The ScythiansThe Scythians
The Scythians were members of a nomadic people originally OF IRANIAN STOCK WHO 
MIGRATED FROM CENTRAL ASIA TO SOUTHERN RUSSIA IN THE 8TH AND 7TH CENTURIES BC.  
Centered on what is now the Crimea, the Scythians founded a rich, powerful 
empire that survived for several centuries before succumbing to the Sarmatians 
during the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD. 
Much of what is known of the history of the Scythians comes from the account of 
them by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited their territory. In 
modern times this record has been expanded chiefly by the work of Russian 
anthropologists. 
The Scythians were feared and admired for their prowess in war and, in 
particular, for their horsemanship. They were among the earliest people to 
master the art of riding, and their mobility astonished their neighbors. The 
migration of the Scythians from Asia eventually brought them into the territory 
of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains 
north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed 
the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west 
Persia through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt. The Medes, who ruled 
Persia, attacked them and drove them out of Anatolia, leaving them finally in 
control of lands which stretched from the Persian border north through the Kuban 
and into southern Russia. 
The Scythians were remarkable not only for their fighting ability but also for 
the civilization they produced. They developed a class of wealthy aristocrats 
who left elaborate graves filled with richly worked articles of gold and other 
precious materials. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths, finally 
established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean 
territories. It is there that the richest and most numerous relics of Scythian 
civilization have been found. Their power was sufficient to repel an invasion by 
the Persian king Darius I in about 513 BC. 
The Royal Scyths were headed by a sovereign whose authority was transmitted to 
his son. Eventually, around the time of Herodotus, the royal family intermarried 
with Greeks. In 339 the ruler Ateas was killed at the age of 90 while fighting 
Philip II of Macedonia. The community was eventually destroyed in the 2nd 
century BC; Palakus being the last sovereign whose name is preserved in history. 

The Scythian army was made up of freemen who received no wage other than food 
and clothing, but who could share in booty on presentation of the head of a 
slain enemy. Many warriors wore Greek-style bronze helmets and chain-mail 
jerkins. Their principal weapon was a double-curved bow and trefoil-shaped 
arrows; their swords were of the Persian type. Every Scythian had at least one 
personal mount, but the wealthy owned large herds of horses, chiefly Mongolian 
ponies. Burial customs were elaborate and called for the sacrifice of members of 
the dead man's household 
Scythian successes 
The first sign that steppe nomads had learned to fight well from horseback was a 
great raid into Asia Minor launched from the Ukraine about 690 BC by a people 
whom the Greeks called Cimmerians. Some, though perhaps not all, of the raiders 
were mounted. Not long thereafter, tribes speaking an Iranian language, which 
the Greeks called Scythians, conquered the Cimmerians and in turn became lords 
of the Ukraine. According to Herodotus, who is the principal source of 
information on these events, the Scyths (or at least some of them) claimed to 
have migrated from the Altai Mountains at the eastern extreme of the Western 
Steppe. This may well be so, and some modern scholars have even surmised that 
the barbarian invasions of China that brought the Western Chou dynasty to an end 
in 771 BC may have been connected with a Scythian raid from the Altai that had 
occurred a generation or two before Scythian migration westward to the Ukraine. 
The Eastern Steppe was, however, too barren and cold for invaders to linger. 
Consequently, the spread of cavalry skills and of the horse nomads' way of life 
to Mongolia took several centuries. We know this from Chinese records clearly 
showing that cavalry raids from the Mongolian steppe became chronic only in the 
4th century BC. China was then divided among warring states, and border 
principalities had to convert to cavalry tactics in order to mount successful 
defenses. The first state to do so developed its cavalry force only after 325 
BC. 
Long before then, however, the Scythians had erected a loose confederacy that 
spanned all of the Western Steppe. The high king of the tribe heading this 
confederacy presumably had only limited control over the far reaches of the 
Western Steppe. But on special occasions the Scythians could assemble large 
numbers of horsemen for long-distance raids, such as the one that helped to 
bring the Assyrian Empire to an end. After sacking the Assyrian capital of 
Nineveh in 612 BC, the booty-laden Scyths returned to the Ukrainian steppe, 
leaving Medes, Babylonians, and Egyptians to dispute the Assyrian heritage. But 
the threat of renewed raids from the north remained and constituted a standing 
problem for rulers of the Middle East thereafter. 
Scythian Jewelry 
It is to the Scythians, a semi nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who 
moved out from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube 
and then into Mesopotamia, that we owe a type of gold production, which, on the 
basis of its themes, is classified today as animal-style. During the early 
period (5th-4th century BC), this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made 
of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, 
tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other, embossed with powerful 
plasticity and free interpretation of the forms. The animal-style had a strong 
influence in western Asia during the 7th century BC. Such ornaments as 
necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye 
treasure (discovered in Iran near the border between Kurdistan and Azerbaijan) 
provide evidence of this Asiatic phase of Scythian gold-working art. The 
ornaments are characterized by highly expressive animal forms. This Central 
Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th 
century BC into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry. 
Scythian Art  
Scythian Art is also called STEPPES ART, decorative objects, mainly jewelry and 
trappings for horse, tent, and wagon, produced by nomadic tribes that roamed 
Central Asia from slightly east of the Altai Mountains in Inner Mongolia to 
European Russia. What little is known of these tribes, called Scyths, or Sacae, 
in the classical sources, indicates that they established control of the plain 
north of the Black Sea over a period of several centuries, from the 7th-6th 
century BC until they were gradually supplanted by the Sarmatians during the 4th 
century BC-2nd century AD. Many of the most impressive pieces of Scythian art 
(now part of the treasure at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg) were cast of solid 
gold and were recovered in the 17th-19th century, before the development of 
modern archaeological methods that might have shed more light on their origins. 
The Scythians worked in a wide variety of materials, including wood, leather, 
bone, appliqué felts, bronze, iron, silver, gold, and electrum. The tombs of 
Pazyryk in the Altai yielded many well-preserved articles of clothing that were 
profusely trimmed with embroidery and appliqué designs; the clothes of the 
wealthy in southern Russia were covered with tiny gold-embossed plaques, sewn to 
the garments. At Pazyryk, felt appliqué wall hangings were found, some 
displaying religious scenes featuring the Great Goddess or anthropomorphic 
beasts, others with geometric or animal motifs. Felt rugs were also found, as 
well as a vast number of beautifully made tools and domestic utensils. 
The art of the period is essentially an animal art. Combat scenes between two or 
more animals are numerous, as are single animal figures. Many real or mythical 
beasts are represented, the majority of the types having roots in deep 
antiquity, but the Scythians fashioned them in a manner that was new and 
characteristically their own. As is to be expected with nomads who were 
constantly on the move, the decorative objects they produced are generally small 
in size, but many are made of precious materials and practically all are of 
superb workmanship. 
The Scythian gold figures of semi recumbent stags, measuring some 12 inches 
(30.5 cm) in length, are outstanding; they were probably used as the central 
ornaments for the round shields carried by many Scythian fighters. Perhaps the 
loveliest of the gold stags is the 6th-century-bc example from the burial of 
Kostromskaya Stanitsa in the Kuban, but versions of the 5th century BC from 
Tápiószentmárton in Hungary and of the 4th century BC from Kul Oba in the Crimea 
are scarcely less beautiful. In all three examples the stag is shown in a 
recumbent position, with its legs tucked beneath its body, but with its head 
raised and its muscles taut so that it gives an impression of rapid motion. 
The Scythian artistic idiom is one of great compression as well as of synthesis; 
contrasting positions of the body are combined with astonishing skill to depict 
every possible aspect of the animal when visualized during all its diverse 
activities. Though the art is basically representational in character, it is at 
the same time imaginative in spirit, often verging on the abstract in 
conception. Yet however complex its elements, they are fused in the finished 
work into a single entity of compelling force and beauty. 
 
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