

The Greeks also associated the invention of iron working with the Scythians. This again is a northern Messopotamian and Anatolian invention and being Anatolian in origin the Scythians also had some great iron working tribes like the Kalybs tribe which gave steel its name in many early European languages. In time they became absorbed by the Sarmatians and Yazig. They must have also been remembered by the Yazig cavalry taken by the Romans to early t="on">lace wt="on">Britainlace> and were the foundation of the King Arthur myths of Ex-Calibur, and the sword myths which are all early Anatolian traditions. These traditions were also found in Hun and Magyar traditions and mentioned by Herodotus amongst the early Scythians.

Besides bronze and iron they are credited by the early Greeks to have invented the bellows used for metal smelting. The invention of the pottery wheel and the boat anchor. Products of a very early civilization.

Therefore when Justinius II writes that the Scythians are one of the most ancient races in the world, older than the Egyptians, He cannot be talking of simply the late Scythian immigrants to the Pontic steppes but the early northern Messopotamian cultures. Similarly he cannot be talking of the Iranian tribesmen which spread into lace wt="on">Central Asialace>. Nor is he talking of the later Hun tribes for sure, since they were hardly known for a such a long time in the west.

It is Deodorus Siculus who talks of the death and disappearance of the true Scythians at the hands of the Sarmatians, who could not have been their relatives, and therefore not real Scythians. The early Scythian art style is an extension of Messopotamian art, a fact which cannot be denied any longer. The illustration of early Scythians also looks like a branchycephalic Anatolian race, which from early times has also been slowly spreading into lace wt="on">Eastern Europelace> (Körös Culture). They absorbed some northern dolycephalic peoples also but these represented less then 10% of their population. Today in Europe the lace wt="on">laceType wt="on">territorylaceType> of laceName wt="on">Old HungarylaceName>lace> is the center of branchycephalic types. This type is growing throughout Europe and dolycephalic types last remnants are in t="on">lace wt="on">Englandlace> and the northern Germanic areas. Looking at early Scythian representation one may as well be looking at the representation of a Hurrian or Assyrian, minus the curly hair.

One of the main introductions of the Scythians is iron weapons and horse riding. Both of Anatolian origin.

Representation of horse soldiers from the Mitani-Hurrian state from 12century BC and Hittite reliefs from the 14th and 12th century show its early sporadic use, just waiting for the right equipment to be developed.

The horse is utilized mainly to pull a chariot rather than an unstable back of the horse, until basic saddles are invented by the scythians and much better saddles and stirrups are invented by the Hunno-Turkic peoples. (1AD Hun stirrups). The name of the horse, warhorse and charriot in Hungarian are all from northern Messopotamia. Horse riding equipment like saddles, reins, strirrups are from Hunno-Turkic languages. None by way of any Indo European language..

The Scythians were famous above all because of their horsemanship and great knowledge of raising and riding horses. This comes from their old homeland as is shown by the documents of Sargon (722-705BC).

North East of Urmia-lake in Urartu, there was a Sangi-buti land with two cities famous for its horses.

The Chaldi (Urartu) signs from the 8th century BC also talk of the land between the Transcaucasian Kura and lace wt="on">laceName wt="on">AraxeslaceName> laceType wt="on">RiverlaceType>lace> area and often mentions their horses. From a military expedition they obtained 10,000s of horned cattle and 100, 000 s of sheep, and 100s of horses. /Mescaninov, t="on">lace wt="on">Leningradlace> (Chaldi ...?)

After this introduction I have used the pioneering work of Gyula Meszaros, into a comparative study of the language of the Scythians. Introducing basic words and their application in recorded Scythian names and titles which remain in many examples. Unfortunately no large textual remains are found today making it difficult to validate all of his comparisons. Even so this is a great lurch forward in a long stalemated study which up to now were utilizing simplistic associations with sound alike names, that could be described in many random ways, but forming no cohesive system.

Before the end of this sections let me at least give a few examples of what will follow in a later report.

Sco-lo-et-i =the name of the ruling Scythian people

Sco-lo-pi-t-(us) = a Scythian kings name /Justinius II

1)Sco =rule, chief /Scyth

šxa =man, sir /Pakhy

sha =chief /Hatti

išha =sir /Hittite

sag' =head, isag=chief /Sumer

sang =head, peak /Ugrian

2)lo =people, folk, (army-large group)

lu-lu =people /Sumerian

la =army /Hatti

?lo-fu =chief -head ruler of the late Huns near China

3) et =to be/being

They believed that they originated from the son of the sky/weather god, called TAR

Hence the name TAR-gi-ta or more correctly tar-xu-ta =HIGH/WEATHER God.+son's+ land./Meszaros.

His children therefore are TAR-XU, which is one possible source of the TURK name also.

History has also shown that the Magyar term is generally found in early references in association with Scythians rather than in the north and the Hungarian Chronicles state their Scythian links. But these are different branches of a once related group to which Scythians serve only as a later offshoot. Each group with languages that have somewhat different phonetic characteristics, but often with similar terms and an agglutinative language structure, no gender in pronouns, and so on. The following sections will cover the proposals of Gyula Meszaros written in the 30s and ignored ever since.

Mészáros claims that the Scythians had a triple kingship system, which is symbolized in their legend of origin and also at times when under attack three leaders arise to rally the people against the invaders. This is like the Khazars and Magyars, who each ruled a special area of society. One, the theocratic king or the ruler of the royal house, which is Leipoxis is much like the Hungarian Kende, who had no power outside of his area. There was the ruler of all the armies, the Scythian Arpoxais, who wielded considerable power over the free men, the nobles and army, this was the Gyula title whose name was Árpád, who was the Jula in Kazaria. Then there was the last ruler Kolaxis in lace wt="on">Scythialace> and the Hungarian Horka, who was the ruler over the common people. The Hungarian Horka was the chief judge also. He ruled over the "black heads", the common workers, farmers, craftsmen etc. Horka? Kara=black in Turkic. The common people were called the "Pa-ra-la-ti" in Scythian. Pa-ra=land-black-people, but this also means dust, sand in Sumerian "par-im", Hungarian "por" and Turkic "bar" also. The "Para-szt" are the lowly peasants in Hungarian. The only strange thing with this explanation is that the legend seems to emphasize the importance of Kolax(is) as the chose one of god, when he alone is able to lift the various tools of gold that god rains down from above. Perhaps these too just represent the tools of the workers, which the warrior king and the theocratic king cannot and must not touch! But not so, only the first two the golden plow and yoke are work tools, the sword should be for Arpoxais and the golden goblet generally used for prayers should be for Leipoxais.>>

Originally posted by Iranian41ife im just telling you want some people believe because the other guy was trying to use the fact that some turks today claim to be descendants of the saka's (scythians). i was trying to show him exactly what you said.

Ok. however, never use nazi propaganda as any kind of evidence...their claims were\are extremely superficial and contradictory...

As for the Scythians-it's 100 % sure they were IE's- iranics-more precisely.Their life-style was once common for all IE's... 

Originally posted by Suevari Originally posted by Iranian41ife so basically the article is saying that the scythians were neither turkic nor iranic but some anatolian tribe??? this article raises even more questions, however, it doesnt answer much. Hmm, true it does complicate matters, but it also questions the up until now total acceptance of them being Iranic.  Their history is shadowy. Same goes for Sarmations who's roots are also arguable.

no, one article does not question anything.

for something to be changed or disrupted, it has to be accepted by the whole historical community.

as i have pointed out before, most historians say they are indo european/indo iranian.

one article means nothing.

Originally posted by barbar   The majority of Historians who you are talking about always differ the Indo European and Indo Iranian.While the latter only includes Indic and Iranic.  Such as Greek were IE, but not II. Keep this always in mind.

most actually do refer to them as being either indo european or indo iranian.

remember that indo european is just the group as a whole, it has different sects within that group. so one historian can call them indo european, refering to the whole race of indo europeans which includes iranians, germans, afghans, etc... and another historian might be more specific and say indo iranian, which cuts out about half of the indo european sect.

get it? but still, most consider them indo european/indo iranian.

Originally posted by barbar   So you know Indo iranian is a subbranch of Indo european, then why do you use slash as to imply IE equals II? One correction though, there is no subbranch as Afghans in IE. Iranic is Indo European, more specifically Indo iranian. Celtic is Indo european, but not Indo iranian. According to this article, Sychians might be a subbranch of IE like Celtic, Anatolian etc. Now it should be clear to you.

no, when i say indo european/indo iranian i mean that they are of the indo european branch, but specifically indo iranian.

 

ok, again, you are making the same mistake that other turks are making.

you are assuming that central asia has always been turkic. persians, parthians, medeans, etc... also came from central asia. indo europeans are also central asians, were also nomadic, were also horse riders, etc...

central asia is not only home to the turkic peoples. it is today, however, thousands of years ago it was mostly iranic.

you are assuming that just because they came from central asia that they must be turkic.

and everything herodotus says about the scythians points to them being iranic, especially the words herodotus wrote down that were scythian.

and saka and sak are used by many different people and mean different things in different places.  socrates and i made that clear on the top of the page.

and you also are using names and words that have "sak" in them to justify your claims.

other words with sak and saka sounding combinations:

Sacagawea- Shoshone Indian who assisted the historic Lewis and Clark expedition

saka-saka- Congolese for casava leaves.

i can show you thousands of examples like these.

are the native americans scythians? are the congolese scythians? no.

 

and the domestication of wolves/dogs happened before the central asian tribes:

Dogs: from 12,000 years ago The earliest known evidence of a domesticated dog is a jawbone found in a cave in Iraq and dated to about 12,000 years ago. It differs from a wolf in that it has been bred to have a smaller jaw and teeth. Selective breeding affects a species quite rapidly, and is a natural process for man to initiate - probably at first by accident rather than intention. A particular puppy in a litter is favoured because it has an attractive coat, barks well, is unusually friendly or obedient, noticeably large or small. This is the dog which is kept and in its turn has puppies. Its desirable characteristics become perpetuated.   bom Images in Egyptian paintings, Assyrian sculptures and Roman mosaics reveal that by the time of these civilizations there are many different shapes and sizes of dog. To use the word 'breed' may be anachronistic, though there is evidence that a dog very like the present-day Pekingese (almost as far as one can get from a wolf) exists in China by the 1st century AD. By that time Roman ladies also have lap dogs; their warmth is believed to be a cure for stomach ache. A Roman writer of the period gives similarly practical reasons for selecting the colour of a dog: shepherds' dogs should be white (to distinguish them from wolves in the dark) but a farmyard dog should have a black coat (to frighten thieves).   bon

you also claim that scythians are the ancestors of turkic tribes.... with what evidence? your own opinion?

again, like socrates and i showed earlier, many people from the celts in europe to the pashtuns to some turkic tribes in central asia claim to be the real descendents of the scythians.

again, most historians classify them as indo european/indo iranian.

and by the way, your english is good.

Edited by Iranian41ife

Originally posted by Alp Ertunga central asia is not only home to the turkic peoples. it is today, however, thousands of years ago it was mostly iranic  can you tell me what is the difination of " iranic" ,

iranic people are the people who speak or spoke an iranian language, such as kurds, persians, aghans, tajiks, etc...

Originally posted by Alp Ertunga you are assuming that just because they came from central asia that they must be turkic. no,i didint mean they are turks, i just think they are the ancester of some turkik tribes,just as they are the ancester of iranic people.

well, as i pointed out earlier, many different people claim to be the descendants of scythians. we can just believe people because they say so. there is no way know if someone today is a descendant because scythians died out thousand years ago.

Originally posted by Alp Ertunga you also claim that scythians are the ancestors of turkic tribes.... with what evidence? your own opinion? a lot of peoples here ,have given you more evidence,but you still didint belive that,so i think it is not nececcery anymore evedence to you,i just ask you a question : you know ,scythians are the nomadic people,nomadic peoples often went far far away just for find a good steps,so why do you thing there is no possibility that any of scythian tribes became a turkik tribe ??

no, no one provided any evidence, they just provided their own opinions, like you did.

to provide evidence, you need to site sources.

Originally posted by Alp Ertunga most historians classify them as indo european/indo iranian another question, north european people belives that theier ancecter comes from centeral asiya, you said "central asia is not only home to the turkic peoples. it is today, however, thousands of years ago it was mostly iranic."according to your opinin ,all the north evropean people are iranic people??

no, iranics are an indo european people. germans and other such europeans are also indo european, just like iranic, but of another sect.

Originally posted by Alp Ertunga and by the way, your english is good. thankyou,man!im  learning engilish now. i think  it is the goodway to improve my engilish that wright down my opinion there, communicate with people in engilish,so that i can learnengilish,also history from here,so please help me ,correc my writing .

your basic english is very good, however, you do have a lot of grammatical mistakes, but you will learn over time. where do you live? did you take english courses in school?

Alp Ertunga wrote:

you also claim that scythians are the ancestors of turkic tribes.... with what evidence? your own opinion? a lot of peoples here ,have given you more evidence,but you still didint belive that,so i think it is not nececcery anymore evedence to you,i just ask you a question : you know ,scythians are the nomadic people,nomadic peoples often went far far away just for find a good steps,so why do you thing there is no possibility that any of scythian tribes became a turkik tribe ??

I have never read here a such evidence which was scientifically proven, so no evidence at all.

@Barbar, Scythians were assimilated by many races and tribes. They are not dissapeared, and today Ossetian people are the descendants of scythians.

most of not all the scythians left central asia thousands of years ago.

do you have any proof of this opinion?

 its more likely that the scythians and the turkic tribes mixed. that wouldnt make any of the modern turkic tribes descendents, becaus they wouldnt be directly related.

 good, now you  are become  getting closer the truth ,but you did little mistake here .  im an Uyghur, i tell you little about Uyghur history, the modern Uyghurs formed of two groups:  one group is a nomadic people --ancient Uyghurs who migrated from Mungghul steppe ,they were turkik people,another group is the local Tarim basin people who were iranic people ,such as scythian,and later Tocharian .   we  are all beliving that the two groups of people are our ancester .  we are directly related to our iranic ancester as much as our turkik ancester . 

and another one thing that, ancester of ancient Uyghurs who lived in Munghul steppe were a people was called in chinese history as Dingling (2000--3000 years ago)who once lived around the Baykal lake and south Sibiria . according to chinese history books and archiologic evidence made by Russian scintisits ,the Dingling people were  I-E people,they were tall ,blue eyed, yellow or brown haired people . and it is still dont known to us which language the Dingling people spoken.   but later the Dingling people mixed up with Mongghuloid people bacame turkik people and allied with other tribes ,and calles themselves as Uyghur .

thats why i belive that we have same origon .

one question: i read in some books that modern iranian people formed two group people  , one of them nomadic people who came from centeral asia, another group was the local people who apperance similar to Darwi people in the south India . is that right ?

where do you live? did you take english courses in school?

im now living in Kashghar , east Tukistan . yes,i did take engilish course ,but only one year when i begin to learn engilish , thats the reason why my grammer is so bad .so    im studing  engilish grammer now .