Most of the written history about the Scythians comes from Herodotus’ Histories, Book IV, written when he visited Olbia in the mid-fifth century BCE. The earliest mention of the Scythians, however, occurs in Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform tablets of the late seventh century BCE. At this time, as the Scythians grew powerful in the Ancient Near East they made alliances with the Medes, Manneans, and later with the Assyrians. A Scythian hegemony resulted in their ruling Asia Minor for 28 years.
According to Herodotus, they devastated everything through violence and overindulgence. Shortly thereafter, the Median King Cyaxares (625-585 BCE) annihilated the Scythian hierarchy in battle and the surviving Scythians were forced to return to their former lands north of the Black Sea. In 514 or 512 BCE, the Persian troops of King Darius I invaded the Scythian lands. Accounts of their battles by Herodotus (Book IV), Ctesias (Fr. 13 20-21), and Strabo (VII, 3, 14) vary but it is thought that the wars contributed to the consolidation and development of the Scythian national identity. The Scythians invaded Thrace (modern Bulgaria), which resulted in conflicts that were frequently resolved by dynastic marriages between Scythian chieftains and Thracian princesses. In the fourth century BCE before perishing at the age of 90, in battle with Philip II of Macedon, King Atheas united the Scyths from the Danube to the Don rivers.
Hugely rich burials, such as Chertomlyk and Solokha, dating to the final third of the fourth century BCE indicate no significant weakening in the Scythian society after their defeat by the Macedonians. Moreover, in 331 BCE, they killed Zoppyrion, Alexander the Great’s vice-regent, and defeated his army (Justini, xii, I, 4). By the third century BCE the Scythians faced a continual crisis as massive Sarma-tian movements pushed upon them from the Don River region, and Celts and the Getae (a Thracian tribe) assaulted them from the Danube. The Scythians were forced into the Crimean foothills and along the lower Dnieper River where they lived in fortified settlements until the fourth century AD at which time they were assimilated by the Hunnic tribes that came from the east during the era of mass migrations.
Scythian Burial Customs
The first nomadic burials to be excavated by the Russians were those of the Scythians located in southeastern Europe and the Crimea. Great chieftains were buried with much ceremony and feasting in massive kurgans, often accompanied by retainers, horses, and a variety of portable art as well as less-portable items secured in trade with the Greek colonies along the north Black Sea. Portable art cast in bronze and precious metals included pole finials, a variety of horse accouterments, including phalerae (breast plaques), and belt plaques indicating status. Men were buried with complete defensive and offensive armament, which by the fourth to third centuries BCE included long swords as well as ceremonial akinakes (short swords) in gold sheaths. Women also held elevated positions in society, as illustrated by gold headdresses and plaques, exquisitely worked gold jewelry encrusted with semiprecious stones, and elaborate bronze cultic mirrors. According to the Soviet archaeologist E. P. Bunyatyan, 27-29% of the female burials contained armament. Greek craftsmanship is apparent in the luxury gold items as well as in amphorae, kantaroi, and kylix. Occasionally burials were marked with stone funerary sculpture.
World History
