Cimmerians:Grand Masters of Horse Archery
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Steppe Nomads and Central Asia
Forum Discription: Nomads such as the Scythians, Huns, Turks & Mongols, and kingdoms of Central Asia
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22564
Printed Date: 20-Apr-2024 at 00:31
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Topic: Cimmerians:Grand Masters of Horse Archery
Posted By: Xianpei
Subject: Cimmerians:Grand Masters of Horse Archery
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2007 at 15:56
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Hi Folks, The origins of Cimmerian is not very clear. What is their origins?
Although ancient history accounts that Scythians expelled Crimmerians out of steppes of present-day's South Russia after the two nomadic tribes had fought hard each other, it would be interesting to imagine how Crimmerian and Scythian horse-riding archers "dogfight" each other: the Scythians wanted to expand their lands, whilst Crimmerians aimed at protecting thier homeland. Who was the grand master of horse riding tactics in the steppe war between them?
What was the Appearance of Crimmerian warriors at that time?
How Crimmerians vanished in the history? Any possible relevant offsprings or cross mixing with other races....
Please somebody helps on this!
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Replies:
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2007 at 21:50
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Cimmerians are considered Iranics. After the Skythian onslaught they escaped to Minor Asia and intermingled with Frygians and Lidians.
We know that ethnically they were closed to Skythians. However, I don't think that there is some evidence suggesting that they were especially famous as "the Grand Masters of Horse Archery." Their military tactic in fact was most likely very similar to the Skythian one. ------------- Σαυρομάτης 
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2007 at 03:00
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Hi Sarmat, 1. So, can we say that Cimmerians are within the same family of Skythian? If yes, the physical appearance of Cimmerian is just the same as that of Skythian / Scythian, right? 2. Can you let me know where I can get into digging more information on Frygians and Lidian because I am very interested to know why the Cimmerians vanished in the stage of Steppe so fast in the 8th Century BC. Thanks! 3. Could it be that Thracians closely relates to Cimmerian? I meant they intermingled each other as well? |
Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 07:43
The following links have some insight on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_nomads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cimmerians http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/cimmerians |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 10:11
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http://apar.archaeology.ro/ds_artrjaeng.htm - http://apar.archaeology.ro/ds_artrjaeng.htm on archaeology, Cimmerians and their alleged onslaught and driving away by Scythians.
Therefore, Xianpei, archaeologically it looks like no Cimmerians vanished in the steppes, but there's a continuous material culture.
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 13:57
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Hi Chibudios, Tks for your link provided! That means Cimmerians have older history (Note: not longer ) than Scythians, right? Again, if you have any info site that has picture(s) of Cimmerian warrior, I will appreciate for your letting me know. I still failed to search one up to now. |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 14:54
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I think the author wants to say there was a relatively uniform steppe culture and that the alleged migrations of Scythians or Cimmerians (as described by Herodotus) are not supported archaeologically and consequently there is not much sense in discussing a "Cimmerian steppe culture". There is even recent Russian scholarship (A. Y. Alekseev, N. K. Kachalova) minimalizing also on archaeological grounds the Cimmerian presence in the steppes north of Caucasus and Black Sea, and even some dubious theories (like in A. Kristensen's book "Who were the Cimmerians and where did they come from?" where some arguments based on Assyrian sources suggest the Cimmerians are re-settled Israelites!!, however the theory may have some merits in its contributions to a reinterpretion of the classical account of Herodotus). At the same time the prestigious Cambridge Ancient History series claims (on a bit outdated scholarship, given some recent reassessments like the ones I've just mentioned) the Cimmerians were rather some Thracian or Thracian-related population living on the northern shores of the Black Sea (volume III.2, p. 555). In plain English, it's not at all certain who the Cimmerians were and where they came from, not even certain if and how did they dominate the north-Pontic steppes. The only certain history we have of them is south of Caucasus.If you look for pictures I suggest you should look for Assyrian inscriptions, however I do not know of any visual representation of them. Maybe someone more knowledgeable on Assyrian sources can guide you.
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Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 17:10
Conan teh Barbarian was cimmerian right 
------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 17:31
Right, and he fought monsters and sorcerers 
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Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 19:02
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but realy i heard teh creator based Conan on the cimmerians
------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2007 at 22:13
| Conan is no more Cimmerian than Kull is an Atlant. |
Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2007 at 06:00
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I don't mean the blonde over muscled Conan played by Arnold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian ------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2007 at 10:12
The above suggests that the origins of Cimmercians is obscure. And this is why I am highly interested in this thread. It seems there are different views about their orgins, at least: Iranian Vs Israelites Vs Thracian.... what else...? Chilbudios, which "theory" you would more probably tend to buy? And yes, I will go to search those related Assyrian inscriptions to see if I am lucky to get one picture of Cimmerian warrior. (not that fiction one by Bob Howard) |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2007 at 16:56
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Unless some more evidences will pop up to support a Cimmerian society in the north-Pontic steppes, I guess the only topic of research making sense is who were the Cimmerians south of Caucasus. I remember I've read something about some IE etymologies on the Cimmerian kings/chiefs names, which would point out that they (at least their elite) spoke an IE language (maybe an Iranian one). |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 05:12
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Well. I have to say, that, in fact, we even do not know for 100% the ethnic composition of Skythians. Very few words survived from their language, however, generally speaking they are considered Iranian speakers.
Of course, the case of Cimmerians is even more obscured. There are only 3 Cimmerian words (the names of Cimmerian kings) which survived in Assyrian chronicles.
Those names also commonly decoded as "Iranian." However, again, it's still a hypo, yet the most popular hypo.
Anthropologically Cimmerians were closed to the people of Northern regions of Caspian Sea (as show the archeological data on Cimmerian graves). Those people are also commonly characterized as Iranics.
Archeological artefacts of Cimmerian do show some similarities with Skythian culture, but they do also have some specific features.
There are only 2 known images of Cimmerians, both look very similar to the Antique depiction of Skythians:
The image from Etruscan ceramics
 The image from Greek ceramics:
 Some examples of Cimmerian artefacts found in the northern Black Sea region:
 In fact, there is aslo a hypo which says that Cimmerians were in fact just a kind of "vangard" of the Skythian forces.
------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 09:14
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Sarmat12, Thanks a lot for your pictures! To me , these images are precious. |
Posted By: Tar Szernd
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 11:30
| The arrowheads in the last picture are from different styles/ages. The 3 edge head on the left was made surely 2-3 Centuries later(iron age- though of bronze) than the others(bronze age). |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 17:23
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Yes. That's true. Those arrowheads might have several centuries difference between them. Yet, they all belong to the culture that archeologiests identified as "Cimmerian." ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 17:23
You are very welcome ! ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Suren
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2007 at 18:32
 Look at this picture. It is from Persepolis and shows Scythian costumes. If you compare it with cimmerian pictures you will found a lot of similarities. |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2007 at 02:42
Gocha Tsetskhladze, in "Ancient Greeks West and East" writes on Cimmerians:
Who were the Cimmerians and from where did they come from? In all the discussions the principal (indeed, only) source for answering the question is Herodotus [...]
In Greek written tradition the Cimmerians represent a cosmological element sprinkled into the historical narrative about the Scythians [...] It is even unclear where they lived: not just the northern Black Sea littoral [...] but Transcaucasia [...] And it is still a matter of debate [...] Cimmerians are much better known historically from Near Eastern written sources, but these concern them after they had left the Pontic region [...]
Several generations of archaeologists have sought to provide archaeological evidence of the Cimmerians and their culture, but without yielding any positive results [...] The archaeological research for the Cimmerians is based, once again, on information from Herodotus and is expressed in the proposition: because the Cimmerians were expelled by the Scythians, any pre-Scythian culture throughout the huge territory mentioned above must be Cimmerian. Here we face a further difficulty: all these so-called Cimmerian cultures have Scythian features [...] It is so difficult to distinguish archaeologically so-called Cimmerian culture, and it is so close to Scythian, that modern scholars have taken refuge in the labels 'pre-Scythian' or 'Early Scythian' to describe the cultures of the 9th-8th centuries BC.
Here is an interesting book review: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2004/2004-10-29.html - http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2004/2004-10-29.html
I haven't read that book but I have read other materials written by A. Ivantchik (I'd say decent materials).
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2007 at 08:23
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I am very interested in this Ivantchik's book. tks! If the hypothesis that Cimmerians is an Iranic tribes , so I just wonder if Cimmerian and Scythian might be of same brotherhood (as Suren provided Persepolis' images also points out there are much similarities to the Crimmerian pictures given by Sarmat12). Maybe this is interesting to exchange idea among members..... |
Posted By: Tar Szernd
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2007 at 08:50
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Yes, in the northern hungarian deeplands were found a lot of so called "pre-scythian"
cemeteries, villages etc, often mixed with the local late bronze-age cultures.
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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 15:38
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I was looking for literature on "paleocontinuism" and ran into another book on this topic:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2005/2005-04-17.html - http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2005/2005-04-17.html
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)
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2007 at 02:09
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Chilbudios, This is informative. The author of this book seems , to certain extent, disagrees with the historical descriptions written by Herodotos regarding origins of Scythians. It is becoming even more interesting that : Crimmerians and Scythians, these masters of horse riding warriors, are they actually the same tribes?, if considering that the author of this book suspecting the reliability of the Assyrian sources. I do not know if there are any ancient Persian sources may also have any clues on the origins of these 2 (or 1?) tribes.... Tks! |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2007 at 12:40
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From what I could understand the author regards Scythians and Cimmerians as two distinctive groups, contemporary or quasi-contemporary, probably both Iranic speakers, which raided the Near East.
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.
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Posted By: Temujin
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2007 at 21:22
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well, i agree Herodot often talks shit, but he lived with the Scythians and i'm sure i remember he said european sythians didn't had a huge empire but were divided in three kingdoms.
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2007 at 01:52
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Hi Temujin,
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.
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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2007 at 15:44
| I assume Temujin speaks of the legend told by Herodotus of three brothers from whom three tribes of Scythians descended. However Herodotus says also that the latter tribe, the "Royal Scythians" are most numerous and dominate over the other tribes. |
Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2007 at 01:16
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Yes, I got it. The other 2 descended groups are : Kindred (or Eastern ) Scythians, and the Western Scythians, right? |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2007 at 02:36
| I don't think so (I don't remember any such geographical hints). What Herodotus says is that the Scythian lands stretch eastward to Tanais (Don), and after that is the land of the Sauromatae. On the other hand he says the Sacae (which liver much further east of Don) are Scythians under a Persian name. |
Posted By: Sharrukin
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2007 at 05:02
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Temujin may be alluding to the Scythian legend of Colaxais as told by Herodotus. The three sons of Targitaus were named Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais. The youngest, Colaxais, became the progenitor of the Royal Scythians (Paralatae). Colaxais, as the paramount ruler of Scythia, split Scythia up into three kingdoms each ruled by one of his sons. (Herodotus, Histories, Book 4.5-7).
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Posted By: Xianpei
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2007 at 02:18
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I got it. thanks. The other are: Auchatae (from Leipoxais), Catiari & Traspians (fm Arpoxais) (Histories of Herodotus 4.6) |
Posted By: Temujin
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2007 at 20:49
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i assume this must be true because most Steppe "empires" were more like confederations of tribes with decentralised rule or no overall ruler at all.
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