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    Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians
    Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians
    Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians
    Ebook61 pages50 minutes

    Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians

    By Captivating History

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    If you want to discover the captivating history of the Sarmatians and Scythians, then keep reading...
     
    Masters of the horse, the Scythians and Sarmatians opened the Eurasian Steppe to nomadic civilizations like it had never seen before. For the first time, a group of tribes sharing a common culture called the Steppe their home, adapting themselves to its harshness. Born out of this environment, a very particular way to live was adopted and later spread to peoples of Central Asia—the pastoral nomadic lifestyle. It would be the bane of organized armies of great empires, as the excellent mobility granted by their superior horse-riding skills was no match compared to the slow, organized infantry.
     
    The tale of the Scythians and Sarmatians have lasted through history, and although they had not one written historical record of their own, their presence was registered by dozens of classical historians. More importantly, though, their precious burial tombs still retained some of the civilizational remains of this extraordinary group of people.
     
    In  Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians, you will discover topics such as:

    -  Origins of the Scythians and Sarmatians 
    -  Art, Culture, and Religion 
    -  Economy and Society 
    -  Warfare and Conquest 
    -  End of the Scythians and Sarmatians 
    -  And much, much more!  
     So if you want to learn more about Sarmatians and Scythians, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button! 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCaptivating History
    Release dateJul 22, 2019
    ISBN9798215630853

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      Book preview

      Sarmatians and Scythians - Captivating History

      Introduction

      Masters of the horse, the Scythians and Sarmatians opened the Eurasian Steppe to nomadic civilizations like it had never seen before. Following in the footsteps of the Cimmerians, a group of tribes sharing a common culture called the Steppe their home, adapting themselves to its harshness. Born out of this environment, a very particular way to live was adopted and later spread to peoples of Central Asia—the pastoral nomadic lifestyle. It would be the bane of organized armies of great empires, as the excellent mobility granted by their superior horse-riding skills were more than a match for the slow infantry that formed the backbone of the sedentary civilizations’ armies.

      The tale of the Scythians and Sarmatians have lasted through history, and although they had not one written historical record of their own, their presence was registered by dozens of classical historians. More importantly, though, their precious burial tombs still retained some of the civilizational remains of this extraordinary group of peoples.

      The Scythians and Sarmatians had been deeply connected since their origin. The first Sarmatian people, the Sauromatae, were a part of the greater Scythian cultural group and spoke a dialect of the Scythian language. When the great Persian army invaded the Scythian territory in 513 BCE, the Sauromatae were listed among the allies of the Scythians, so we know they had friendly relations to some degree. However, later Sarmatian tribes wouldn’t be so kind to the Scythians, and they eventually integrated part of them by subjugation. However, they both shared a fairly similar culture, and aside from the same language, they shared a common religious structure and practices, similar tribal organization, and similar clothing.

      The Indo-European peoples commonly called as Scythians spanned the territory ranging from modern-day Romania to modern-day China. However, the Scythians and the Sarmatians mainly occupied the northern coast of the Black Sea, from modern-day Romania to the Volga River in modern-day southern Russia. The Scythians existed between, at least, the mid-8th century BCE and the 3rd century CE, while the Sarmatians (if we count the Sauromatae) existed between the 5th century BCE and the 5th century CE.

      So, to tell the history of the Scythians and Sarmatians is to try to piece together a puzzle with a considerable amount of missing pieces, and it becomes even harder when one takes into account that some of the existing pieces have raised doubt about their veracity, as is the case with Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived around 484 to 425 BCE, who tells us about the Scythians in his Histories.

      The goal of this book is then to gather and sort through the sources and present a concise but informative and accurate account of the history and legacy of the Scythians and Sarmatians.

      Part I: The Scythians

      Chapter 1 – Origins of the Scythians

      The evidence for the existence of wagon nomadism, that is nomadic peoples that developed and used wagons for transportation of their belongings over large-distance migrations or nomadic behavior, can be traced as far back as the Bronze Age, but it is in the first millennium BCE that the archaeological data points to an increase of nomadic horse breeders in the northern Pontic region. It is only from the 8th century BCE onward that we start to know the name of the peoples who inhabited there, the Cimmerians and the Scythians, through the historical data. It is thought that the Scythians originated through the wave migrations of several ancient, related populations of the Indo-Iranian language group that came from Central Asia/southern Siberia.[1]

      Geographically the full extent of the presence of the Scythians is not entirely known. However, it’s known that they occupied a region ranging from the river Danube in the west to the river Don in the east and to the Black Sea in the south. This region was the core of their civilization. Nevertheless, at certain times of expansion, this border could go farther and include the Caucasus and the Dobruja regions, to the southeast and west, respectively.[2]

      It is thought that the geographical area occupied by the Scythians had an abundance of fertile soil and rivers, which provided optimal pasture lands for the Scythian nomadic horse-breeding civilization. However, reconstructing the landscape of the Scythians’ home still

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