http://www.geocities.com/chair-head/Expand.txt - http://www.geocities.com/chair-head/Expand.txt

This map places Scythians in what is now central Poland and Saca in what is now Austria.  Do you think this map has merit based on the facts, or is it just the product of a bold imagination?

I've read texts which suggested Scythians/Sacas went far westward into Europe, but this is the first time I've actually seen it on a map.   I'm actually inclined to believe it.

Rava-

Why not?  It says so in the Bible, doesn't it?

Shalom to you too, my friend.

Interesting map, Saca -> Sacki -> Sacksen -> Saxon

looool, now check this: Germans -> Garmonds -> Gurmands -> kermans -> Korans -> Koreans

btu it goes furtrher:

Koreans -> Kuranes -> Karenas -> Caearans -> Caneadians -> Canadians

Zagros Purya-

I tend to agree with you. 

In history books we were taught that the Saxons were named after a special type of long knife called the Saexe.  On the other hand, their artistry such as that found at Sutton Hoo does seem to have been an example of the same style associated with the Scythians.  The "Scythian animal style" of art was actually widespread among "less-civilized" peoples across northern Eurasia.

Scythians were a far reaching NOMADIC people and there is a strong possibility that Scythian elements had contact and assimilated with Germanic tribes in North Eastern Europe who later migrated west.

Infact, Darius I led an unsuccessful campaign against the Scythins during which he ventured very far north on their tail, almost reaching Poland.

That is wrong but Germans <- Garmonds <- Gurmands <- Kermans

I can't see the map because apparently the bandwidth limit has been exceeded but I do know that archeologists have found Scythian kurgans (burials) in Poland and in Germany. Many scholars recognise that early Celtic art was heavily influenced by their contact with the Scythians.

Btw: Sacas and Scythians are two names for the same people.

Apparently someone has read far too much into their sources.  This reminds me of the 19th century British view that their Celtic ancestors, the Cymry were the descendants of the Cimmerians of the Pontic Steppe (which is portrayed on this map, too).  Ultimately what this map is portraying is that all the branches of the "Aryans" found their way to Britain.

1.  "Phoenicians 3000 BC".  First of all, the term "Phoenicians" is only used for those northern Canaanite coastal states which survived the Hebrewization of southern Canaan, c. 1200 BC.  The era of the great sea-borne economic influence and colonization of the Phoenicians occurred after 1200 BC.  The archaeological evidence of the earliest Phoenician colonies only occurs from about 800 BC.  It is fairly well-established that the Phoenicians spoke an Afro-Asiatic language related to Hebrew, and not an Indo-European language.

2a.  "Sacae, Saca, Sacki, Sacksen, Saxons".  There is some historical evidence to support a Saka presence in northern Iran, however, based on the evidence from the Avesta, their presence was later rather than early.  The Avesta, our earliest source, mentions Dahae, Sarmatians, and Turanians, but no Sakas.  While the map shows a relationship between Sakas and Scythians, (the Persians called all Eurasian nomads "Sakas", just as the Greeks called them all "Scythians") there is no evidence to suggest that the one derived from the other.  While some try to derive "Scythian" from "Saka" the current way of thinking would have local developments of these names.  The Assyrians and Greeks had related names of these western nomads while the Iranians had a different name for those eastern nomads.   

2b.  Now, there is good evidence of Scythian presence in Poland (5th century BC), however they seem to have been in the form of campaigns rather then permanent settlement.  The local culture, the Lusatian, continued to flourish until the 3rd century BC.  When history reveals the names of the peoples which inhabited Poland in the 1st century AD, there are none which even resemble the name "Saka".

2c.  The same is true of ancient western "Germania".  Both Strabo (c. AD 20) and Tacitus (c. AD 98) list the names of the tribes which inhabited the regions of present-day Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and not only is there no mention of a tribe called "Saca", but not even a mention of "Saxons".

2d.  We only start knowing about the "Saxons" by about c. AD 150 with Ptolemy's geography.  Apparently some of the Germanic tribes just south of Denmark coalesced to form a confederation of tribes (namely the Reudigni, Suarines, and Nuitones) whose names were mentioned by Tacitus, but no longer mentioned by the time of Ptolemy.  None of the ancient authors state an incursion from the steppes.  On the contrary, the nomads of the steppes at this period were known under the general name of the "Sarmatians" and their movements had been noted by the ever-vigilent Romans.  The westernmost Sarmatians were noted to have inhabited a western portion of Hungary by the Danube east of the Pannonias by about AD 50. 

2e.  We do in fact have medievel British legends of a people coming from "Scythia".  However this people, the Picts, as told by Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth render them quite distinct from the Saxons. 

3.  "Goths, Getae, Massagetae".  This connection is rather ancient.  The classical authors thought that the name of the "Goths" was a mutation of the name of the Thracian tribe of the Getae.  Then the Gothic name was connected to the name of the Iranian nation of the Massagetae through the name of the Getae.  It is rather admitted that Massagetae disappeared as they became a component of the easternmost Sarmatians, known variously as the Aorsi, Alans, and Antae who were forced westwards by the onslaught of the Huns.  In one sense there was a relationship between the Goth and the Alans, in that when the Goths migrated from eastern Poland to the Ukraine, after about AD 200, they became the western neighbors of the Alans.  However, the Romans did not confuse the Goths with the Alans. 

There are other misconceptions that can be detected from the map, including the "Cimmeri, Cimbri, Cymry, Khumri" connection.  Based upon the examples from the above, the "evidence" used by the author of the map is based much more on supposed similarities of ethnic names rather than any true critical historical study.

That is true however this conflicts with archealogical evidence which shows that Scythian dieties were worshiped in Bactria before 1200 B.C. and that there was an active gold trade between northern Iran and and the Scythian cultures in the Altai.

By Iran, I meant the region east of Bactria and south of the Oxus.  By about 1400 BC the Andronovians had expanded south of the Aral Sea and established the Tazagabyab Culture in the regions of historical Chorasmia and Sogdiana and the Bishkent Culture further east.  It is probably premature to call the Bactrian evidence "Scythian" (if on the other hand, we are to agree to the generic meaning or "Eurasian Iranian nomad").  In such a case, all original Iranic-speaking peoples were "Scythians"). 

I assume you meant west of the Oxus?

Since the Scythians were never politically unified generaly we use that name to describe all of the disparate stepe tribes who had a shared language and culture.

No, I meant south of the ancient course of the Oxus.  There was a branch of the Oxus which ran east-west, to the Caspian. 

Well, hmmm.   Herodotus characterised the western Scythians as forming a "kingdom" and Scythia itself was defined as from the Danube to the Don.  The cultural antecedents of these western Scythians are from the Srubnaya Culture as well as the westernmost elements of the Sarmatians (the "Sauromatians").  The bulk of the Sarmatians, however, as well as "Asiatic Scythians", the Issedonians, Arimaspians, Massagetae, Sakas, etc.  are derived from the Andronovian Complex.  The cultures of these groups are then divided into Early Nomad, Massagetian, and Sacian Cultures.  I would prefer to use the term "Scythian" in its more restrictive use to define the westernmost nomadic Iranian group, and the term "Sacian" to define the eastern Iranian groups.  Apparently there is enough archaeological material to discern a multiplicity of nomadic cultures.  The only facit of culture which seems common to all those Iron-Age cultures is the so-called "animal-style" art which seemed to have originated from Middle Eastern art-styles, and adapted by the western Scythians (c. 675 BC), and which spread eastwards to Pazyrik which was adopted by about 500 BC. 

There is very little evidence that the Scythians were Turks.  On the other hand, the material culture does show local development along Iranic lines and that according to narrative evidence the language of the Scythians was similar to that of the Sarmatians, whose language, today, is survived by Ossetic, an Iranian language.  The river-names of the region of the Ukraine provide proof of the evidence of forms of Iranic being spoken here in ancient times. 

Seems to be an excess of Turkish zeal to swallow all the nations of the world into one giant Turan. Who next will be consumed as Turk?