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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SCY-SHA |
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SCYTHIA (Gr. EKuOia) , originally (e.g in Herodotus iv. 1-142), the country of the Scythae or the country over which the nomad Scythae were lords, that is, the steppe from the Carpathians to the Don. With the disappearance of the Scythae as an ethnic and political entity, the name of Scythia
Scythia
Ptolemy
His account of the geography falls into two irreconcilable parts; one (iv. 99 sqq.), in connexion with the tale of the invasion of Darius, makes of Scythia a kind of chessboard 4000 stades square on which the combatants can make their moves quite unhindered by the great rivers: the other (16-2o), founded on what he learned from Greeks of Olbia and supplemented by the tales of the 7th century traveller Aristeas of. Proconnesus, is not very far removed from first-hand information and can be made more or less to tally with the lie of the land. In accordance with this we can give the relative positions of the various tribes, and an excursus on the rivers (4757) lets us define their actual seats. In western Scythia, starting from Olbia and going north-wards, we have Callippidae on the lower Hypanis (Bug), Alazones where the Tyras (Dniester) and Hypanis come near each other in their middle courses, and Aroteres (" Ploughmen ") above them. These tribes raised wheat, presumably in the river valleys, and sold it for export; in the eastern half from west to east were Georgi (perhaps the same as Aroteres) between the Ingul and the Borysthenes (Dnieper), nomad Scyths and Royal Scyths between the Borysthenes and the Tanais (Don). Above all these stretched a row of non-Scythian tribes from west to east: on the Marls (Maros) in Transylvania the Agathyrsi; Neuri in Podolia and Kiev, Androphagi and Melanchlaeni in Poltava, ( Ryazan
Ethnology.Herodotus expressly divides the Scythians into the Agriculturists, Callipidae, Alazones, Aroteres and Georgi in the western part of the country, and the Nomads with the Royal Scyths to the east.. The latter claimed dominion over all the rest. The question arises whether we have to do with the various tribes of one race in different stages of civilization, or with a mixed population called by foreigners after the ruling tribe. The latter seems by far the more probable. The affinities of this tribe have been sought in various directions, and the evidence suggests that it was itself of mixed blood. We know that in the and century A.D., when the steppes were dominated by the Sarmatae (q.v.), the majority of the barbarian names in the inscriptions of Olbia, Tanais, and Panticapaeum were Iranian, and can infer that the Sarmatae spoke an Iranian language. Pliny speaks of their descent from the Medes. Now the Sarmatae are represented as half-caste Scyths speaking a corrupt variety of Scythian. Presumably, therefore, the Scyths also spoke an Iranian dialect. But of the Scythic words preserved by Herodotus some are Iranian, others, especially the names of deities, have found no satisfactory explanation in any Indo-European language. Indeed they rather suggest a Ugrian origin. Nevertheless, the general opinion has been that the Scyths were Iranian. The present writer believes that they were a horde which came down from upper Asia, conquered an Iranian-speaking people, and in time adopted the speech of its subjects. The settled Scythians would be the remains of this Iranian population, or the different tribes of them may have been connected with their neighbours beyond Scythian dominionThracian Getae and Arimaspi, Slavonic Neuri, Finnish Androphagi and such like. The Cimmerians who preceded the Scvthians used Iranian proper names, and probably represented this Iranian element in greater purity. Herodotus gives three legends of the origin of the Scyths (iv. 5-12); these, though they contradict each other, can be reconciled with the view stated above. Two of them seem to be the same story; one is very strongly Hellenized, the other, in more or less native shape, is shortly this. The tribe is autochthonous, claiming descent from a son of the river Borysthenes Targitaos, who lived a thousand years before. Of his three sons the youngest Colaxais is preferred by an ordeal of picking up certain objects which fell from heaven,a plough, a yoke, an axe and a cup,and becomes the ancestor of the ruling clan of Paralatae; from the other sons, Lipoxais and Harpoxais, are descended minor clans, and the name of the whole people is Scoloti, not Scythae, which is used by the Greeks alone. In this story the names make sense in Iranian, the tribes are not again mentioned except when this passage is copied, the objects are hardly such as would be held sacred by nomads, the form of ordeal is to be paralleled in Iranian legends, and the people say themselves that they are not really Scythae. Surely this is the national legend of the agricultural Scythians about Olbia, and the name Scoloti, by which careful modern writers designate the Royal Scyths, is the true designation of the subject race. The royal line of these is quite distinct from the true Royal Scyths, who, like most nomad conquerors, allowed their subjects to preserve their own organizations.The third account fails chiefly in being too plausible, but there seems no reason to reject it as an artificial combination of unconnected facts. According to it the Scyths dwell in Asia, and were forced by the Massagetae over the Araxes (Volga ?) into the land of the Cimmerians. Aristeas says that the first impulse came from the Arimaspi, who displaced the Issedones, who in turn fell upon the Scyths. This comes to much the same thing, as the Massagetae seem to have contained an element which had come in from the land of the Issedones. The Scyths having fallen upon them from the north-east, the Cimmerians appear to have given way in two directions, towards the south-west, where the tombs of their kings were shown on the Tyras (Dniester) and one body joined with the Treres of Thrace in invading Asia Minor by the Hellespont; and towards the south-east where another body threatened the Assyrians, who called them Gimirrai (Hebrew Gomer; Gen. xi.). They were followed by the Scyths (Ashguzai, Heb. Ashkenaz) whom the Assyrians welcomed as allies and used against the Cimmerians, against the Medes and even against Egypt. Hence the references to the Scyths in the Hebrew prophets (Jer. iv. 3, vi. 7). This is all put in the latter half of the 7th century B.C. Herodotus says that the Scyths ruled Media for twenty-eight years, and were then massacred or expelled. The Assyrian evidence is in the main a confirmation of Herodotus, though most writers think that the Scythians who troubled Asia were Sacae from the east of the Caspian (H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, p. 484 sqq.). If the Scyths came out of upper Asia, the Scythian colonists beyond the Iyrcae might be a division which had remained nearer the homeland, but in dealing with nomads we can suppose such a return as that of the Calmucks (Kalmuks) in the 18th century. The physical features of the Scyths are not described by Herodotus, but Hippocrates (l.c.) draws a picture of them which makes them very similar to the Mongols as they appeared to the Franciscan missionaries in the 13th century. He says they are quite unlike any other race of men, and very like each other. The main point seems to be a tendency to slackness, fatness and excess of humours. The men are said to be in appearance very like eunuchs, and both sexes have a tendency to sexual indifference amounting in the men to impotence. When a man finds himself in this condition he assumes the women's dress and habits. Herodotus mentions the existence of this class, called Enarees, and says that they suffer from a sacred disease owing to the wrath of the goddess of Ascalon whose shrine they had plundered. Reinegg describes a similar state of things in the Nogai in the 18th century. The whole account suggests a Tatar dan in the last stage of degeneracy. Hippocrates says that this only applies to the ruling class, not to the slaves, but gives as the reason the want of exercise among the former. The skulls dug up in Scythic graves throw no light on the question, some being round and some long. The representations of nomads on objects of Greek art show people with full beards and shaggy hair, such as cannot be reconciled with Hippocrates; but the only reliefs which seem to be accurate belong to a late date when the ruling clan was Sarmatian rather than Scythic. Customs.Herodotus gives a good survey of the customs of the Scyths: it seems mostly to apply to the ruling race. Again the closest analogy is the state of the Mongols in the 13th century; but too much weight must not be put on this, as the natural conditions of steppe-ranging nomads dictated the greater part of them. Still the correspondence of religion and of funeral rites is very close. The Scyths lived upon the produce of their herds of cattle and horses, their main food being the flesh of the latter, either cooked in a cauldron or made into a kind of haggis, and the milk of mares from which they made cheese and kumiss (a fermented drink resembling buttermilk). This necessitated their constantly moving in search of fresh pasture, spending the spring and autumn upon the open steppe, the winter and summer by the rivers for the sake of moisture and shelter. The men journeyed on horseback, the women in wagons with felt tilts. These were drawn
commander
commander
king who aroused the extreme dissatisfaction of his subjects was liable to be murdered. Religion.The religion of the Scyths was nature worship . Herodotus (iv. 59) gives a list
Tombs.The description is generally borne out by the evidence of the tombs opened in the Scythic area. None agrees in every point, but almost every detail finds a close parallel in some tomb or other. The chief divergence is in the presence of silver and copper objects, but the great quantity of gold is the most striking fact, and to say that there was nothing but gold seems merely an exaggeration. Tombs to which the name Scythic is generally applied form a well-defined class. They are preceded over the whole area by a much simpler form of burial marked by the practice of staining the bones with red ochre, and the presence of one or two rude pots and nothing more: yet that some were tombs of great chiefs is shown by the great size of the barrows heaped over them. They have been referred to the Cimmerians, but for this there is no clear evidence. The Scythic tombs can be roughly dated by the objects of Greek art that they contain. They seem to begin about the 6th century B.C., and to continue till the 2nd century A.D.; that is, they cover the period of the Scythic domination according to the account accepted above, and that of the Sarmatian, and so suggest that, as far as the archaeological evidence goes, there was little more than a change of name and perhaps the substitution of one ruling clan for anothernot a real change of population. The finest of the class were opened about the bend of the Dnieper, where we should put the land Gerrhus. Others are found to the south-west of the central area, and in the governments of Kiev and Poltava we have many tombs with Scythic characteristics, but a difference (e.g. the fewness of the horses) which makes us think of the settled tribes under Scythic domination. Others occur in the flat northern half of the Crimea, and even close to Kerch, where the famous Kul Oba seems to have held a Scythic chieftain who had adopted a veneer of Greek tastes, but remained a barbarian at heart. East of the Maeotis, especially along the river Kuban, are many groups of barrows showing the same culture as those of Gerrhus but in a purer form. Farther to the north and east the series seems to extend into Siberia, but in this region excavations have been few. Unfortunately very few of these barrows have come down to us unplundered, and we cannot find one complete example and take it as a type. Soon after ' The names are read in various ways; it is impossible to establish the correct forms. they were heaped up, before the beams supporting the central chamber had rotted, thieves made a practice of driving a mine into the mound straight to where the valuables were deposited, and it is only by the collapse of this mine and the crushing of the robber after he had thrown everything into confusion that the treasures of the Chertomlyk barrow, on the whole the most typical, were pre-served to us. This was 6a ft. high and 'too ft. round; about it was a stone plinth, and it was approached by a kind of stone alley. A central shaft descended 35 ft. 6 in. below the surface of the earth, and from each corner of it at the bottom opened out side chambers. The north-.west chamber communicated with a large irregular chamber into which the plunderer's mine opened. In the central pit all was in confusion, but here the king seems to have lain on a bier. His belongings, found piled up near the mine, seem to have included a combined bow-case and quiver and a sword sheath, each covered with plates of gold of Greek work, three swords with gold hafts, a hone with gold mounting, a whip, many other gold plates and a heap of arrow-heads. In the north-west chamber was a woman's skeleton, and she had her jewels, mostly of Greek work. She was attended by a man, and three other men were buried in the other chambers. They were supplied with simpler weapons and adornments, but even so their clothes had hundreds of stamped gold plates and strips of various shapes sewn on to them. By every skeleton were drinking vessels. Store of wine was contained in six amphorae, and in two bronze cauldrons were mutton-bones. The most wonderful object of all was a great two-handled vase standing 3 ft. high and made to hold kumiss. The greater part of its body is covered by a pattern of acanthus leaves, but on the shoulder is a frieze showing nomads breaking in wild mares, our chief authority for Scythian costume. To the west of the main shaft were three square pits with horses and their harness, and by 1 them two pits with men's skeletons. In the heap itself was found an immense quantity of pieces of harness and what may be remains of a funeral car. The Greek work would seem to date the burial as of the 3rd century B.c. At Alexandropol in the same district was an even more elaborate tomb, but its contents were in even greater confusion. Another tomb in this region, Melgunov's barrow, found as long ago as 176o, contained a dagger-sheath and pommel of Assyrian work and Greek things of the 6th century. In the Kul Oba tomb mentioned above the chamber was of stone and the contents, with one or two exceptions, of purely Greek workmanship, but the ideas underlying are the samethe king has his wife, his servant and his horse, his amphorae with wine, his cauldron with mutton-bones, his drinking vessels and his weapons, the latter being almost the only objects of barbarian style. One of the cups has a frieze with reliefs of natives supplementing that on the Chertomlyk vase. East of the Maeotis on the Kuban we have many barrows; the most interesting are the groups called the Seven Brothers, and those of Karagodeuashkh, Kostromskaya, Ul and Kelermes, the latter remarkable for objects of Assyrian style, the others for the enormous slaughter of horses; on the Ul were four hundred in one grave. Art.Certain of the objects which occur in these Scythic graves are of special forms typical for the Scythic area. Most interesting of these is the dagger or sword, always very short, save in the latest graves, and distinguished by a heart-shaped guard marking the juncture of hilt and blade; its sheath is also characteristic, having a triangular projection on one side and usually a separate chape: these peculiar forms were necessitated by a special way of hanging the dagger from two straps that it might not interfere with a rider's movements. Just the same form of short sword was used in Persia and is shown on the sculptures at Persepolis. Another special type is the bow-case, made to take a short curved bow and to accommodate arrows as well. Further, there is the peculiar cauldron on one conical foot, round which the fire was built, the cylindrical hone pierced for suspension, and the cup with a rounded bottom. Assyrian and afterwards Greek craftsmen working for Scythic employers were compelled to decorate these outlandish forms, which they did according to their own fashion: but there was also a native style with conventionalized beast decoration, which was almost always employed for the adornment of bits and horses' gear, and very often for weapons. This style and the types of dagger, cauldron, bit and two-looped socketed axehead run right across from Hungary to the upper Yenisei, where a special Bronze Age culture seems to have developed them. But even here it seems impossible to deny some influence coming from the Aegean area, and Scythic beasts are very like certain products of Mycenaean and early Ionic art. Again, the Scythic style is interesting as being one element in the art of the barbarians who conquered the Roman Empire and the zoomorphic decoration of the early middle ages. - The dominance from the Yenisei to the Carpathians of a distinct style of art which, whatever its original elements may have been, seems to have taken shape as far east as the Yenisei basin is an additional argument in favour of a certain movement
movement
Iran
History.To sum up the history of Scythia, the oldest in-habitants of whom we hear in Scythia were the Cimmerii; the nature of the country makes it probable that some of them were nomads, while others no doubt tilled some land in the river valleys and in the Crimea, where they left their name to ferries, earthworks and the Cimmerian Bosporus. They were probably of Iranian race: among the Persians Herodotus describes a similar mixture of nomadic and settled tribes. In the 7th century B.C. these Cimmerians were attacked and partly driven out by a horde of newcomers from upper Asia called Scythae; these imposed their name and their yoke upon all that were left in the Euxine steppes, but probably their coming did not really change the basis of the population, which remained Iranian. The newcomers adopted the language of the conquered, but brought with them new customs and a new artistic taste probably largely borrowed from the metal-working tribes of Siberia. About the same time similar peoples harassed the northern frontier of Iran
About 512 B.C. Darius, having conquered Thrace, made an invasion of Scythia, which, according to the account of Herodotus, he crossed as far as the Oarus, a river identified with the Volga, burned the town of Gelonus and returned in sixty days. In this march he was much harassed by the nomads, with whom he could not come to close quarters, but no mention is made of his having any difficulty with the rivers (he gets his water from wells), and no reason for his proceedings is advanced except a desire to avenge legendary attacks of Scyths upon Asia. After losing many men the Great King comes back to the place where he crossed the Danube, finds the Ionians still guarding the bridge in spite of the attempts of the Scyths to make them desert, and safely re-enters his own dominions. Ctesias says that the whole campaign only took fifteen days and that Darius did not get beyond the Tyras (Dniester). This is also the view of the reasonable Strabo; but it does not account for the genesis of the other story. It seems best to believe that Darius made an incursion in order to secure the frontier of the Danube, suffered serious reverses and retired with loss, and that this offered too good a chance to be missed for a moral tale about the discomfiture of the Great King by a few poor savages. The Greeks had been trading with the Scyths ever since their coming, and at Olbia there were other tales of their history. We can make a list
should march up from Ephesus. The chief result of the embassy was that Cleomenes took to the Scythian habit of drinking his wine neat and went mad therefrom (Herodotus vi. 84). Hence-forward the Scyths appear as a declining power: by the middle of the 4th century their eastern neighbours the Sarmatae have crossed the Tanais (Don) and the pressure of the Scyths is felt on the Danube. Here Philip II. of Macedon defeated and slew their king Ateas in 339 B.C., and from this time on the representatives of the old Scythic power are petty chieftains in the western part of the country about Olbia, where they could still be dangerous, and about Tomi. Towards the second half of the 2nd century B.C. this kingdom seems to have become the nucleus of a great state under Scilurus, whose name appears on coins of Olbia, and who at the same time threatened Chersonese in the Crimea. Here, however, he was opposed by the might of Mithradates VI. of Pontus and his power was broken. Henceforward the name " Scythian " is purely geographical. Meanwhile Scythia had become the land of the Sarmatae (q.v.). These, as has been seen, spoke a cognate dialect, and the tombs which belong to their period show exactly the same culture with Greek and Siberian elements. It is probable that the Iranian element was stronger among the Sarmatae, whose power extended as the ruling clan of the Scyths became extinct; but it is quite likely that they in their turn were officered by some new horde from upper Asia. Like the Scyths they were pressed towards the west by yet newer swarms, and with the coming of the Huns Scythia enters upon a new cycle, though still keeping its old name in the Byzantine historians. End of Article: SCYTHIA (Gr. EKuOia) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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