Where in the Crimea were the Scythians located? Late Scythians and Sarmatians

One of the interesting pages in the history of Crimea is the dominance of the Scythians over mostly its territory.

Legends about the birth of the Scythian state

The Scythians came to the steppes Northern Black Sea region in the VIII-VII centuries. BC Among them, several tribes stood out, and their relationships were hierarchical. The territory of the oldest tribe, according to Herodotus, included the northern, lowland part of Crimea. Also his “royal”, as Herodotus called them, possessions included Northern Tavria and the Northern Azov region east to the Don. It was, in the words of the “father of history,” “the most valiant and most numerous Scythian tribe. These Scythians consider other Scythians to be their subjects.”

In Crimea, the "royal possessions" of the Scythians extended south to the lands controlled by Greek colony Chersonesos, and east to the isthmus separating the Kerch Peninsula from most of the Crimean Peninsula. On the Kerch Peninsula itself, the power of the Greek Bosporan kingdom was already in effect.

About the origin royal power The Scythians themselves had a legend in which we can easily recognize the motif of later Russian fairy tales. The Scythians were once ruled by King Targitai, who had semi-divine origins. He had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Kolaksai. "Ksay" is an Iranian word meaning supreme power. From him, according to some scientists, the Russian “tsar” comes.

When the time came for Targitai to die, the question of inheriting power arose. Here, according to myth, four golden objects fell from the sky: a bowl, an ax, a plow and a yoke. When the eldest of the princes approached to take these golden things, they began to glow. The same thing happened when the middle brother approached them. And only the youngest managed to take them. The brothers saw this as a sign from heaven and agreed to give the kingdom to their younger brother.

Subsequently, according to Herodotus, Kolaksai divided the Scythian kingdom between his three sons. Of course, these myths do not reflect real development social institutions among the Scythians in that period. The Scythians were still nomads, they lived in a tribal system, statehood and public power were in their infancy.

The emergence of the Scythian kingdom in Crimea. Scythian Naples

At the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC in the “royal domains” of the Scythians begins to take shape early state. As evidenced by archaeological data, this was accompanied by the settling of the Scythians on the earth, their departure from a nomadic life, and the transition to agriculture. One must think that the land was initially worked by foreign slaves, and only gradually they were joined by impoverished ordinary Scythians. As in all societies of this transitional type, maintaining a nomadic way of life instead of “picking the ground” for a long time served as the main attribute of a free person.

IN beginning of III century BC The lands of the Scythians were invaded by Sarmatian tribes who came from beyond the Don. They ousted the Scythians from most of their territory in the Northern Black Sea region. This contributed to the consolidation of the Scythians in their ancient “royal possessions.” At the same time, the Scythians borrowed from the Greeks the custom of building fortresses and the urban lifestyle. The capital of the Scythian kingdom emerges - Naples ( New city) Scythian, as the Greeks called it (the name suggests that it was and Old town, but we don’t know anything about him). Nowadays its remains can be seen at the Kermenchik settlement near Simferopol.

Scythian Naples existed for at least six centuries. Among its inhabitants, judging by the excavations, residents gradually appear different nations: Greeks, Sarmatians, Roxolans, etc. The burials reveal strong social differences. The nobility buried their dead in rich graves carved into the rock, or in a mausoleum near the city walls. The middle strata had their own city cemetery, and the dead of the poor were buried outside the city limits. As we see, the Scythians left their ancient custom cremation and the construction of high mounds. Therefore, we cannot even say for sure which burials in Scythian Naples belong specifically to the kings.

Major events

However, we know almost nothing at all about internal structure The Scythian kingdom in Crimea, in addition to the fact that it was apparently monarchical. This is indicated by literally only one or two events, of which only the names of the Scythian kings are known.

Under the onslaught of the Sarmatians, the Scythian kingdom, in turn, was forced to expand its possessions in the Crimea. First of all, at the expense of Chersonesus, which owned vast lands in the western part of Crimea and surrounded them with a wall. History of the Scythian kingdom III-II centuries. BC - the history of his ongoing wars with Chersonesos, in which the odds generally leaned towards the Scythians. Their possessions increased, the possessions of the Greeks decreased. At the very end of the 2nd century, the Scythians approached the city directly. The power of the Crimean Scythians at that time extended to the point that the Greek colony of Olbia at the mouth of the Southern Bug became their protectorate.

Under these conditions, the Chersonesos turned for help to the king of Pontus (who then also owned the neighboring Bosporan kingdom) Mithridates VI Eupator. In 110-107 BC his commander Diophantus defeated the Scythians and took their capital Naples. Chersonesus was returned to its former possessions in Western Crimea. The Scythian king Skilur and his eldest son Palak fell in battle, his other sons were deprived of power, Scythia was occupied and deprived of independence.

But then the Romans intervened. Under their diplomatic pressure, the Pontians returned power to the heirs of Skilur. Later, during the wars with Rome, the Pontic kingdom was destroyed, and Scythia gained independence. True, incomplete, since from now on and for many centuries it was limited by the supreme sovereignty of Rome. In this state, the Scythian kingdom existed comfortably for another four centuries, until at the end of the 4th century AD it fell (together with the neighboring Bosporan Kingdom) the Goths and Alans are under attack.

Scythians in Crimea.

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Scythians are a people who inhabited the 7th-4th centuries. BC e. Eastern European steppes, bounded by the Don and Danube rivers, as well as North Caucasus. In the 3rd century. BC e. The territory inhabited by the Scythians was greatly reduced; this period of their history will be discussed in the next section. The Scythian language, judging by the few words that have come down to us in foreign language transmission, belonged to the Northern Iranian languages ​​of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.

Anthropologically, the Scythians belong to Caucasian race. The Hellenes called the inhabitants of the northern Black Sea steppes Scythians, and they called themselves Skolots. Our best source on the history of Scythia, Herodotus, back in the middle of the 5th century. BC e. described this people as having neither cities nor fortifications, where every man is a horse archer, and their livelihood is obtained not from agriculture, but from cattle breeding. All year round The Scythians wandered following their huge herds from pasture to pasture: men on horseback, and women, children and old people on horse-drawn carts. Their homes are light and transportable tents. Naturally, with such a way of life, they left almost no traces on the ground that could be examined by an archaeologist. But the Scythians had a very interesting custom. When the king died, after magnificent and solemn rituals, he was buried in a deep burial pit, and a high mound of earth and stone was built above it - a mound. Sometimes such mounds reached enormous sizes (in the Dnieper region, for example, up to 20 m in height), and ordinary Scythians were buried in the same way - only the mounds were smaller. Very often, burial pits were opened into ready-made mounds built back in the Bronze Age. Together with the buried person, things were put into the grave, as relatives believed, that he needed “in the next world.”

Excavations of Scythian mounds have been ongoing for more than 150 years, and it is safe to say that almost all of our knowledge about the Scythians of the 7th-4th centuries. BC e. based on studies of their burials.

The earliest Scythian burials known in Crimea date back to the middle of the 7th century. BC e. They were discovered near Kerch, on Temir Mountain, and on the Perekop Isthmus near the village. Filatovki. Both burials date back to beautiful ceramic painted jugs brought to Crimea from the island of Rhodes in Asia Minor. Judging by the small number of burials, at that time the steppe part of the peninsula was very sparsely populated. Experts on Early Iron Age cultures have long noted a significant increase in the number of Scythian burials and, consequently, the Scythian population in the Black Sea steppes, starting from the 5th century. BC He was no exception in this regard, and according to published data, at least fifty burials of the 5th century have already been studied. BC e. Burials of the 5th century BC e., explored in Central Crimea, on Perekop and in the Sivash region, are not rich. They were carried out in small pits and contained the remains of armed men with modest equipment: arrowheads, a sword, a knife, and the bones of sacrificial animals. Horse harnesses were also found: iron bits, bronze cheekpieces and cheekpieces.

In western Crimea, the Scythians used both pits and stone boxes for burials. The most famous burial is the Golden Mound. It was inlet. A male warrior lay in a grave pit on a special ground raised bed, with his head to the west. On his neck was a golden hryvnia - a neck decoration in the form of an open ring. The belt was decorated with plaques depicting an eagle and a griffin's head. At his feet stood a large molded jug. Under the burial was a set of weapons, in addition to an oval wooden shield with iron plates stuffed on it, including a short iron sword in a scabbard with a gold lining, a wooden leather-covered quiver with 180 arrowheads. The mouth of the quiver was decorated volumetric figure Panther, made of bronze and covered with gold foil.

Very interesting events took place in the 5th century. BC e. in the eastern part of Crimea - on the Kerch Peninsula. Here the process of the Scythians settling on the earth began. They were drawn into the sphere of influence of the newly formed Bosporan kingdom, which was interested in producing as much as possible more bread Recent nomads turned into farmers, founded long-term settlements, and moved from burial mound rituals to the construction of ground cemeteries. The first barbarian, apparently Scythian burials at the necropolis date back to the same time. Bosporan city Nymphea. However, very few Scythians still lived in the cities of the Bosporus. This is evidenced by a very small amount of molded Scythian ceramics found in the Bosporus in the layers of the 6th-5th centuries. BC uh......

Scythian Lords of the Steppes
Northern Black Sea region, a region where migration of peoples has always been common. Here the ferocious Huns rampaged, the formidable cataphracts of the Sarmatian cavalry dispersed, and the Cimmerians led their herds. But of all these steppe peoples, one cannot deprive attention of the mysterious and warlike Scythians.

In the 8th century BC e. These representatives of the Iranian-speaking peoples, with their fierce onslaught and large numbers, displace other centuries-old inhabitants of this area, the Cimmerians, from the Black Sea region. In the 7th century BC e. Scythian peoples They already reign supreme over these lands and carry out predatory raids on many territories, reaching in their campaigns the lands of Western Asia.
The Ancient Greeks left a lot of information about these harsh inhabitants of the steppes. At that time, in the coastal lands of the Northern Black Sea region there were many Greek settlements, small and large city-states such as Chersonesus, Thira, Olbia. It is the trade between the settlements of the Greeks and the Scythian tribes that allows us to better understand how the mysterious nomads lived at that time. The Father of History, Herodotus, described these lands and the Scythians inhabiting them in one of the volumes of his famous History. It is known for certain that the Scythian society was not homogeneous and was divided into several large tribal groups. The Royal Scythians were dominant. There were also Scythian nomads and Scythian farmers.

On the lands where the Scythians lived for a long time didn't exist single state, But external aggression contributed to the unification of tribes into a formidable fist. In 512 BC. BC, the Persian ruler Darius I invaded the lands of Scythia, wanting to punish the freedom-loving nomads for their daring raids and in order to strengthen the position of his Empire. Although they were skilled warriors, they could not defeat the Persian troops in open battle. Therefore, the nomads used scorched earth tactics and lightning raids and retreats against the conquerors. Having lured the armies of Darius into the steppe, bleeding them with lightning raids, the resourceful steppe inhabitants forced the Persians to retreat shamefully.

In the V-IV centuries. BC e. The Scythian kings are increasing activity at their borders and are beginning to lay claim to new territories. Under King Ataeus, who was partially able to unite the Scythian tribes under his leadership, expansion into Thrace intensified, which led to a military clash with Macedonia. The conflict, which began during the reign of King Philip II of Macedonia, ended after his death with the complete defeat of the 30,000-strong Macedonian corps under the command of the governor of Alexander the Great in the Thracian lands, military leader Zopyrion.
showed themselves to be resourceful warriors, ready to fight and win even superior forces enemy. But History knows no pity, and like other peoples inhabiting the Northern Black Sea region, the Scythian tribes faced withering. Around the period 280-260 BC. e. the possessions of the formidable steppe inhabitants narrowed to territories in the Crimea as a result of the invasion of the Sarmatian tribes related to them. In the 3rd century. n. e. The ferocious Goths put an end to the existence of the remnants of the Scythian state. The Scythian tribes faced a sad fate; they, like many peoples, simply disappeared among other migrating tribes during the Great Migration of barbarian peoples, leaving behind majestic and mysterious mounds that still tower over the Northern Black Sea region, and they also left their mark on

Scythians in Crimea

The Scythians are the greatest conglomerate of tribes, whose common culture, and, according to academician Boris Piotrovsky, can be traced from the Danube in the west to the Great Chinese Wall in the east. They're amazing identical items horse equipment, iron short swords - akinaki, triangular arrowheads and decorations were found on huge space between the 40th and 50th parallels, stretching for more than 7000 km. This wide corridor between west and east functioned in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. prepared by the famous " silk road", which existed until the 15th century and ran from Mediterranean Sea via Iran, Central Asia to the banks of the Yellow River.

The Scythians existed for over a thousand years and final stage their history, when the borders of their kingdom narrowed significantly, they settled in Crimea with their capital in the city of Naples, the ruins of which are located on the outskirts of present-day Simferopol. In the 7th-4th centuries BC. the center of the Scythian state was a settlement on the site of the modern village of Kamenki, Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk region. Nowadays the Kamenskoye settlement is an archeological monument of international importance.

Under the blows of the Sarmatians, Scythia disintegrated, and some of the Scythians settled in Crimea. The center of the post-Scythian state (3rd century BC) became Scythian Naples, built on the plateau of the Petrovsky Rocks above the valley of the Salgir River (south-eastern outskirts of Simferopol). This city is located at the crossroads of major trade routes passing through the peninsula. Dnieper Scythia also submitted to him.

Neapolis, like many other ancient monuments, was discovered by accident. On Kermenchik (as the area once occupied by the capital of the late Scythians was called in the Middle Ages) was built in early XIX century stone quarry. In 1827, during the next stone sampling, a relief of a Scythian horseman and marble shields with inscriptions were found (later scientists established that the name of the Scythian king X Skilur, their dedication to the gods Zeus and Athena, was carved on the slabs). A happy accident saved them for science. Then new discoveries followed: a treasure of Roman coins and a slab with a relief of two horsemen were discovered in Naples.

A systematic archaeological study of the capital of the Poznesythian state began after the end of the war. Excavations were carried out by the Tauro-Scythian expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of P.N. Shultz from 1945 to 1959. As a result of research, the main gates of the city and the southern defensive wall, mausoleum of the Scythian nobility with the burial of – presumably – King Skilur and his son Palak, ruins public building with frescoes, extensive granary. Plates with reliefs, samples of painted plaster, jewelry, beads and household items found in Neapolis are kept in museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Considering the continuing interest in ancient Naples, a museum of the history of the capital of the late Scythians has been created in Simferopol, where tourists can see wonderful jewelry, expensive weapons, rich dishes and other masterpieces included in the treasury of world culture.

Scythian gold, which was a huge success at exhibitions in the USA and Western Europe, represented by a famous vase with images illustrating the Greek mythological story about the beginning of the Scythian kingdom, a massive neck mane, a pendant of the goddess Athena, a phial and the lining of a sword scabbard, extracted back in 1830 from the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, a golden deer from the Kuban region , which once adorned the shield of war and represents classic example characteristic of the Scythians: the so-called animal style; a golden comb with a scene of a fight between Scythians and lions from the Solokha mound; a silver amphora and a gold pectoral from the Tolstaya Mogila mound; breast decorations from the Bolshaya Bliznitsa mound in Taman...

The interiors of dwellings, everyday items and utensils, vestments of Scythian warriors, artistic paintings showing a musician playing the lyre, scenes of hunting a wild boar, a horseman, internal view mausoleum with a completely reconstructed burial of King Skilur...

Yes, it will be a museum, the attractive power of which will extend to many millions of tourists. Scythian Naples ceased to exist in the 3rd century AD, when the state of Scythia itself, or as the ancient authors called it the “Kingdom of Atey,” was destroyed by the nomadic tribes of the Sarmatians, Alans and Goths who invaded the Crimea and captured a huge whirlpool Great Migration of Peoples.

Source: demirdji.ru

Photos of nature and mountains of Crimea

One of most interesting pages The history of Crimea is the dominance of the Scythians over most of its territory.

Legends about the birth of the Scythian state

The Scythians came to the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region in the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. Among them, several tribes stood out, and their relationships were hierarchical. The territory of the oldest tribe, according to Herodotus, included the northern, lowland part of Crimea. Also, his “royal”, as Herodotus called them, possessions included Northern Taurida and the Northern Azov region east to the Don. It was, in the words of the “father of history,” “the most valiant and most numerous Scythian tribe. These Scythians consider other Scythians to be their subjects.”

In Crimea, the “royal possessions” of the Scythians extended south to the lands controlled by the Greek colony of Chersonesus, and east to the isthmus separating the Kerch Peninsula from most of the Crimean Peninsula. On the Kerch Peninsula itself, the power of the Greek Bosporan kingdom was already in effect.

The Scythians themselves had a legend about the origin of royal power, in which we can easily recognize the motif of later Russian fairy tales. The Scythians were once ruled by King Targitai, who had semi-divine origins. He had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Kolaksai. Xai is an Iranian word meaning supreme power. From him, according to some scientists, the Russian “tsar” comes.

When the time came for Targitai to die, the question of inheriting power arose. Here, according to myth, four golden objects fell from the sky: a bowl, an ax, a plow and a yoke. When the eldest of the princes approached to take these golden things, they began to glow. The same thing happened when the middle brother approached them. And only the youngest managed to take them. The brothers saw this as a sign from heaven and agreed to give the kingdom to their younger brother.

Subsequently, according to Herodotus, Kolaksai divided the Scythian kingdom between his three sons. Of course, these myths do not reflect the real development of social institutions among the Scythians during that period. The Scythians were still nomads, they lived in a tribal system, statehood and public power were in their infancy.

The emergence of the Scythian kingdom in Crimea. Scythian Naples

At the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC e. In the “royal domains” of the Scythians, an early state began to take shape. As evidenced by archaeological data, this was accompanied by the settling of the Scythians on the earth, their departure from a nomadic life, and the transition to agriculture. One must think that the land was initially worked by foreign slaves, and only gradually they were joined by impoverished ordinary Scythians. As in all societies of this transitional type, maintaining a nomadic way of life instead of “picking the ground” for a long time served as the main attribute of a free person.

At the beginning of the 3rd century BC. e. The lands of the Scythians were invaded by Sarmatian tribes who came from beyond the Don. They ousted the Scythians from most of their territory in the Northern Black Sea region. This contributed to the consolidation of the Scythians in their ancient “royal possessions.” At the same time, the Scythians borrowed from the Greeks the custom of building fortresses and the urban lifestyle. The capital of the Scythian kingdom emerges - Naples (New City) Scythian, as the Greeks called it (the name suggests that there was also an Old City, but we know nothing about it). Nowadays its remains can be seen at the Kermenchik settlement near Simferopol.

Scythian Naples existed for at least six centuries. Among its inhabitants, judging by the excavations, residents of different nations gradually appear: Greeks, Sarmatians, Roxolans, etc. The burials reveal strong social differences. The nobility buried their dead in rich graves carved into the rock, or in a mausoleum near the city walls. The middle strata had their own city cemetery, and the dead of the poor were buried outside the city limits. As we see, the Scythians left far behind their ancient custom of cremation and the construction of high mounds. Therefore, we cannot even say for sure which burials in Scythian Naples belong specifically to the kings.

Major events

However, we generally know almost nothing about the internal structure of the Scythian kingdom in Crimea, except that it was apparently monarchical. This is indicated by literally only one or two events, of which only the names of the Scythian kings are known.

Under the onslaught of the Sarmatians, the Scythian kingdom was forced to expand its possessions in the Crimea. First of all, at the expense of Chersonesus, which owned vast lands in the western part of Crimea and surrounded them with a wall. History of the Scythian kingdom III-II centuries. BC e. - the history of his ongoing wars with Chersonesos, in which the odds generally leaned towards the Scythians. Their possessions increased, the possessions of the Greeks decreased. At the very end of the 2nd century, the Scythians approached the city directly. The power of the Crimean Scythians at that time extended so much that the Greek colony of Olbia at the mouth of the Southern Bug became their protectorate.

Under these conditions, the Chersonesos turned for help to the king of Pontus (who then also owned the neighboring Bosporan kingdom) Mithridates VI Eupator. In 110-107 BC e. his commander Diophantus defeated the Scythians and took their capital Naples. Chersonesus was returned to its former possessions in Western Crimea. The Scythian king Skilur and his eldest son Palak fell in battle, his other sons were deprived of power, Scythia was occupied and deprived of independence.

But then the Romans intervened. Under their diplomatic pressure, the Pontians returned power to the heirs of Skilur. Later, during the wars with Rome, the Pontic kingdom was destroyed, and Scythia gained independence. True, incomplete, since from now on and for many centuries it was limited by the supreme sovereignty of Rome. In this state, the Scythian kingdom existed comfortably for another four centuries, until at the end of the 4th century AD. e. did not fall (together with the neighboring Bosporan kingdom) under the blows of the Goths and Alans.