“The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China” by Christopher I. Beckwith.
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DESCRIPTION: Hardcover with dustjacket. Publisher: Princeton University (2023). Pages: 416. Dimensions: 9½ x 6¼ x 1¼ inches; 1½ pounds. Summary: A rich, discovery-filled history that tells how a forgotten empire transformed the ancient world. In the late 8th and early 7th centuries B.C. Scythian warriors conquered and unified most of the vast Eurasian continent. They created an innovative empire that would give birth to the age of philosophy and the Classical age across the ancient world—in the West, the Near East, India, and China.
Mobile horse herders who lived with their cats in wheeled felt tents, the Scythians made stunning contributions to world civilization—from capital cities and strikingly elegant dress to political organization and the world-changing ideas of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Laotzu—Scythians all.
In "The Scythian Empire", Christopher I. Beckwith presents a major new history of a fascinating but often forgotten empire that changed the course of history. At its height the Scythian Empire stretched west from Mongolia and ancient northeast China to northwest Iran and the Danube River, and in Central Asia reached as far south as the Arabian Sea.
The Scythians also ruled Media and Chao, crucial frontier states of ancient Iran and China. By ruling over and marrying the local peoples, the Scythians created new cultures that were creole Scythian in their speech, dress, weaponry, and feudal socio-political structure. As they spread their language, ideas, and culture across the ancient world, the Scythians laid the foundations for the very first Persian, Indian, and Chinese empires.
Filled with fresh discoveries, "The Scythian Empire" presents a remarkable new vision of a little-known but incredibly important empire and its peoples.
CONDITION: NEW. New hardcover w/dustjacket. Princeton University (2023) 416 pages. Unblemished and pristine in every respect. Pages are clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, unambiguously unread. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Meticulous and accurate descriptions! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 30 days! #10284a.
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PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: "In the late 8th to early 7th century BC, Scythian steppe warriors conquered Central Eurasia and peripheral regions in Iran and China, revolutionizing the local cultures. A nomadic herding people who lived with their cats in felt-tent homes on wheels, the Scythians spread their complex, mobile, highly innovative culture into the frontiers of Southeast Europe, the Near East, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia. They produced the world's first "global" civilization: the great cultural flowering known as the Classical Age.
In this book, Christopher Beckwith, one of the leading scholars of Central Eurasia, provides a new account of this fascinating culture, their empires, and their influence. He covers their tightly interwoven religious-social economic-political system, their heavenly royal lineage and language, their strikingly elegant new clothing fashions, and their revolutionary thought: Scythian philosophy. Politically, in the west the Scythians founded the sedentary world's first true empire, based in Media (northwestern Iran), which eventually became the Persian Empire.
In the east their realm based in Chao (straddling the frontier with northern Chinese culture) introduced the key concepts that led to formation of Chinese national identity and the Chinese Empire. With the Scythian source of these tremendous changes as its focus, the book solves several mysteries surrounding the Scythians and presents some of the greatest true stories of Antiquity in a new light"
REVIEW: Recent excavations have enlarged our perceptions of the Scythian world. In particular, the unearthing of large fortifications and urban settlements has led to new discoveries about their economic development, art and religion, and has brought about a reassessment of the Scythian military equipment and fighting tactics.
REVIEW: As a result of recent research carried out archaeologists and historians have revealed a new, more complex picture of the ancient Scythians.
REVIEW: This account of the ancient nomadic people reveals the complexities and richness of their culture.
REVIEW: Christopher I. Beckwith (born 1945) is an American philologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese from Ohio State University (1968), a Master of Arts in Tibetan from Indiana University Bloomington (1974) and a Doctor of Philosophy in Inner Asian Studies from Indiana University (1977).
Beckwith, a MacArthur Fellow, is a researcher in the field of Central Eurasian studies. He researches the history and cultures of ancient and medieval Central Asia. Concomitantly he specializes in Asian language studies and linguistics, and in the history of Central Eurasia. He teaches Old Tibetan, Central Eurasian languages, and Central Eurasian history and researches the linguistics of Aramaic, Chinese, Japanese, Koguryo, Old Tibetan, Tokharian, Old Turkic, Uzbek, and other languages.
His best-known works include "Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia" and "Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present". "Greek Buddha" examines links between very early Buddhism and the philosophy of Pyrrho, an ancient Greek philosopher who accompanied Alexander the Great on his Indian campaign. The book is noted for its challenging and iconoclastic approach to multiple issues in the development of early Buddhism, Pyrrhonism, Daoism, Jainism and the Śramaṇa movement. Empires of the Silk Road" is a rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of Central Eurasia.
REVIEW: Chris Beckwith studied poetry in China and had true-life adventures in Afghanistan, Siberia, and beyond. A MacArthur Fellow who is a scientist by day and writer by night, he forges mind-gripping science and magical worlds of fiction full of unexpected turns, with characters who spring to life from the very first page.
REVIEW: Christopher I. Beckwith is Distinguished Professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. His many books include “Empires of the Silk Road”, “The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia”, “Greek Buddha”, and “Warriors of the Cloisters”.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Illustrations.
Diagrams and Table.
Preface.
Acknowledgements.
Terminology.
Transcriptions and Conventions.
Sources and Citations.
Abbreviations and Symbols.
Prologue: Central Eurasian Innovators.
The Scythians in the Central Eurasian Steppes.
The Scythians in Media and Central Asia.
The Scytho-Mede Persian Empire.
One Eternal Royal Line.
Imperial Scythian in the Persian Empire.
Classical Scythian in the Central Eurasian Steppes Eurasia.
The Scythian Empire in Chao and the First Chinese Empire.
The Scythian Capitals of Media, Chao, and Ch'in.
Epilogue: Scythian Philosophy and the Classical Age.
Appendix A: Zoroaster and Monotheism.
Appendix B: Scytrhian and Scytho-Mede Dress and Weaponry.
Endnotes.
References.
Illustration Credits.
Index.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:
REVIEW: The Scythian Empire is a controversial book with a charming title that can attract the attention of any scholar. Christopher I. Beckwith presents claims in this book that accepting each one of them leads us to rethink many previous customary historical beliefs. The book wraps a wide range of specialized topics in the fields of history, archeology, and linguistics. Since the Scythians were an Iranian ethnic group,this work is especially recommended for scholars of Iranian history, as unfortunately, the significance of the Scythians in shaping Iranian history has not been recognized as other ancient Iranians such as the Persians. In a broader sense, this work can be also useful for scholars interested in the Iranian world and its relations with neighboring civilizations, Eurasia, Central Asia, and China. [University of Tehran].
REVIEW: A revolutionary rewriting of the current dominant view on Ancient Central Eurasia, The Scythian Empire will deeply transform what we believed the Greek, Roman, Persian, and Chinese Classical ages were. Christopher I. Beckwith has made accessible the story of the earliest known steppe empire in what is not only a provocative rethinking of Scythian history but a fascinating exploration of their language, art, and philosophy. Interpretatively audacious, adventurous, and ambitious, The Scythian Empire will generate debates for years and make readers see the history of Eurasia in an entirely unexpected way. [Marie Favereau, author of “The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World”].
REVIEW: Long forgotten, misunderstood, and dismissed as barbarians, the Empire of Scythia emerges at last from the shadows of ancient history, thanks to Christopher I. Beckwith. His insightful revelations illuminate the far-reaching legacies of the nomads who roamed and ruled the vast territory from the Black Sea to China’s Great Wall. This is a fascinating story of how Scythian culture and innovations in horsemanship, archery, linguistics, technology, warfare, practical dress, and ideas not only spread across the Eurasian continent but powerfully shaped the earlier empires of Persia, India, and China. [Adrienne Mayor, author of “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World”].
REVIEW: The first millennium BCE was a pivotal age, producing a remarkable number of key military, political, religious, and technological innovations. In The Scythian Empire, the renowned scholar Christopher I. Beckwith overturns the received wisdom that Inner Eurasia was a ‘Barbarian periphery’ impacted by these developments but rarely their agents. He cogently argues that the Scythians not only developed such ideas as monotheism and fitted clothing but also built the first mega-empire. Highly recommended reading. [Peter Turchin, author of “Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth”].
REVIEW: Using a wide array of sources, Beckwith has produced an original, path-breaking, and provocative book that underscores the importance of the Scythians of ancient Central Eurasia in the shaping of peoples, political structures, ideologies, and classical civilization in the eastern Mediterranean world, Greater Iran, China, and South Asia. [Peter Golden, author of “Central Asia in World History”]
REVIEW: Often regarded by historians as a collection of savage tribes, the Scythians emerge as a pivotal force of the ancient world in this monumental history. Although the Scythian Empire, spanning the Eurasian Steppe, was indeed geographically diffuse, Beckwith highlights previously unnoticed connections among its far-flung groups, paying particular attention to linguistic data, which show that a surprising number of familiar words and concepts have roots in Scythian. He likewise traces the ways in which elements of Scythian culture shaped later polities, including the Persian Empire, and claims that the Scythians “effectively produced the great shared cultural flowering known as the Classical Age”. A New Yorker "Best Book We've Read this Year". [New Yorker].
REVIEW: Prodigiously learned. Full of hitherto unthought-of connections across the northern steppes. Christopher I. Beckwith’s “The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China” spans the world from China to the Danube, joining revolutions of military technology and social practice with equally profound breakthroughs in the human mind – Plato, Zoroaster and the Buddha. Prodigiously learned, the book is full of hitherto unthought-of connections across the northern steppes. Not everyone will agree with Beckwith, but all will be challenged by his book which turns the classical world as we know it inside out. A History Today "Book of the Year". [History Today].
REVIEW: The Scythian Empire is simply, dazzlingly original...[Beckwith's] curiosity, imagination and learning—from the Yellow River to the Danube, from archaeology to linguistics—do what every history ought to do but few achieve: compel the reader to think. [Wall Street Journal].
REVIEW: Before I read this book, I thought the prophet Jeremiah had produced the best summary image of Scythians when he said of them simply that "they ride upon horses". Now that I have read "The Scythian Empire", I am tempted to think again, for, if he is right, Scythians were far more than riders, mare-milkers and curd-eaters; they were also administrators and thinkers. [Classics for All].
REVIEW: Professor Beckwith offers an original synthesis of the history of the Old World from the Black Sea to the Yellow River, between the 8th and the 4th century B.C. Beckwith's book is impressive with a large array of erudition. [Sehepunkte/Review Journal for the Historical Sciences, Germany].
REVIEW: Magisterial. Archaeologists should not write a word more about Scythia until they have read it. [Current World Archaeology].
REVIEW: Highly recommended for all students of the Scythians and Classical Persia or China. [Library Journal].
REVIEW: "Illuminating" [History Revealed].
REVIEW: Bold and controversial [Paul Cartledge, Literary Review].
REVIEW: The Scythians and Sarmatians were the original peoples who inspired the Greek legends of the centaurs and the Amazons -- the mounted Scythian warriors seeming to be one with their horses, and the female warriors of the Sarmatians stood out so much that the legend has discarded the men of the Sarmatian tribe. Both groups lived in the area bordered by the Dneipr and Ural Rivers to the east and west respectively, and by the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian Sea to the south. A gorgeous book.
REVIEW: Scythia was a region of Central Eurasia in classical antiquity encompassing parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula River and Central Asia, with the eastern edges of the region vaguely defined by the Greeks. The Ancient Greeks gave the name Scythia (or Great Scythia) to all the lands north-east of Europe and the northern coast of the Black Sea. The Scythians – the Greeks' name for this initially nomadic people – inhabited Scythia from at least the 11th century BC to the 2nd century A.D.
The Scythian population was composed of various groups of Iranian-Eurasian nomads who were mentioned by the literate peoples surrounding them as inhabiting large areas in the central Eurasian steppes. Little is known of them and their rulers. The most detailed western description is by Herodotus, though it is uncertain he ever went to Scythia. The Scythians became increasingly settled and wealthy on their western frontier with Greco-Roman civilization.
The Scythian languages belonged to the Eastern branch of the Iranian languages. The "classical Scythians" known to ancient Greek historians were located in the northern Black Sea and Caucasus regions. Other Scythian groups documented by Assyrian, Achaemenid and Chinese sources show that they also existed in Central Asia. Although ancient Persian sources referred to Western Scythians of the northern Black Sea, modern scholars usually use the term Saka to refer to Iranian-speaking tribes who inhabited the Eastern Steppe and the Tarim Basin.
The relationships between the peoples living in these widely separated regions remains unclear. The term "Scythian" is used by modern scholars in an archaeological context for finds perceived to display attributes of the "Scytho-Siberian" culture, usually without implying an ethnic or linguistic connotation, describing in essence a culture that existed following the widespread diffusion of mounted nomadism, and characterized by the presence of special weapons, horse gear, and animal art in the form of metal plaques".
The Scythians were among the earliest peoples to master mounted warfare. In the 8th century BC they possibly raided Zhou China. Soon after they expanded westwards and dislodged the Cimmerians from power on the Pontic Steppe. At their peak, Scythians came to dominate the entire steppe zone, stretching from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to central China (Ordos culture) and the south Siberia (Tagar culture) in the east, creating what has been referred to as the first Central Asian nomadic empire.
Based in what is modern-day Ukraine, Southern European Russia, and Crimea, the western Scythians were ruled by a wealthy class known as the Royal Scyths. The Scythians established and controlled a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China, perhaps contributing to the contemporary flourishing of those civilizations. Settled metalworkers made portable decorative objects for the Scythians. These objects survive mainly in metal, forming a distinctive Scythian art. In the 7th century BC the Scythians crossed the Caucasus and frequently raided the Middle East along with the Cimmerians, playing an important role in the political developments of the region.
Around 650–630 BC, Scythians briefly dominated the Medes of the western Iranian Plateau, stretching their power all the way to the borders of Egypt. After losing control over Media the Scythians continued intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, playing a leading role in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire in the Sack of Nineveh in 612 BC. The Scythians subsequently engaged in frequent conflicts with the Achaemenid Empire.
The western Scythians suffered a major defeat against Macedonia in the 4th century BC, and were subsequently gradually conquered by the Sarmatians, a related Iranian people from Central Asia. The Eastern Scythians of the Asian Steppe (Saka) were attacked by the Yuezhi, Wusun and Xiongnu in the 2nd century BC, prompting many of them to migrate into South Asia, where they became known as Indo-Scythians. At some point, perhaps as late as the 3rd century AD after the demise of the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu, Eastern Scythians crossed the Pamir Mountains and settled in the western Tarim Basin, where the Scythian Khotanese and Tumshuqese languages are attested in Brahmi scripture from the 10th and 11th centuries AD.
In Eastern Europe, by the early Medieval Ages, the Scythians and their closely related Sarmatians were eventually assimilated and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of the region. Scythians kept herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, lived in tent-covered wagons, and fought with bows and arrows on horseback. They developed a rich culture characterized by opulent tombs, fine metalwork, and a brilliant art style.
READER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: "The Scythians, a nomadic herding people from the steppes, spread their complex and highly innovative culture into the peripheral Eurasian world of late Archaic Antiquity by directly ruling over parts of it. Its introduction to Southeastern Europe, the Near East, South Asia, and East Asia at the same time and in the same ways effectively produced the great shared cultural flowering known as the Classical Age" (page 267).
The Scythian Empire is the best nonfiction I've read so far this year. It's a provocative argument that throws the history of the ancient Middle East, Greece and China into an entirely new perspective, as hinted in the final paragraph of the main text quoted above. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the period without hesitation.
One caveat, it's not written with a general reader in mind. The Endnotes are practically a book unto themselves (and that's a positive from my point of view) and the appendix "Zoroaster and Monotheism" is a revelatory perspective on the origins of monotheism.
REVIEW: No two ways about it: This book is a bombshell. If Beckwith is right—and he includes reams of scholarship to back up his claims—then ancient history is being rewritten. For most casual aficionados of the ancient world, the Scythians were ruthlessly effective barbarian horse-archers, whom Alexander the Great wisely avoided and Cyrus the Great catastrophically did not. But these were no mere bit players.
Beckwith argues that the Scythians, first to tame the wild horse and subsequently the first to invent pants, were the first great empire of the Eurasian Steppe, and that civilizations ranging from the Medes and Persians to the Mauryans and Chinese were all Scythian spin-off states—as were the Sarmatians, Saka, Cimmerians, etc.
They invented the notion of empire, the theology of one heavenly God, and spread the seeds of philosophy in Greece, Persia, India, and China that created both the classical world and the Axial Age. The pre-Socratic Anacharsis, Zoroaster, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu were all either Scythian or “creolized” Scythian.
In this account, Media and Persia were not truly separate states but each successively inheritors of their parent Scythian Empire. The biblical reforms of King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah coincide with the reëstablishment of Persian monotheism. Even Qin Shi Huang, and two out of the three Warring States of China, were Scythian in origin.
Is Beckwith correct? Princeton University Press appears to think so. And he musters quite a bit of historical and (especially) philological support for his conclusions. If he’s right, the separate worlds of East and West indeed meet upon the Steppe, and the Scythians are the fathers of us all. In short, the academic stakes could not be higher.
REVIEW:
REVIEW: This is not the book for the average reader or even the more advanced reader of non-fictional history. It had a clear intent of restoring the historical importance of the Scythian Empire and as such rightfully covered various points involving language, empire administration, etc. But as a bit of a history geek with just enough knowledge to have heard of Zoroaster and the Scythians and a place called Ninevah, well...I really enjoyed it.
I liked thinking about things discussed like: the derivation of the name Zoroaster, why around 600-700 B.C. did monotheism become the hot new thing, the geographic scope of the Scythian empire, how it was administered and why it embedded feudalism, how it was the last great empire run under a nomadic vs agrarian lifestyle, the differences between language and dialects, how later "overthrows" didn't really overthrow the administration of the empire but basically just deposed the divine leader, imagining the glory of the Persian Empire royal golden tent.
REVIEW: I picked this book because I knew little to nothing about the subject matter and wanted to learn more. As it turns out, my ignorance is not so surprising: there seem to be a very limited number of primary or near-primary sources for researchers to use, and as a result there seems to be only a limited amount of information that can be conveyed with any degree of certainty.
A lot of time is devoted to lineages and the migration of aria/kharia/haria as a word/concept. I genuinely enjoyed these sections, particularly the coverage of dialects and languages and language families. This is a dense book. Overall, this really was a good book. But it’s definitely more for scholars than armchair historians. It’s still well worth reading. Just make sure you have no distractions as you read.
REVIEW: It was so impactful to understand Darius was not an usurper, as I had heard. Beckwith shows, in no uncertain terms, that Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes are all part of a shared lineage or royal bloodline, split from Persia, Elamite and Scythian and reunited again through in Xerxes through marriage. Not only does he mark out the bloodlines, but shows the Scythian's were normatively monotheistic, with periods of polytheistic rulership (Cyrus and Cambyses, etc.) was an aberration in the eyes of early Zoroastrian teaching.
It is so interesting that Beckwith ties the belief of the 'new' gods in with statements made of such as found in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:17), and that the belief of these gods spread in the surrounding geographical area and beyond like wildfire. Beckwith also shows, through very convincing proofs, that the Scythian's spread their influence and system of belief very wide in the ancient world, relating even the kin of Qin, the first emperor of united China, to the Scythian royal line!
If that doesn't already blow your mind, read on to see that ancient philosophers Anacharsis of Greece, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Laotzu were all foreigners of Scythian descent, most who went east departing from from the antilogies taught by early Zoroastrian belief of Truth vs falsehood and taking up a dichotomy or duality of belief of a flow and ebb of good vs evil. Or in Buddhism the entire dismissal of anything as being good or evil. The criticisms of Beckwith on that are present and echo my own.
REVIEW: It seems to me that a lot of reviewers are hung up on the use of the term Arya and Aryan, being immediately turned off the book by something triggering in their brains, scaring them into thinking they are reading a book about esoteric Nazism rather than a etymological exploration of several seemingly disparate cultures. You can see this in the semi-hysterical shaming language being used in some of the reviews.
Like many have mentioned, this is not a book for a layman, at least not one without an existing level of knowledge regarding the ancient world and the civilizations that existed there. Beckwith won't hold your hand and give you a background into the names and terms he throws around, it isn't that kind of book. I think many readers may think they are picking up something more readable and casual. It is not that.
Do I believe his theory is true? I honestly have no idea. I think he makes a compelling argument, and I'm a sucker for ideas that draw together old evidence in new ways. So much of history is educated guesswork, and when an existing theory is entrenched in the academic psyche there is anger when another suggests its wrong, no matter what scientists and academics will tell you about being excited when something new comes along.
Additionally, today there is a very real and insidious pressure on us to look at any non-entrenched theory through the lens of what is acceptable to modernity. In that regard, this theory will certainly rub quite a few people up the wrong way.
REVIEW: This book really surprised me! It is a linguistic and philological study in support of the existence of a Scythian Empire and a Scytho-Mede-Persian Empire. From that basis, the book ends with the claim that the Scythian Empire was the foundation for the classical empires and their cultures in the axial age, including Persia, India, and China.
Was this book interesting? Yes, but I wasn't prepared for it. I was prepared to read more about the culture of empire. But maybe that isn't really possible with an empire as old as this one, due to lack of historical documents. The major documents in this book are a list of kings, the Avestan Gatha written by Zarathustra, and the history provided by Herodotus. The most interesting part about this book to me was learning about the origins of the first Chinese Empire!
REVIEW: This is a new take on history, reading data and filling the gaps about Central Asia's nomadic cultures' roles in shaping Western and Asian thought and culture during the Classical Age. Both modern monotheism and its philosophical rejection, epistemology and logic, classical warfare, political systems, and feudalism, all tenets of the axial age, were deeply influenced by the Sctythian empire and its direct successors. Did I say this is fascinating?
REVIEW: A tour de force. The basic thesis is that historians have missed the relevance of a Scythian Empire that ran from Northern China through Iraq and Iran. Included among other things a feudal hierarchy adopted by the Medes (who really were Scythians in culture) and then passed down to the Persians, as well as the Chao dynasty in China. Also includes some remarkable material about their role in early philosophy as the author contends (not sure how clearly this is true) that both Zoroaster and Gautama Buddha were Scythians. A marvelously informative book.
REVIEW: This is highly speculative, but appears to be based on firm linguistic and other evidence. If proven true it will radically transform our view of the Archaic and Early Classical period. I'm not well-enough trained in linguistics to call it either way, but I'm going to pay close attention to this field in the future, as the claims made in this book - that the later civilizations of pretty much all of the Eurasian landmass grew out of a continent-spanning empire - are quite mind-boggling. Highly recommended.
REVIEW: It is big and bold in its claims. It is effectively The Axial Age, recast. But while there are huge gaps (hardly a surprise given what little has survived), this is the kind of provocative work that can shift scholars out of ruts that emerge in research.
REVIEW: Detailed examination of this great Empire which influenced the Greeks (through Anacharsis, who predates the much-glorified Socrates by centuries) and who influenced the Hebrews to convert to monotheism, the Moses story being a blatant ripoff of Cyrus. Demolishes the Greek assertion that the Scythians were "barbarians."
REVIEW: A fascinating and thought provoking book which may have a lot of truth to it. I cannot judge if the author is stretching the evidence - I suspect he is - but he anyhow presents an important case. The steppe peoples of Eurasia have always been far more important, barbarians or not, in the development and expansion of human civilization.
REVIEW: This book relies extensively on linguistic analysis of multiple languages. I often felt lost working through those passages, but the inferences and conclusions that Beckwith is able to make from that linguistic evidence is fascinating and, for me at least, was worth the hard to read linguistic passages.
REVIEW: Unless you love linguistics or etymology, the chapters of this book are not going to keep you riveted; however, the epilogue is a banger. It connects the Scythian Empire's philosophers who left their homelands to teach the Greeks (Anacharsis), the Persians (Zoroaster), the Indians (Gautama Buddha), and the Chinese (Lao Tzu). That was mind blowing enough, but if you pay attention to the linguistic connections there are beautiful connections linking the Far East to Europe.
All four of the civilizations above fight for supremacy in the modern world, while their philosophical roots are united in monotheism. The Scythians were no saints, but they informed the thinking of the world's great civilizations. It's exciting to see what modern scholarship will be able to do to flesh out the story of our collective start.
REVIEW: I am drawn to sweeping theories of history like a moth to the flame - geography is everything, class struggle is everything, or, in this case, that the Scyths had a great empire that dominated Asia for hundreds of years and birthed the empires of China, Persia and Medea.
Mr. Beckwith makes his case for the Scyths mostly through linguistic analysis, which is an interesting starting point for a nomadic people who have left us no written records, or at least none from their cultural heartland in the steppes, though linguists can certainly reconstruct important elements of the Scythian language just as we can do with Proto-Indo-European.
He also points to names of rulers that he claims are Scythian and the system of imperial rule through satrapies that he says originated with the Scyths. He says that the Hsiung Nu who the Chinese remember as the barbarians who long harassed their western border regions were the same people as the Scyths who lived thousands of miles away around the Black Sea.
I'm sure that there were at least some connections and that there were probably cases of barbarian invaders who conquered and made themselves kings in the rich regions that border on the Central Asian steppes.
REVIEW: This book is not for the layperson, but rather for the serious student of ancient history. While it talks about the empire of the Scythians which stretched from the Caspian Sea to China, it mainly delves into how the Scythians influenced the ancient world.
Medea (i.e., the Medes) was a Scythian enclave and greatly influenced Persia. The Scythians were mono-theistic and thus influenced Zoroastrianism and possibly Judaism. Their philosophy probably influenced Greek thought. Their form of government was adopted wholesale by the Persians.
Lastly, in several chapters on linguistics, there are loan words in Chinese and Persian that point back to the Scythians. They were much more than simply horse archers of the steppe. Not an easy read, but worth it if you enjoy ancient history.
REVIEW: The finest part of the book is the origin of philosophy on the Scythian steppe, a flowering that spread both east and west. I find it quite convincing that these Steppe folk were much more fundamental in the foundational moments of what would arise to become Persia, Indian, and Chinese culture.
REVIEW: An academic book about a people often ignored by academics mainly for current mainstream narratives. The Scythians are our Aryan forefathers. Their reach across Europe and Asia is astounding and their influence on all aspects of culture is deep rooted. This book will be a little dry for the casual reader as it gets very heavy into linguistics and minutia at times. Overall I enjoyed it but did find myself zoning out here and there. Was interesting to learn about all these early monotheistic peoples predating polytheistic European religions and countering the mainstream narrative on religious development (which I have never taken seriously anyway). Definitely recommend having a map handy if you aren't familiar with ancient Central Asia.
REVIEW: The author describes a common linguistic and cultural linkage from the first Chinese dynasty through the beat cop Scythians in Classical Athens. The detailed linguistics might be a burden, but the scholarship puts this book beyond Von Denokan, Atlantis or other fanciful narratives.
REVIEW: The theory about the Scythians is intriguing: the Mede and Persian Emperors stem from the same Scythian royalty line. It is extensively based on linguistic arguments and they are repeated several times. Still it changed my mind about the Scythians, and I think it will change yours.
REVIEW: The author has formulated interesting and fairly plausible ideas (e.g. we can extrapolate some of what the Scythian customs were from the documented practices of the Medes after they were under Scythian influence for a few decades). There is a tremendous amount of interesting data in this book.
REVIEW: This is certainly a well written and thoroughly researched book, written by a true specialist. Christopher Beckwith’s scholarly depth is impressive. The reader learns a lot about the Scythians in this book.
REVIEW: The linking of what has been considered separate tribal peoples into a related movement give us the bridges between Eastern “barbarians” and classical eastern Rome.
REVIEW: This is the third book of Christopher Beckwith that I have finished. And I have already started a fourth book by him. He is now one of my favorite historians, not only for the historical content itself, but also for how thoroughly he builds his case, especially noteworthy being his use and mastery of the linguistic material.
REVIEW: Thought provoking: the connections (regarding linguistics, clothing, weaponry, and warfare, and certain concept such as "feudalism" and heavenly "monotheism") are indeed interesting and deserve further study. It is not implausible that they derive from a shared "Skythian" cultural background.
REVIEW: There's a lot more to the Scythians than what we can read in classical sources, written by their enemies. This book starts to fill that hole. I don't know that it's for "everyone" though - it's a scholarly book, and in places it gets fairly technical and/or reads like part of a dialectic process with other viewpoints.
REVIEW: Interesting and well-supported theses. There was once a large Scythian Empire, stretching from China all the way to the borders of Europe. Moreover, this Empire was also the genesis of the Median and Persian and even Chinese cultures, as well as others. The Scythians also invented monotheism and philosophy (Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao-tzu and Anacharsis were all, according to the author, Scythian; and Buddha and Lao-tzu may have been the same person). The early strife within the Persian Empire was a conflict between polytheists (Cyrus the Great, Cambyses) and monotheists (Darius the Great).
REVIEW: Dr. Beckwith has written another great history of this time period and culture!
REVIEW: Fantastic thesis with supporting evidence. Definitive reading. The author obviously knows a lot about ethno-linguistics and etymology.
REVIEW: I believe this to be the best available review of the Scythians. If you are interested in Scythian history then read this book.
REVIEW: This book is a concise yet comprehensive review of what we know about the Scythians. It also synthesizes a lot of data from various Soviet era and older excavations, many of which are written in other languages and therefore inaccessible to English readers.
REVIEW: Well written, easy to follow, easy to read. Textbook quality printing, glossy pages.
REVIEW: I am fascinated by the claim that Zoroaster, Cyrus, Buddha and Laozi were all Scythian creoles. This culture has been treated very badly by historians, but they seem to have invented monotheism. They also domesticated horses, pioneered the slave, drug and spice trades, invented the recumbent bow, designed the first fitted clothes and invented the myth of the Holy Grail.
REVIEW: Adds a lot of new context to the transition between the Median, Achaemenid, Seleukid, Parthian, and Sasanian dynasties.
REVIEW: I enjoyed the author's writing. This is a good book to introduce readers to the Scythians.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: Scythian Art showcases ancient treasures of the Scythians, the fierce, nomadic horsemen who roamed the European steppe from the seventh to the third centuries BC. These proud warriors, who grew rich on trade with the Greeks, commissioned lavish gold objects for adornment, ceremony and battle, drawing on their own ancient artistic traditions and employing the finest Greek goldsmiths of the age.
The Scythians flourished more than 2,500 years ago in what is present-day Ukraine and are among the most fascinating of the great warrior cultures that dominated the steppes for centuries. They originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium, BC. After migrating into what is present-day Ukraine, they flourished, from the seventh to the third centuries, BC, over a vast expanse of the steppe that stretched from the Danube, east across what is modern Ukraine and east of the Black Sea into Russia. Invincible for nearly four centuries, the Scythians were a people of great military skill and unrelenting ferocity. They were also extremely influential patrons of the arts, and left behind an extraordinary legacy of both ruthless conquest and lavish artifacts. Gold of the Nomads offers visitors a rare glimpse into the lives of these great warriors, whose brutality was matched only by their passion for exquisite ornament.
Much of what is known about the Scythians has been uncovered through archaeological excavations of their burial mounds, known as kurhany. Ongoing explorations of kurhany continue to recover an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects, ranging from horse trappings to armor, weaponry, jewelry and ceremonial adornment. Early finds of Scythian gold artifacts in the 1700s were so stunning that Catherine the Great ordered their systematic study, launching what became the field of Scythian archaeology. Some of the most extraordinary finds were uncovered only in the last two decades, and excavations continue on an ongoing basis to explore some of the more than 40,000 kurhany still unexcavated in Ukraine.
Many of the works of art are in the animal style associated with the central Asian steppes, while others reflect influence from ancient Near Eastern cultures. Still other objects reveal a fusion of the animal style with Near Eastern motifs and Greek iconography and style. Rich evidence of this sophisticated, artistic dialogue constitutes an intriguing new frontier in archaeological research.
The story of the Scythians and Scythian art is also a story of interaction with the Greek world, which eagerly purchased grain, furs and amber from the Scythians. Profits from this trade brought Scythians the wealth to indulge their taste for elaborate objects ranging from torques to horse decorations. Magnificent gilded bronze Greek vessels discovered in a bog 300 miles up the Dnipro River testify to the extensive commercial and cultural ties between the peoples.
When the Scythians at last abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for the prosperous, settled life which trade had brought them, the door was opened for the invasion of a hardier nomadic tribe, the Sarmatians. The exhibition will close with several superb Sarmatian gold objects, including a torque, a dolphin brooch and a pendant, as a reminder of how intriguing and how still little known are the cultures, objects, and artistic styles of this part of the world.
REVIEW: The Scythians were a nomadic people who originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium, B.C. After migrating into what is present-day Ukraine, they prospered from the fifth to the third centuries, B.C, through trade with the Greek cities on the Black Sea coast.
Scythian graves and burial mounds continue to yield an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects, many of which are in the salled animal style associated with the central Asian steppes. Other objects reflect influence from ancient Near Eastern cultures, and still other pieces are either strongly in the Greek style or exhibit an intriguing blend of Greek and animal style elements. Many of the recently excavated objects presented here constitute a new chapter, even a new book, on the interrelationships of the ancient Aegean world, the ancient Near East, and the steppes that extend from north of the Black Sea as far as the Altai Republic near Mongolia.
REVIEW: In the 1970s, Scythian gold was the subject of one of the first of what are now commonly called "treasure house" shows at American art museums. An exhibition seen in New York and Los Angeles focused on the exquisitely fabricated decorative metalwork so highly prized by the ancient nomads of the region north of the Black Sea--metalwork in some cases made for them by Greek artisans working in Crimea more than 2,300 years ago. Scythian gold was hitherto largely unknown in the West, but the popular exhibition left a gilded icon in its wake: the glittering image of an elk-like deer, its legs tucked beneath its body in a recumbent pose, its antlers transformed into an elegant, rhythmic interlace of serpentine lines.
The exhibition this book was prepared for was part of an unprecedented presentation of Scythian gold. played out as one cultural episode in a larger Cold War drama of one-upmanship between East and West. The story told by Scythian artifacts is a story of ancient international trade and the subsequent transformation of established cultural tradition, albeit on a relatively small scale. Something of the dramatic difference that Scythian art underwent in its increasingly interdependent encounter with the Greeks can be seen in many of the objects presented here.
As nomads, the Scythians were relatively limited in their artistic traditions and capacities. They had migrated from Central Asia around 600 BC. Hunting and gathering (and no doubt plundering) still went on, but in relatively short order they discovered something new. They discovered trade, and especially the meaning of the potentially lucrative term "middleman."
The wandering Scythians found they could take grain grown by indigenous farmers in the north and sell it, at a big profit, to the Greek cities springing up in the south along the Black Sea coast. Eventually their peripatetic nomadism gave way to regular seasonal encampments. Slowly but surely the Scythians were getting rich, and so they did what the newly rich do: They went shopping. What they bought were luxuries.
The Greeks who were building small cities around the Black Sea bought Scythian grain, but they had artistic talent to sell back to their increasingly prosperous traders. Consequently Scythian style and Greek often mingle, merge and mix with one another. One extraordinary example is an elaborately decorated sword and scabbard plated in gold. The refined and cleverly composed reliefs show scenes of fierce animal combat. The pommel of the sword carries a single crouching stag, typically Scythian, while the blade cover is arrayed with fantastic griffins--half eagle, half lion--of Near Eastern heritage. Elsewhere a half-goat figure of Pan, Greek god of the forests, turns up. And asymmetrical dynamism, which speaks of a worldview based on continuous movement and dramatic flux, begins to be transformed into a more relaxed balance and equilibrium, an expression of eternal harmony.
In more general terms, Scythian decorative motifs tended to be animal and vegetable in origin, as might be expected from warriors who hunted. From Greece came representations of human beings, such as those that turned up at war on the ritual gold helmet, or the elegant seated women who appear on a pair of elaborate earrings, or the portrait-like men's faces that adorn bridle attachments. And the powerful Scythian figure of a ruling goddess, shown in the center of a magnificent diadem, is eventually joined by a bridle ornament showing the Greek figure of a bearded hero with a lion's pelt and an enormous club--who else but Hercules.
It is said that the Scythians, whose brutal ways included human sacrifice in the ritual slaughter of attendants (and horses) at elaborate burial feasts, might have grown weak and slothful with all their worldly success as tradesmen. No one really knows for sure the details of why or how the Sarmatians quashed the Scythians. You get the feeling, though, that this otherwise engaging post-Cold War look at Scythian gold has been given a small but distinctly cautionary coda: Beware getting fat and sassy in a globalizing economy.
REVIEW: Originally nomads, the Scythians migrated from central Asia through the Near East, finally settling on the shores of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine. The wealth they earned by selling grain to Greek cities provided the means to purchase fabulous gold ornaments that fused the styles of Greece, the Near East, and Central Asia. It would be fair to say that the Scythians had a weakness for gold. Where did they get all that gold? It is accepted that the Scythians were fierce warriors. But historical myths suggest that the was as a result of commercial exchanges; grain for gold. Scythian art is characterized by its so-called animal style. This catalog displays some of the finest gold treasures of this ancient nomadic people--swords, a helmet, exquisite jewelry, and other objects dating from the fifth to the third centuries.
REVIEW: Scythia was a region of Central Eurasia in classical antiquity, occupied by the Eastern Iranian Scythians, encompassing parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula River and Central Asia, with the eastern edges of the region vaguely defined by the Greeks. The Ancient Greeks gave the name Scythia (or Great Scythia) to all the lands north-east of Europe and the northern coast of the Black Sea. The Scythians – the Greeks' name for this initially nomadic people – inhabited Scythia from at least the 11th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on the map opposite.
Scythia was a loose state that originated as early as 8th century BC. Little is known of them and their rulers. The most detailed western description is by Herodotus, though it is uncertain he ever went to Scythia. He says the Scythians' own name for themselves was "Scoloti". The Scythians became increasingly settled and wealthy on their western frontier with Greco-Roman civilization.The region known to classical authors as Scythia included the Pontic-Caspian steppe: Ukraine, southern Russia, and western Kazakhstan (inhabited by Scythians from at least the 8th century BC).
Genetic evidence for ranging clear across the plains (steppes) from Black Sea to Lake Baikal. The Kazakh steppe: northern Kazakhstan and the adjacent portions of Russia Sarmatia, corresponding to eastern Poland, Ukraine, southwestern Russia, and the northeastern Balkans, ranging from the Vistula River in the west to the mouth of the Danube, and eastward to the Volga Saka tigrakhauda, corresponding to parts of Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, southeastern Kazakhstan, and the Tarim Basin Sistan or Sakastan, corresponding to southern Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and southwestern Pakistan, extending from the Sistan Basin to the Indus River.
Following successive invasions of the Indo-Greek kingdoms, the Indo-Scythians also expanded east, capturing territory in what is today the Punjab region. Parama Kamboja, corresponding to northern Afghanistan and parts of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan Alania, corresponding to the northern Caucasus region Scythia Minor, corresponding to the lower Danube river area west of the Black Sea, with a part in Romania and a part in Bulgaria.
In the 7th century BC Scythians penetrated from the territories north of the Black Sea across the Caucasus. The early Scythian kingdoms were dominated by inter-ethnic forms of dependency based on subjugation of agricultural populations in eastern South Caucasia, plunder and taxes (occasionally, as far as Syria), regular tribute (Media), tribute disguised as gifts (Egypt), and possibly also payments for military support (Assyria).
It is possible that the same dynasty ruled in Scythia during most of its history. The name of Koloksai, a legendary founder of a royal dynasty, is mentioned by Alcman in the 7th century BC. Prototi and Madius, Scythian kings in the Near Eastern period of their history, and their successors in the north Pontic steppes belonged to the same dynasty. Herodotus lists five generations of a royal clan that probably reigned at the end of the 7th to 6th centuries BC: prince Anacharsis, Saulius, Idanthyrsus, Gnurus (Гнур (ru)), Lycus and Spargapithes.
After being defeated and driven from the Near East, in the first half of the 6th century BCE, Scythians had to re-conquer lands north of the Black Sea. In the second half of that century, Scythians succeeded in dominating the agricultural tribes of the forest-steppe and placed them under tribute. As a result, their state was reconstructed with the appearance of the Second Scythian Kingdom which reached its zenith in the 4th century BC.
Scythia's social development at the end of the 5th century BC and in the 4th century BC was linked to its privileged status of trade with Greeks, its efforts to control this trade, and the consequences partly stemming from these two. Aggressive external policy intensified exploitation of dependent populations and progressed the stratification among the nomadic rulers. Trading with Greeks also stimulated sedentarization processes.
The proximity of the Greek city-states on the Black Sea coast (Pontic Olbia, Cimmerian Bosporus, Chersonesos, Sindica, Tanais) was a powerful incentive for slavery in the Scythian society, but only in one direction: the sale of slaves to Greeks, instead of use in their economy. Accordingly, the trade became a stimulus for capture of slaves as war spoils in numerous wars.
The Scythian state reached its greatest extent in the 4th century BC during the reign of Ateas. Isocrates believed that Scythians, and also Thracians and Persians, are "the most able to power, and are the peoples with the greatest might." In the 4th century BC, under king Ateas, the tribune structure of the state was eliminated, and the ruling power became more centralized. The later sources do not mention three basileuses any more. Strabo tells that Ateas ruled over the majority of the North Pontic barbarians.
Written sources tell that expansion of the Scythian state before the 4th century BC was mainly to the west. In this respect Ateas continued the policy of his predecessors in the 5th century BC. During western expansion, Ateas fought the Triballi. An area of Thrace was subjugated and levied with severe duties. During the 90 year life of Ateas, the Scythians settled firmly in Thrace and became an important factor in political games in the Balkans. At the same time, both the nomadic and agricultural Scythian populations increased along the Dniester river. A war with the Bosporian Kingdom increased Scythian pressure on the Greek cities along the North Pontic littoral.
Materials from the site near Kamianka-Dniprovska, purportedly the capital of the Ateas’ state, show that metallurgists were free members of the society, even if burdened with imposed obligations. Metallurgy was the most advanced and the only distinct craft speciality among the Scythians. From the story of Polyaenus and Frontin, it follows that in the 4th century BC Scythia had a layer of dependent population, which consisted of impoverished Scythian nomads and local indigenous agricultural tribes, socially deprived, dependent and exploited, who did not participate in the wars, but were engaged in servile agriculture and cattle husbandry.
The year 339 BC was a culminating year for the Second Scythian Kingdom, and the beginning of its decline. The war with Philip II of Macedon ended in a victory by the father of Alexander the Great. The Scythian king Ateas fell in battle well into his nineties. Many royal kurgans (Chertomlyk, Kul-Oba, Aleksandropol, Krasnokut) are dated from after Ateas’s time and previous traditions were continued, and life in the settlements of Western Scythia show that the state survived until the 250s BC. When in 331 BC Zopyrion, Alexander's viceroy in Thrace, "not wishing to sit idle", invaded Scythia and besieged Pontic Olbia, he suffered a crushing defeat from the Scythians and lost his life.
The fall of the Second Scythian Kingdom came about in the second half of the 3rd century BC under the onslaught of Celts and Thracians from the west and Sarmatians from the east. With their increased forces, the Sarmatians devastated significant parts of Scythia and, "annihilating the defeated, transformed a larger part of the country into a desert".
The dependent forest-steppe tribes, subjected to exaction burdens, freed themselves at the first opportunity. The Dnieper and Southern Bug populace ruled by the Scythians did not become Scythians. They continued to live their original life, which was alien to Scythian ways. From the 3rd century BC for many centuries the histories of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of North Pontic diverged. The material culture of the populations quickly lost their common features. And in the steppe, reflecting the end of nomad hegemony in Scythian society, the royal kurgans were no longer built. Archeologically, late Scythia appears first of all as a conglomerate of fortified and non-fortified settlements with abutting agricultural zones.
The development of the Scythian society was marked by the following trends: An intensified settlement process, evidenced by the appearance of numerous kurgan burials in the steppe zone of North Pontic, some of them dated to the end of the 5th century BC, but the majority belonging to the 4th or 3rd centuries BC, reflecting the establishment of permanent pastoral coaching routes and a tendency to semi-nomadic pasturing. The Lower Dnieper area contained mostly unfortified settlements, while in Crimea and Western Scythia the agricultural population grew. The Dnieper settlements developed in what were previously nomadic winter villages, and in uninhabited lands.
In the 4th century BC in the Dnieper forest-steppe zone, steppe-type burials appear. In addition to the nomadic advance in the north in search of the new pastures, they show an increase of pressure on the farmers of the forest-steppe belt. The Boryspil kurgans belong almost entirely to soldiers and sometimes even women warriors. The bloom of steppe Scythia coincides with decline of forest-steppe. From the second half of the 5th century BC, importing of antique goods to the Middle Dnieper decreased because of the pauperization of the dependent farmers. In the forest-steppe, kurgans of the 4th century BC are poorer than during previous times. At the same time, the cultural influence of the steppe nomads grew. The Senkov kurgans in the Kiev area, left by the local agricultural population, are low and contain poor female and empty male burials, in a striking contrast with the nearby Boryspil kurgans of the same era left by the Scythian conquerors.
Growth of trade with Northern Black Sea Greek cities, and increase in Hellenization of the Scythian aristocracy. After the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, Attican agriculture was ruined. Demosthenes wrote that about 400,000 medimns (63,000 tons) of grain was exported annually from the Bosporus to Athens. The Scythian nomadic aristocracy not only served a middleman role, but also actively participated in the trade of grain (produced by dependent farmers as well as slaves), skins and other goods. Scythia's later history is mainly dominated by sedentary agrarian and city elements. As a result of the defeats suffered by Scythians, two separate states were formed, the 'Lesser Scythias': one in Thrace (Dobrudja), and the other in the Crimea and the Lower Dnieper area.
Having settled this Scythia Minor in Thrace, the former Scythian nomads (or rather their nobility) abandoned their nomadic way of life, retaining their power over the agrarian population. This little polity should be distinguished from the Third Scythian Kingdom in Crimea and Lower Dnieper area, whose inhabitants likewise underwent a massive sedentarization. The interethnic dependence was replaced by developing forms of dependence within the society.
The enmity of the Third Scythian Kingdom, centred on Scythian Neapolis, towards the Greek settlements of the northern Black Sea steadily increased. The Scythian king apparently regarded the Greek colonies as unnecessary intermediaries in the wheat trade with mainland Greece. Besides, the settling cattlemen were attracted by the Greek agricultural belt in Southern Crimea. The later Scythia was both culturally and socio-economically far less advanced than its Greek neighbors such as Olvia or Chersonesos.
The continuity of the royal line is less clear in the Lesser Scythias of Crimea and Thrace than it had been previously. In the 2nd century BC, Olvia became a Scythian dependency. That event was marked in the city by minting of coins bearing the name of the Scythian king Skilurus. He was a son of a king and a father of a king, but the relation of his dynasty with the former dynasty is not known. Either Skilurus or his son and successor Palakus were buried in the mausoleum of Scythian Neapol that was used from c. 100 BC to c. 100 AD. However, the last burials are so poor that they do not seem to be royal, indicating a change in the dynasty or royal burials in another place.
Later, at the end of the 2nd century BC, Olvia was freed from Scythian domination, but became a subject to Mithridates I of Parthia. By the end of the 1st century BC, Olbia, rebuilt after its sack by the Getae, became a dependency of the Dacian barbarian kings, who minted their own coins in the city. Later from the 2nd century AD Olbia belonged to the Roman Empire. Scythia was the first state north of the Black Sea to collapse with the invasion of the Goths in the 2nd century AD (see Oium). At the end of the 2nd century AD, King Sauromates II critically defeated the Scythians and included the Crimea into his Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a Roman client state.
Scythian art is art, primarily decorative objects, such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes in the area known to the ancient Greeks as Scythia, which was centred on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and ranged from modern Kazakhstan to the Baltic coast of modern Poland and to Georgia. The identities of the nomadic peoples of the steppes is often uncertain, and the term "Scythian" should often be taken loosely; the art of nomads much further east than the core Scythian territory exhibits close similarities as well as differences, and terms such as the "Scytho-Siberian world" are often used.
Other Eurasian nomad peoples recognised by ancient writers, notably Herodotus, include the Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Saka, the last a name from Persian sources, while ancient Chinese sources speak of the Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu. Modern archaeologists recognise, among others, the Pazyryk, Tagar, and Aldy-Bel cultures, with the furthest east of all, the later Ordos culture a little west of Beijing. The art of these peoples is collectively known as steppes art.
In the case of the Scythians the characteristic art was produced in a period from the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, after which the Scythians were gradually displaced from most of their territory by the Sarmatians, and rich grave deposits cease among the remaining Scythian populations on the Black Sea coast. Over this period many Scythians became sedentary, and involved in trade with neighbouring peoples such as the Greeks.
In the earlier period Scythian art included very vigorously modelled stylised animal figures, shown singly or in combat, that had a long-lasting and very wide influence on other Eurasian cultures as far apart as China and the European Celts. As the Scythians came in contact with the Greeks at the Western end of their area, their artwork influenced Greek art, and was influenced by it; also many pieces were made by Greek craftsmen for Scythian customers. Although we know that goldsmith work was an important area of Ancient Greek art, very little has survived from the core of the Greek world, and finds from Scythian burials represent the largest group of pieces we now have. The mixture of the two cultures in terms of the background of the artists, the origin of the forms and styles, and the possible history of the objects, gives rise to complex questions.
Many art historians feel that the Greek and Scythian styles were too far apart for works in a hybrid style to be as successful as those firmly in one style or the other. Other influences from urbanized civilizations such as those of Persia and China, and the mountain cultures of the Caucasus, also affected the art of their nomadic neighbours. Scythian art especially Scythian gold jewellery is highly valued by museums and many of the most valuable artefacts are in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Their Eastern neighbours, the Pazyryk culture in Siberia produced similar art, although they related to the Chinese in a way comparable to that of the Scythians with the Greek and Iranian cultures. In recent years, archeologists have made valuable finds in various places within the area.
The Scythians worked in a wide variety of materials such as gold, wood, leather, bone, bronze, iron, silver and electrum. Clothes and horse-trappings were sewn with small plaques in metal and other materials, and larger ones, including some of the most famous, probably decorated shields or wagons. Wool felt was used for highly decorated clothes, tents and horse-trappings, and an important nomad mounted on his horse in his best outfit must have presented a very colourful and exotic sight. As nomads, the Scythians produced entirely portable objects, to decorate their horses, clothes, tents and wagons, with the exception in some areas of kurgan stelae, stone stelae carved somewhat crudely to depict a human figure, which were probably intended as memorials. Bronze-casting of very high quality is the main metal technique used across the Eurasian steppe, but the Scythians are distinguished by their frequent use of gold at many sites, though large hoards of gold objects have also been found further east, as in the hoard of over 20,000 pieces of "Bactrian Gold" in partly nomadic styles from Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan. Earlier pieces reflected animal style traditions; in the later period many pieces, especially in metal, were produced by Greek craftsmen who had adapted Greek styles to the tastes and subject-matter of the wealthy Scythian market, and probably often worked in Scythian territory. Other pieces are thought to be imports from Greece. As the Scythians prospered through trade with the Greeks, they settled down and started farming. They also established permanent settlements such as a site in Belsk, Ukraine believed to the Scythian capital Gelonus with craft workshops and Greek pottery prominent in the ruins.
The Pazyryk burials (east of Scythia proper) are especially important because the frozen conditions have preserved a wide variety of objects in perishable materials that have not survived in most ancient burials, on the steppes or elsewhere. These include wood carvings, textiles including clothes and felt appliqué wall hangings, and even elaborate tattoos on the body of the so-called Siberian Ice Maiden. These make it clear that important ancient nomads and their horses, tents, and wagons were very elaborately fitted out in a variety of materials, many brightly coloured. Their iconography includes animals, monsters and anthropomorphic beasts, and probably some deities including a "Great Goddess", as well as energetic geometric motifs.
Archaeologists have uncovered felt rugs as well as well-crafted tools and domestic utensils. Clothing uncovered by archaeologists has also been well made many trimmed by embroidery and appliqué designs. Wealthy people wore clothes covered by gold embossed plaques, but small gold pieces are often found in what seem to be relatively ordinary burials. Imported goods include a famous carpet, the oldest to survive, that was probably made in or around Persia.
Steppes jewelry features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The "looped" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period.
The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include the examples from: the burial site of Kostromskaya in the Kuban dating from the 6th century BC (Hermitage); Tápiószentmárton in Hungary dating from the 5th century BC, now National Museum of Hungary, Budapest; Kul Oba in the Crimea dating from the 4th century BC (Hermitage).
Another characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.
Although gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armor.
The use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess & powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.
The primary weapon of this horse riding culture was the bow, & a special case had been developed to carry the delicate but very powerful composite bow. This case, "the gorytus", had a separate container on the outside which acted as a quiver, & the whole was often decorated with animal scenes or scenes depicting daily life on the steppes. There was a marked following of Grecian elements after the 4th century BC, when Greek craftsmen were commissioned to decorate many of the daily use articles.
Scythian art has become well known in the West thanks to a series of touring loan exhibitions from Ukrainian and Russian museums, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. Kurgans are large mounds that are obvious in the landscape and a high proportion have been plundered at various times; many may never have had a permanent population nearby to guard them. To counter this, treasures were sometimes deposited in secret chambers below the floor and elsewhere, which have sometimes avoided detection until the arrival of modern archaeologists, and many of the most outstanding finds come from such chambers in kurgans that had already been partly robbed.
Elsewhere the desertification of the steppe has brought once-buried small objects to lie on the surface of the eroded land, and many Ordos bronzes seem to have been found in this way. Russian explorers first brought Scythian artworks recovered from Scythian burial mounds to Peter the Great in the early 18th century. These works formed the basis of the collection held by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Catherine the Great was so impressed from the material recovered from the kurgans or burial mounds that she ordered a systematic study be made of the works. However, this was well before the development of modern archaeological techniques.
Nikolai Veselovsky (1848-1918) was a Russian archaeologist specializing in Central Asia who led many of the most important excavations of kurgans in his day.[11] One of the first sites discovered by modern archaeologists were the kurgans Pazyryk, Ulagan district of the Altay Republic, south of Novosibirsk. The name Pazyryk culture was attached to the finds, five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949 opened in 1947 by a Russian archeologist, Sergei Rudenko; Pazyryk is in the Altay Mountains of southern Siberia. The kurgans contained items for use in the afterlife. The famous Pazyryk carpet discovered is the oldest surviving wool pile oriental rug.
The enormous hoard of "Bactrian gold" discovered at Tillya Tepe in northern Afghanistan in 1978 comes from the fringes of the nomadic world, and the objects reflect the influence of many cultures to the south of the steppes as well as steppes art. The six burials come from the early 1st century AD (a coin of Tiberius is among the finds) and though their cultural context is unfamiliar, it may relate to the Indo-Scythians who had created an empire in north India.
Recent digs in Belsk, Ukraine uncovered a vast city believed to be the Scythian capital Gelonus described by Herodotus. Numerous craft workshops and works of pottery have been found. A kurgan or burial mound near the village of Ryzhanovka in Ukraine, 75 mi (121 km) south of Kiev, found in the 1990s has revealed one of the few unlooted tombs of a Scythian chieftain, who was ruling in the forest-steppe area of the western fringe of Scythian lands. There at a late date in Scythian culture (c. 250 - 225 BC), a recently nomadic aristocratic class was gradually adopting the agricultural life-style of their subjects. Many items of jewelry were also found in the kurgan.
A discovery made by Russian and German archaeologists in 2001 near Kyzyl, the capital of the Russian republic of Tuva in Siberia is the earliest of its kind and predates the influence of Greek civilisation. Archaeologists discovered almost 5,000 decorative gold pieces including earrings, pendants and beads. The pieces contain representations of many local animals from the period including panthers, lions, bears and deer. Earlier rich kurgan burials always include a male, with or without a female consort, but from the 4th and 3rd centuries there are number of important burials with only a female.
The finds from the most important nomad burials remain in the countries where they were found, or at least the capitals of the states in which they were located when found, so that many finds from Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union are in Russia. Western European and American museums have relatively small collections, though there have been exhibitions touring internationally. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has the longest standing and the best collection of Scythian art. Other museums including several local ones in Russia, in Budapest and Miskolc in Hungary, Kiev in Ukraine, the National Museum of Afghanistan and elsewhere have important holdings. The Scythian Gold exhibition came from a number of Ukrainian exhibitions including the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, the Institute of Archaeology in Kiev and the State Historical Archaeological Preserve at Pereiaslav-Khmel'nyts'kyi.
REVIEW: Russian scholars from the State Hermitage Museum have concluded that a discovery of Scythian gold in a Siberian grave last summer is the earliest of its kind ever found and that it predates Greek influence. The find is leading to a change in how scholars view the supposed barbaric, nomadic tribes that once roamed the Eurasian steppes.
The dig near Kyzyl, the capital of the Siberian republic of Tuva, revealed almost 5,000 decorative gold pieces -- earrings, pendants and beads -- that adorned the bodies of a Scythian man and woman, presumably royalty, and dated from the fifth or sixth centuries B.C. In addition to the gold, which weighed almost 44 pounds, the archaeologists discovered items made of iron, turquoise, amber and wood.
"There are many great works of art -- figures of animals, necklaces, pins with animals carved into a golden surface," said Dr. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum. "It is an encyclopedia of Scythian animal art because you have all the animals which roamed the region, such as panther, lions, camels, deer, etc. This is the original Scythian style, from the Altai region, which eventually came to the Black Sea region and finally in contact with ancient Greece, and it resembles almost an Art Nouveau style."
Russian and German archaeologists excavated a Scythian burial mound on a grassy plain that locals have long called the Valley of the Kings because of the large number of burial mounds of Scythian and other ancient nomadic royalty.
The fierce nomadic Scythian tribes roamed the Eurasian steppe, from the northern borders of China to the Black Sea region, in the seventh to third centuries B.C. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. they interacted with the ancient Greeks who had colonized the Black Sea region, which is now in Ukraine and southern Russia. Not surprisingly ancient Greek influence was evident in Scythian gold previously discovered, but the recent find dates from before contact with the Greeks and from the heart of Siberia where, scholars say, contact with outsiders can almost be excluded.
Research on the Tuva burial mound, known as Arzhan 2, began in 1998, and to the amazement of scholars the grave was discovered to be untouched, though failed attempts by grave robbers to locate the burial chamber were evident on the sprawling, 185-foot-long, 5-foot-high mound.
This was the first such discovery since the early 1700's, when Russian explorers brought Scythian treasures to Czar Peter the Great, a find that became the State Hermitage Museum's collection of Scythian gold. All burial mounds explored since then had been robbed.
To avoid contamination and disturbing the items stored in the grave, the Russian and German archaelogists entered it first with a small remote-control video camera to study how burial items were originally arranged and to reconstruct the burial rituals. The discovery was made by Russian scholars from the Hermitage Museum and the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, led by the Russian archaeologist Konstantin Chugonov, who has been studying Bronze Age and Scythian sites in Tuva for 20 years.
German scholars also took part in the dig and were led by Herman Parzinger and Anatoli Nagler from the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. "Tuva's Valley of the Kings has long been a major area of interest for archaeologists because it contains the largest burial mounds in the region of Tuva and in all of the Altai region," Mr. Chugonov said. "We chose to work on those mounds in greatest danger, and we chose this one because of all the major mounds it is the most damaged."
About 25 percent of the excavated burial mound, which is stone slate, was destroyed when Soviet authorities built a road through the area in the 1960's. Over the years, residents walked off with pieces of the stone to use in building their houses.
After its discovery, the treasure was sent to the Hermitage Museum for storage and restoration, and it will stay there until Tuva can build a museum to house the items. This is in accordance with Russian Federation law stating that items be displayed in their place of discovery so long as local authorities provide the proper conditions.
Building such a museum is years away, however, Dr. Piotrovksy said. Until then they will remain in the Hermitage, and at some point will be put on display. Though the Russian-German dig began last May, preparations took almost three years. Scholars first approached the burial mound in 1998, studying it with geophysical equipment allowing them, without excavating, to determine the presence of almost 200 items inside. The first reconnaissance dig was made in the summer of 2000.
"The find was not an accident, because scholars know there are burial mounds in that area, but most were robbed, and empty," Dr. Piotrovsky said. "Their success in actually finding something was a combination of hard work and luck."
REVIEW: A team of archeologists led by Anton Gass of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has unearthed a small trove of gold objects left behind by a people known as the Scythians, a group of fierce nomads that thrived for over a thousand years in the environs of what is now southern Russia.
The Scythians are believed to have been a warring people, occupying the steppes of central Eurasia from the ninth century BC to the fourth century AD—but they did not leave behind much evidence of their existence, much less their history—they built no cities and kept on the move. They did however, create grave mounds called kurgans (Slavic for tumulus, or a particular type of grave where a mound of dirt is heaped over a chamber). One particular kurgan stood in the path of a power line construction, which caused utility officials to contact Gass to investigate. He brought a team to the site expecting to find nothing but dirt, clay and sand—it had been combed over by looters many times already.
But, as it turns out the looters had missed something—deep inside a layer of clay was a chamber lined with stone, inside of which lay artifacts made of gold: two vessels shaped like buckets sitting upside down. Inside the buckets were three gold cups, a finger ring, a gold bracelet and two neck rings—taken together the find adds up to seven pounds of riches.
In speaking with the press, the researchers described how the vessels had intricate inscriptions on them, one depicting an elderly man slaying a younger man, and another showing griffons killing a stag and a horse. Both are so well done that the researchers were able to make out details such as hair styles, clothing types, etc. They reported also that they had found sticky dark residue on the insides of the vessels, which after analysis turned out to contain both cannabis and opium. The researchers believe the opium was used in a tea of sorts and consumed, while the cannabis was smoked. The find corresponds to the writing of Greek historian Herodotus, who described occasions where the Scythians burned a plant to produce a smoke that made them shout out loud.
REVIEW: The Scythians were a much-feared, barbaric group of pre-common era tribes that ruled the Eurasian grasslands for over a thousand years. Said to be of Iranian origin, they left no cities behind, only huge burial mounds called kurgans. Solid gold artifacts discovered in a Scythian burial mound in southern Russia include two bucket-shaped vessels, three gold cups, a heavy finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet.
The kurgans of the Scythians dot the Eurasian steppes from Mongolia to the Balkans, and through Ukraine and on to the Black Sea. It is from the artifacts uncovered in the kurgans that archaeologists have learned much about Scythian life and art. A massive kurgan was discovered in Stavropol, a territorial district in Southern Russia, by workers clearing the way for a power line project. Stavropol-based archaeologist Andrei Belinski began excavating the kurgan, called Sengileevskoe-2, the summer of 2013, and his finds prompted authorities to keep the site a secret until now.
Solid gold artifacts, including two bucket-shaped vessels, three gold cups, a heavy finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet were unearthed. In all, the artifacts when cleaned, weighed about seven pounds (3.2 kilos). "It's a once-in-a-century discovery," says Anton Gass, an archaeologist at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin. "These are among the finest objects we know from the region." When the excavation of the kurgan began, the archaeology team didn't have great expectations of finding much because it was apparent the kurgan had been looted some time in the past. But after several weeks of digging, the team came across a thick layer of clay.
After careful digging, underneath the clay they came across a large rectangular chamber lined with broad, flat stones. Inside the chamber, the team found a 2,400-year-old treasure the looters had missed. "It was definitely a surprise for us," Belinski says. "We weren't expecting to find anything like this." Once the residue was removed from the gold vessels, ornate decorations, showing great detail were revealed. One vessel shows an old bearded man slaying young warriors. The other vessel shows griffons, mythological creatures ripping apart a horse and a stag. The bleak background depicted on the vessel led Belinski to think this was a representation of the Scythian underworld. Inside the vessels, Belinski discovered a black, sticky substance. Samples were sent to a forensics laboratory for identification.
The images on the vessels are an exciting find. The vessel depicting the shoes, haircuts and clothing of the old man and the warriors is amazingly lifelike. "I've never seen such a detailed representation of the clothing and weaponry of the Scythians," says Belinski. "It's so detailed you can see how the clothing was sewn." Gass thinks the vessel depicting the old man slaying young warriors is a representation of the "bastard wars" as described by the Greek historian Herodotus. As Herodotus tells the story, the Scythians were engaged in a 28-year war with their neighbors. the Persians. When the Scythians finally returned home, they found intruders in their tents.
They were the bastard children of the Scythians lonely wives and their slaves. Gass believes the slaughter that ensued was important enough that it was described in detail on the vessel. Herodotus writes that the grown bastard children went forth to engage the returning warriors, and many lives on both sides were lost. Herodotus writes: one Scythian warrior turned to his fellows, saying: "What are we doing, Scythians? We are fighting our slaves, diminishing our own number when we fall, and the number of those that belong to us when they fall by our hands. Take my advice- lay spear and bow aside, and let each man fetch his horsewhip and go boldly up to them. So long as they see us with arms in our hands, they imagine themselves our equals in birth and bravery; but let them behold us with no other weapon but the whip, and they will feel that they are our slaves, and flee before us."
Belinski believes the vessel has a more metaphorical meaning. This could be a representation of the power struggle that occurs when a ruler or king has died. "When a king died, there was chaos," he says. "The spirit world was upset by the death of the king, and order had to be born anew." The black, sticky substance inside the vessels was cannabis and opium residue. For Scythians, cannabis was an important part of the death ritual when a leader died. First, the body was cleaned and dressed. Then, the leader's body was taken around the region where he ruled for 40 days so that everyone could pay their respects.
After the leader's body was buried, Scythians would purify their bodies by erecting small tepee-like structures. A fire was made inside the structure, and when red-hot coals were left, hemp seeds were either thrown on the hot coals or put into vessels and set on the coals. The vapors produced were intoxicating, and the out-of-body experience supposedly cleansed the soul and mind. Herodotus, in about 450 BC writes, "when, therefore, the Scythians have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths and put the seeds on the red-hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapour-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported by the vapour, shout aloud."
It has long been believed that these "hemp rituals" were nothing more than a myth, but it is a fact this ceremony did occur. In 1929, Professor S. I. Rudenko and his team of archaeologists were digging some ancient ruins near the Altai Mountains, on the border between Siberia and Outer Mongolia. They unearthed a 20-foot deep trench about 160 square feet in size. Around the trench, they found the skeletons of horses and inside the trench was the embalmed body of a man and a large cauldron filled with the residue of cannabis seeds. It is interesting to note that the sacrifice of a horse was considered the most "prestigious" sacrificial gift to their pantheon of seven gods.
The central portion of the burial mound was finally excavated in full last fall. The team found additional trenches around the kurgan, but due to political tensions, the excavating has been put on hold. "It's like a detective investigation. We don't understand it all, not immediately," says Gass. "We need to keep digging."
REVIEW: The Hermitage collection of Scythian antiquities is renowned worldwide, its nucleus consisting of finds from burial complexes in the Crimea, Kuban basin and in the valleys of the Dnieper and Don rivers. The most attractive feature of the collection is the abundance of articles of applied art from a variety of schools and trends, with objects created in the Scythian Animal style, and items made by Greek craftsmen or imported from Oriental countries and the nearby Classical centers to the North of Black Sea and intended for Scythian noblemen.
According to Scythian tradition, alongside a dead chief the tribe buried his wives, servants, armour-bearers, grooms and horses, and these burials thus contain numerous artifacts, from weapons and harness to everyday objects and a multiplicity of personal adornments. Most valuable of all is the Scythian Gold, often lavishly decorated with precious stones. Two gold shield emblems in the forms of a panther and stag – the Kelermes Panther and the Kostromsky Stag (from burial mounds in the Kuban area, 7th century BC) – are true masterpieces, which have come to symbolize the achievements of Scythian craftsmen. These two animals were hugely popular during the Scythian era and appear on many objects.
No less remarkable are the articles from the burial mounds of Scythian chiefs (5th to 4th centuries BC), executed in the Graeco-Scythian style and decorated with scenes from a Scythian heroic epic: the gold comb from the Solokha burial mound; gold and silver vessels from the Kul-Oba and Chastye barrows; a silver amphora bearing relief representations of scenes from Scythian life (Chertomlyk burial mound). The detailed images on these pieces make it possible for us to picture the appearance of the Scythians, their clothes and weapons.
Rich tombs beneath tumuli and ancient settlements in the area of the forested steppes, inhabited by the tribes subject to the Scythians, have also yielded hand-made clay vessels, farming tools, utensils, arms and armour and objects associated with the working of bronze and iron, both imported and of local production.
REVIEW: Russian archaeologist Andrey Belinski wasn’t sure what to expect when he found himself facing a small mound in a farmer’s field at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. To the untrained eye, the 12-foot feature looked like little more than a hillock. To Belinski, who was charged with excavating the area to make way for new power lines, it looked like a type of ancient burial mound called a kurgan. He considered the job of excavating and analyzing the kurgan, which might be damaged by the construction work, fairly routine. “Basically, we planned to dig so we could understand how it was built,” Belinski says. As he and his team began to slice into the mound, located 30 miles east of Stavropol, it became apparent that they weren’t the first people to take an interest. In fact, looters had long ago ravaged some sections. “The central part was destroyed, probably in the nineteenth century,” Belinski says. Hopes of finding a burial chamber or artifacts inside began to fade.
It took nearly a month of digging to reach the bottom. There, Belinski ran into a layer of thick clay that, at first glance, looked like a natural feature of the landscape, not the result of human activity. He uncovered a stone box, a foot or so deep, containing a few finger and rib bones from a teenager. But that wasn’t all. Nested one inside the other in the box were two gold vessels of unsurpassed workmanship. Beneath these lay three gold armbands, a heavy ring, and three smaller bell-shaped gold cups. “It was a huge surprise for us,” Belinski says. “Somehow, the people who plundered the rest didn’t locate these artifacts.”
As he continued to excavate the area surrounding the kurgan, he spotted postholes near the stone box, as though tree trunks had once been sunk in the earth to support a pavilion or roof. Belinski and Anton Gass of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, whom Belinski had invited to participate in the excavation, realized that they had found something far beyond a simple burial mound. In fact, some scholars think the site may have been the location of an intense ritual and subsequent burial rite performed by some of the ancient world’s most fearsome warriors.
From about 900 to 100 B.C., nomadic tribes dominated the steppes and grasslands of Eurasia, from what is today western China all the way east to the Danube. All across this vast expanse, archaeological evidence shows that people shared core cultural practices. “They were all nomads, they were heavily socially stratified, they had monumental burial structures and rich grave goods,” says Hermann Parzinger, head of Berlin’s Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and former head of the German Archaeological Institute. Today, archaeologists refer to the members of this interconnected world as Scythians, a name used by the Greek historian Herodotus.
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ABOUT US: Prior to our retirement we used to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Asia several times a year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers. Most of the items we offer came from acquisitions we made in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) during these years from various institutions and dealers. Much of what we generate on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay goes to support worthy institutions in Europe and Asia connected with Anthropology and Archaeology. Though we have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, our primary interests are ancient/antique jewelry and gemstones, a reflection of our academic backgrounds.
Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset. Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them originally crafted a century or more ago. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting.
Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from us. There is a $3 fee for mailing under separate cover. I will always respond to every inquiry whether via email or eBay message, so please feel free to write.