Cimmerians:Grand Masters of Horse Archery

 

 

 

I am eager to learn who the three kingdoms.  Can you let me know pls?

(I just thought you do NOT mean that 3 were Alani.. Smartian...etc)

 

Also glad to know the distinctive "features" among these 3 Kingdoms.. Tks.

His theory on their presence in Greek literature is that as Greeks, through their colonies, expanded their geographical horizon, the location of Scythians and Cimmerians "at the end of the Ocean" was moved accordingly.

 

 

The author holds some general views on how warfare style changes were important in justifying many phenomena which are commonly explained by mass migrations followed by destructions (being a "continuist" - I hope I didn't get him wrong - rejects mass movements of population), and in this view, but also with evidences at hand, he rejects the Cimmerian migration from north-Pontic steppes southwards through Caucasus, and even more in his book (thanks to Google Books I got almost 2 full chapters) he claims the Scythians known to Greeks (north of Danube and north of Black-Sea) were not the Scythians from the Assyrian sources, though both were probably Iranian speaking.

 

Few quotes from the book:

 

Ever since critical history began, scholars have recognized that much of what Herodotos gives us is silly. Near Eastern sources know nothing at all of a "Skythian empire", and for all sorts of reasons it is impossible too accept Herodotos' story of Skythians' chase of Kimmerians. Because of its liabilities, Herodotos' entire account of a Skythian-Kimmerian arche has often been tossed out as unusable. If, however, we set aside Herodotos' explanation of where the Skythians and Kimmerians came from, and focus on his account of what they did, we may isolate something of value. (p. 106)

 

[I skip the history of Scythians and Cimmerians in near-Eastern sources]

 

Late in the 8th century at least two Greek cities - Trapezos (Trebizond) and Sinope - seem to have been already standing along the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. Perhaps it was from iron and silver traders who had sailed to this distant shore that the name Gimmirai, hellenized as Kimmerioi, entered the Greek vocabulary (Sinope [...] was one of the few cities that Kimmerians destroyed). For this exotic people the poet of the Odyssey found a place in his story, never suspecting that within a few decades the Greeks of Ionia would have a terrifying, first-hand acquaintance with Kimmerians. [...] Although the poet may have imagined his Kimmerians as residing at the farthest shore of the Black Sea, Giovanni Lanfranchi has well said that Homer's "land of the Kimmerians" is no more than "una terra favolosa, simile alla montagna del Purgatorio che Dante descrive". Most Archaic and Classical Greeks, however, believed that although Homer may have taken some liberties with gods, goddesses, monstruous creatures, his geography was reliable. By late in the 7th century BC "the limits of the deep-flowing Ocean" were no longer in the vicinity of Trapezos, for by that time the Greeks of Ionia had not only sailed along the northern shores of Black Sea, but also planted cities there (one of which, Olbia, was a large and prosperous city until Late Antiquity). It was therefore agreed that the Kimmerioi [...] must have lived along what the Greeks called Lake Maiotis and what is now the Sea of Azov.

(p. 120)

 

... must be pointed out that the only reason for assigning the Kimmerians a homeland north of the Caucasus mountains is the aetiology that Herodotos took from Aristeas' Arimaspea. Equally sobering is that the people who in Herodotos' own day lived in the Pontic-Caspian steppe were not Skythians at all. That name was applied to them by the Greek colonists of Olbia and other Euxine cities, and was no more justified than the name "Indians" that European explorers affixed to the natives of the Americas. Herodotos tells us (4.6) that the natives of the Pontic-Caspian steppe called themselves Skolotoi, and that only Greeks called them "Skythians". We may suspect the name "Skythians" was applied to them because in several important ways the Skolotoi of the Pontic steppe resembled the real Skythians, who had ridden out of Iran to terrorize western Asia early in the 7th century BC. Both groups, that is, rode horses, were skilled archers, wore pants and tall, conical hats. By the 7th century BC these characteristics were shared by most of the people of the Eurasian steppe, from Europe to western China: as demonstrated by the mummies at Zaghunluq, near Cherchen, men in the Tarim basin wore pants and both the men and the women wore the same tall, conical hat that riders favored near Lower Danube. (p. 122)

 

and the conclusion of the chapter:

 

"Kimmerians" and "Skythians" were names for riding raiders who plagued much of the Near East and especially Anatolia during the 7th century BC. These raiders evidently came out of southeastern Anatolia and northwestern Iran. They carried bows and swords, and if they came in sufficient numbers they would have been able to defeat an infantry. For the most part, they avoided military confrontations and contented themselves with falling unexpectedly on villages, unfortified towns, extra-urban temples, and occasionally even tombs. They were a malign result of the advent of good horsemanship. (p. 122)