[ Hoc expeditum indomitumque hominum genus, externa praedandi aviditate flagrans inmani, per rapinas, finitimorum grassatum et caedes ad usque Halanos pervenit, veteres Massagetas, qui unde sint vel quas incolant terras - quoniam huc res prolapsa est - consentaneum est demonstrare, geographica perplexitate monstrata, quae diu multa indagans acute et varia, tandem repperit veritatis interna.....]
[ omnis igitur aetas et sexus inbellis circa vehicula ipsa versatur, muniisque distringitur mollibus: iuventus vero equitandi usu a prima pueritia coalescens, incedere pedibus existimat vile, et omnes multiplici disciplina prudentes sunt bellatores. unde etiam Persae, qui sunt originitus Scythae, pugnandi sunt peritissimi.]
[ Abundans Hister advenarum magnitudine fluenti Sauromatas praetermeat ad usque amnem Tanaim pertinentes, qui Asiam terminat ab Europa. hoc transito in inmensum extentas Scythiae solitudines Halani inhabitant, ex montium appellatione cognominati, paulatimque nationes conterminas crebritate victoriarum adtritas ad gentilitatem sui vocabuli traxerunt, ut Persae.]
ISIDORI HISPALENSIS [ http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/isidore9.html ] [ Sale filius Iectam, a quo Bactriani, licet eos alii Scytharum exules suspicantur. ] [ Bactriani Scythae fuerunt, qui suorum factione a sedibus suis pulsi iuxta Bactron Orientis fluvium consederunt, ex cuius vocabulo et nomen sortiti. Huius gentis rex fuit Zoroastres, inventor magicae artis.Parthi quoque et ipsi ab Scythis originem trahunt. Fuerunt enim eorum exules, quod etiam eorum vocabulo manifestatur. Nam Scythico sernione exules 'parthi' dic**tur. Hi, similiter ut Bactriani, domesticis seditionibus Scythia pulsi solitudines iuxta Hircaniam primum furtim occupaverunt, deinde pleraque finium etiam virtute obtinuerunt. ] [ Limes est Persicus, qui Scythas ab eis dividit, Scytha cognominatus, a quo limite Scythae a quibusdam perhibentur vocati, gens antiquissima semper habita.] [ Amazones dictae sunt, seu quod simul viverent sine viris, quasi AMA ZON, sive quod adustis dexterioribus mammis essent, ne sagittarum iactus inpediretur, quasi ANEU MAZON. Nudabant enim quam adusserant mammam. Has Titianus Vnimammas dicit. Nam hoc est Amazon, quasi ANEU MAZOU, id est sine mamma. ]
Paul Nazaroff "Hunted Through Central Asia" Oxford University Press 1993
First published 1932
pp.286-288
Over an immense area in Asia where the
wandering Kazakhs have scattered, their manner of life and their
peculiar culture, developed through millenia of existence in the free
open steppe, is the same, identical in space and identical, too, in
time. These nomads were free to move about the plains at their own
sweet will, as though upon an open sea, and there was nothing to
prevent the Kazakhs of the Tian Shan from wandering away to steppes of
Siberia, of the Ural or the Volga, except, of course, nowadays the
Bolshevik Government.
This freedom and the mobility of the nomads of the steppe has evolved
their own peculiar culture, character and manner of life, and has
played a very important part in the history of Asia, which has not yet
been properly appreciated by historians nor sufficiently studied. It
has reacted profoundly on the fate of Russia, and even Western Europe
has by no means escaped its influence. The burning sands of Egypt, the
valleys of Mesopotamia and of Palestine (the myriad horsemen of Gog and
Magog), and of India and the valleys of Russia and of Central Europe
and even Chalons, the Catalaunian plains of France, Hellas, too, and
Rome, all have seen the forbears of our Kazakh of to-day, though under
various names - as Scythians or Massagetae, Huns, Polovtsi, Kipchaks,
Kumans, Pechenegs, Alans, Tartars and so on. On every side their
invasions have left their mark, not only destructive, for sometimes
they have altered the course of historical development and affected the
blood, language, character, manners and customs of the people with whom
they have come into contact. Just as the Normans in their day made use
of their mobility upon the seas to spread their influence and culture
throughout the West, so these nomads of the steppes of Asia have done
the same in the East. The broad belt of grassy plains across the old
continent, which has given rise to the peculiar type of nomad Turki and
his inseparable comrade, the horse of the steppe, has had enormous
influence on the destinies of the settled nations and of civilisation
itself.
All distant invasions and the ` migration of peoples' have been
possible owing to one single factor, hitherto ignored by historians,
and that is the horse of the steppes. This animal is endowed with most
valuable qualities of supporting fatigue and of endless endurance and
the power of keeping up prolonged hard work on green food only, on mere
grazing, of which other races of horse are quite incapable, being
dependent on corn. These outstanding qualities of the steppe horse were
fully appreciated and widely used by the great military leaders of
Asia, conquerors, Jenghiz Khan, Tamerlane and the others [1], which
explains the secret of their success.
The limits of attainment and conquest of the countless hordes of Asia
depended not upon the powers of resistance of the subject peoples nor
upon their armies, but were defined by the moist meadow grazing, by the
cold damp of the north and by the tropical heat of the valleys of
India, which were fatal to the horse of the Kazakhs.
1 See Ivanoff, ' On the Art of War of the Mongol-Tartars' (in Russian),
a little known but extremely interesting work. Also two papers by me, "
The Scythians Past and Present" ('Edinburgh Review,' July 1929, pp.
108-122), and " The Sons of Gog " (' English Review,' March 1930).
I saw a russian TV-series called "Brigada".There's a Tajikistani there who claims to be Iranian nordic( or similar).Some of other Tajikistanis in the series had some ''iranian'' features (specific nose shape, for instance)-some appeared almost 100% iranian, but most appeared as an irano-turk mixture...and one guy looked more mongolian then anything else...I also found one of the Russians ( Philatov) to have certain iranian characteristics.Anyone saw ''Brigada''?
There is only a part of article about scythian DNA. the another link doesn't work. The DNA was taken from several skeletons in Paziryk. The were mixed origin. Closed to the people from Mountain Altaj or some small north siberian groups. Each one was different mixed between europoid and asian population. All share one haplogroups N1a.
Sorry Cobalt, but your link www.turkicworld.org is an ultranatinalist, pan turkist site. Fake scientist like Polat Kaya are moderating this site. They claim skythians Alani, sarmatian are on turkic stock and summerian were turks. This site has no academic base. Forget this one.
This is from Alan tomb (v. Zmejskaya), North Ossetia, Russia. This looks like related to Iranian Simurg story (The bird carrying branch of Tree of Life).
I am sorry I know too few about musical instruments. However is there any special about that scythian harp? What does make it different from other ones of similar kind? It seems to be very little visual difference between the so-called "scythian harp" and an Ossetian one. See pictures:
Look at guy playing regular (arc) fandur and guy playing "kessun fandur" on left. This is Tuganov's artwork related to Nart Sagas.
This is also Tuganov's artwork "Searching avalanche victims" (1933). There is a man playing "kessun fandur". The "kessun fandur" was popular instrument once, but was replaced by accordion recently.
The Scythians were members of a nomadic people of Iranian Stock who migrated from Iranian Homeland in Central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th - 7th C. BCE.
Centered on what is now the Crimea, the Scythians founded a rich, powerful empire that survived for several centuries before succumbing to the Sarmatians during the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD.> >
Much of what is known of the history of the Scythians comes from the account of them by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited their territory. In modern times this record has been expanded chiefly by the work of Russian anthropologists.> >
The Scythians were feared and admired for their prowess in war and, in particular, for their horsemanship. They were among the earliest people to master the art of riding, and their mobility astonished their neighbors.
The migration eventually brought them into the territory of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west Iran through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt.
The Median dynasty, who ruled Iran, attacked them and drove them out of western Iranian lands in Anatolia, leaving them finally in control of lands which stretched from the Iranian border north through the Kuban and into southern Russia.> >
The Iranian Scyths were remarkable not only for their fighting ability but also for the civilization they produced. They developed a class of wealthy aristocrats who left elaborate graves filled with richly worked articles of gold and other precious materials. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths, finally established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest and most numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. Their power was sufficient to repel an invasion by the Iranian King of King Darius the Great in about 513 BC.> >
The Royal Scyths were headed by a sovereign whose authority was transmitted to his son. Eventually, around the time of Herodotus, the royal family intermarried with Greeks. In 339 the ruler Ateas was killed at the age of 90 while fighting Philip II of Macedonia. The community was eventually destroyed in the 2nd century BC; Palakus being the last sovereign whose name is preserved in history.> >
The Scythian army was made up of freemen who received no wage other than food and clothing, but who could share in booty on presentation of the head of a slain enemy. Many warriors wore Greek-style bronze helmets and chain-mail jerkins. Their principal weapon was a double-curved bow and trefoil-shaped arrows; their swords were of the Persian type. Every Scythian had at least one personal mount, but the wealthy owned large herds of horses, chiefly Mongolian ponies. Burial customs were elaborate and called for the sacrifice of members of the dead man's household
The first sign that steppe nomads had learned to fight well from horseback was a great raid into Asia Minor launched from the Ukraine about 690 BC by a people whom the Greeks called Cimmerians.
Some, though perhaps not all, of the raiders were mounted. Not long thereafter, tribes speaking an Iranian language, which the Greeks called Scythians, conquered the Cimmerians and in turn became lords of the Ukraine.
According to Herodotus, who is the principal source of information on these events, the Scyths (or at least some of them) claimed to have migrated from the Altai Mountains at the eastern extreme of the Western Steppe. This may well be so, and some modern scholars have even surmised that the foreign invasions of China that brought the Western Chou dynasty to an end in 771 BC may have been connected with a Scythian raid from the Altai that had occurred a generation or two before Scythian migration westward to the Ukraine.> >
The Eastern Steppe was, however, too barren and cold for invaders to linger. Consequently, the spread of cavalry skills and of the horse nomads' way of life to Mongolia took several centuries. We know this from Chinese records clearly showing that cavalry raids from the Mongolian steppe became chronic only in the 4th century BC. China was then divided among warring states, and border principalities had to convert to cavalry tactics in order to mount successful defenses. The first state to do so developed its cavalry force only after 325 BC.> >
Long before then, however, the Scythians had erected a loose confederacy that spanned all of the Western Steppe. The high king of the tribe heading this confederacy presumably had only limited control over the far reaches of the Western Steppe. But on special occasions the Scythians could assemble large numbers of horsemen for long-distance raids, such as the one that helped to bring the Assyrian Empire to an end. After sacking the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC, the booty-laden Iranian Scyths returned to the Ukrainian steppe, leaving Medes, Babylonians, and Egyptians to dispute the Assyrian heritage. But the threat of renewed raids from the north remained and constituted a standing problem for rulers of the Middle East thereafter.
It is to the Scythians, a semi nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved out from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia, that we owe a type of gold production, which, on the basis of its themes, is classified today as animal-style.
During the early period (5th-4th century BC), this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other, embossed with powerful plasticity and free interpretation of the forms. The animal-style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century BC. Such ornaments as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (discovered in Iran near the border between Kurdistan and Azerbaijan provinces) provide evidence of this Asiatic phase of Scythian gold-working art.
The ornaments are characterized by highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century BC into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry.>
Scythian Art is also called STEPPES ART, decorative objects, mainly jewelry and trappings for horse, tent, and wagon, produced by nomadic tribes that roamed Central Asia from slightly east of the Altai Mountains in Inner Mongolia to European Russia. What little is known of these tribes, called Scyths, or Sacae, in the classical sources, indicates that they established control of the plain north of the Black Sea over a period of several centuries, from the 7th-6th century BC until they were gradually supplanted by the Sarmatians during the 4th century BC-2nd century AD. Many of the most impressive pieces of Scythian art (now part of the treasure at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg) were cast of solid gold and were recovered in the 17th-19th century, before the development of modern archaeological methods that might have shed more light on their origins.> >
The Scythians worked in a wide variety of materials, including wood, leather, bone, appliqu felts, bronze, iron, silver, gold, and electrum. The tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai yielded many well-preserved articles of clothing that were profusely trimmed with embroidery and appliqu designs; the clothes of the wealthy in southern Russia were covered with tiny gold-embossed plaques, sewn to the garments. At Pazyryk, felt appliqu wall hangings were found, some displaying religious scenes featuring the Great Goddess or anthropomorphic beasts, others with geometric or animal motifs. Felt rugs were also found, as well as a vast number of beautifully made tools and domestic utensils.> >
The art of the period is essentially an animal art. Combat scenes between two or more animals are numerous, as are single animal figures. Many real or mythical beasts are represented, the majority of the types having roots in deep antiquity, but the Scythians fashioned them in a manner that was new and characteristically their own. As is to be expected with nomads who were constantly on the move, the decorative objects they produced are generally small in size, but many are made of precious materials and practically all are of superb workmanship.> >
The Scythian gold figures of semi recumbent stags, measuring some 12 inches (30.5 cm) in length, are outstanding; they were probably used as the central ornaments for the round shields carried by many Scythian fighters. Perhaps the loveliest of the gold stags is the 6th-century-bc example from the burial of Kostromskaya Stanitsa in the Kuban, but versions of the 5th century BC from Tpiszentmrton in Hungary and of the 4th century BC from Kul Oba in the Crimea are scarcely less beautiful. In all three examples the stag is shown in a recumbent position, with its legs tucked beneath its body, but with its head raised and its muscles taut so that it gives an impression of rapid motion.> >
The Scythian artistic idiom is one of great compression as well as of synthesis; contrasting positions of the body are combined with astonishing skill to depict every possible aspect of the animal when visualized during all its diverse activities. Though the art is basically representational in character, it is at the same time imaginative in spirit, often verging on the abstract in conception. Yet however complex its elements, they are fused in the finished work into a single entity of compelling force and beauty.
There are acutally hundreds of Kurgans in the vicinity of Pazyryk. Some
of them entomb asiatic scythian cheiftans whereas at others iranian
scyths are buried. There is definatly enough archealogical evidence
to support that there was significant intermarrage and cross-cultural
polination that far east. I would also tend to agree with earlier posts
about the fact that many scholars have some urge to to classify
scythians and sacas as though they were entirly different peoples when
in actuality the cultures of the stepe all had a shared cultural
heritage.
Moving East, a joint Korean-Mongolian Joint Exedition in Mongolla found
the grave of a Hunnu general in the Arkhangai Aimag, Khudgiin
turmuli.
This gerneral was a caucasian. In near by graves were found
Mongoloid types. This is located about 30 km north of Khara
Khorum (Xar Xorin) which is also the homeland of the Uyghurs.
This grave complex has several hundred graves of which only 3 were excavated.
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