Cataphract-style parade armour of a Saka royal, also known as "The Golden Warrior", from the Issyk kurgan, a historical burial site near Almaty, Kazakhstan. Circa 400–200 BC.[5][6]
The Sakas were closely related to the Scythians, and both groups formed part of the wider Scythian cultures,[9] through which they ultimately derived from the earlier Andronovo culture, BMAC, while also carrying East Asian genetic ancestry,[10] with the Saka language forming part of the Scythian languages. However, the Sakas of the Asian steppes are to be distinguished from the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe;[8][11] and although the ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads, the name "Saka" is used specifically for the ancient nomads of the eastern steppe, while "Scythian" is used for the related group of nomads living in the western steppe;[8][12][13] While the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they may have differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.[14]
Scythian helmet, copper alloy, Afrasiyab, Samarkand, 6th–1st century BCE.
LinguistOswald Szemerényi studied synonyms of various origins for Scythian and differentiated the following terms: Sakā𐎿𐎣𐎠, SkuthēsΣκύθης, Skudra𐎿𐎤𐎢𐎭𐎼, and Sugᵘda𐎿𐎢𐎦𐎢𐎭.[24]
Derived from an Iranian verbal root sak-, "go, roam" (related to "seek") and thus meaning "nomad" was the term Sakā, from which came the names:
From the Indo-European root(s)kewd-, meaning "propel, shoot" (and from which was also derived the English word shoot), of which *skud- is the zero-grade form, was descended the Scythians' self-name reconstructed by Szemerényi as *Skuδa (roughly "archer"). From this were descended the following exonyms:
Akkadian: Iškuzaya and Askuzaya, used by the Assyrians
A late Scythian sound change from /δ/ to /l/ resulted in the evolution of *Skuδa into *Skula. From this was derived the Greek word SkṓlotoiΣκώλοτοι, which, according to Herodotus, was the self-designation of the Royal Scythians.[30][31] Other sound changes have produced Sugᵘda𐎿𐎢𐎦𐎢𐎭.[24]
Although the Scythians, Saka and Cimmerians were closely related nomadic Iranic peoples, and the ancient Babylonians, ancient Persians and ancient Greeks respectively used the names "Cimmerian," "Saka," and "Scythian" for all the steppe nomads, and early modern historians such as Edward Gibbon used the term Scythian to refer to a variety of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples across the Eurasian Steppe,
the name "Scythian" in contemporary modern scholarship generally refers to the nomadic Iranic people who from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century BC dominated the steppe and forest-steppe zones to the north of the Black Sea, Crimea, the Kuban valley, as well as the Taman and Kerch peninsulas,[32][33]
while the name "Saka" is used specifically for their eastern members who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin;[33][34]
Identification
The name Sakā was used by the ancient Persian to refer to all the Iranian nomadic tribes living to the north of their empire, including both those who lived between the Caspian Sea and the Hungry steppe, and those who lived to the north of the Danube and the Black Sea. The Assyrians meanwhile called these nomads the Ishkuzai (Akkadian: Iškuzaya[35][36]) or Askuzai (Akkadian: Asguzaya, mat Askuzaya, mat Ášguzaya[35][37]), and the Ancient Greeks called them Skuthai (Ancient Greek: ΣκύθηςSkúthēs, ΣκύθοιSkúthoi, ΣκύθαιSkúthai).[38]
The Achaemenid inscriptions initially listed a single group of Sakā. However, following Darius I's campaign of 520 to 518 BC against the Asian nomads, they were differentiated into two groups, both living in Central Asia to the east of the Caspian Sea:[38][40]
the Sakā haumavargā (𐎿𐎣𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎢𐎶𐎺𐎼𐎥𐎠) – interpreted as "Sakā who lay hauma (around the fire)",[43] which can be interpreted as "Saka who revere hauma."[44]
the Sakā tayaiy paradraya (𐎿𐎣𐎠 𐏐 𐎫𐎹𐎡𐎹 𐏐 𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎼𐎹) – "the Sakā who live beyond the (Black) Sea," who were the Pontic Scythians of the East European steppes
An additional term is found in two inscriptions elsewhere:[45][38]
the Sakaibiš tayaiy para Sugdam (𐎿𐎣𐎡𐎲𐎡𐏁 𐏐 𐎫𐎹𐎡𐎹 𐏐 𐎱𐎼 𐏐 𐎿𐎢𐎥𐎭𐎶) – "Saka who are beyond Sogdia", a term was used by Darius for the people who formed the north-eastern limits of his empire at the opposite end to the satrapy of Kush (the Ethiopians).[46][47] These Sakaibiš tayaiy para Sugdam have been suggested to have been the same people as the Sakā haumavargā[48]
The scholar David Bivar had tentatively identified the Sk tꜣ with the Sakā haumavargā,[51] and John Manuel Cook had tentatively identified the Sꜣg pḥ with the Sakā tigraxaudā.[48] More recently, the scholar Rüdiger Schmitt has suggested that the Sꜣg pḥ and the Sk tꜣ might have collectively designated the Sakā tigraxaudā/Massagetae.[52]
The Achaemenid king Xerxes I listed the Saka coupled with the Dahā (𐎭𐏃𐎠) people of Central Asia,[46][48][45] who might possibly have been identical with the Sakā tigraxaudā.[53][54][55]
Although the ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads, modern scholars now use the term Saka to refer specifically to Iranian peoples who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin;[7][56][8][13] and while the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they may have differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.[14]
The Sakas (), and main Asian polities, circa 325 BC.[57][2][3]
The Sakā tigraxaudā and Sakā haumavargā both lived in the steppe and highland areas located in northern Central Asia and to the east of the Caspian Sea.[38][40][58]
The Sakā tigraxaudā/Massagetae more specifically lived around Chorasmia[59] and in the lowlands of Central Asia located to the east of the Caspian Sea and the south-east of the Aral Sea, in the Kyzylkum Desert and the Ustyurt Plateau, most especially between the Araxes and Iaxartes rivers.[53][52] The Sakā tigraxaudā/Massagetae could also be found in the Caspian Steppe.[41] The imprecise description of where the Massagetae lived by ancient authors has however led modern scholars to ascribe to them various locations, such as the Oxus delta, the Iaxartes delta, between the Caspian and Aral seas or forther to the north or north-east, but without basing these suggestions on any conclusive arguments.[52] Other locations assigned to the Massagetae include the area corresponding to modern-day Turkmenistan.[60]
The Sakā haumavargā lived around the Pamir Mountains and the Ferghana Valley.[59]
The Sakaibiš tayaiy para Sugdam, who may have been identical with the Sakā haumavargā, lived on the north-east border of the Achaemenid Empire on the Iaxartes river.[38]
The Sək, that is the Saka who were in contact with the Chinese, inhabited the Ili and Chu valleys of modern Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, which was called the "land of the Sək", i.e. "land of the Saka", in the Book of Han.[61]
History
Origins
A 2017 study found that the Scythians were a mixed population, with Yamnaya-related Western Steppe Herder ancestry and East Asian ancestry, possibly related to modern day Han Chinese or Nganasans.[62] A 2021 likewise confirmed that the Scythians had mixed ancestry, but found that their West Eurasian ancestry was related to the Andronovo-Sintashta cultures rather than Yamnaya. These authors also said that East Asian ancestry was best represented by the Khövsgöl LBA population from Mongolia, and that "East Eurasian proxies", such as Han Chinese or Nganasans were less reliable than a Khövsgöl source.[63]
These studies also found that the different Scythian groups likely had multi-regional origins. Different Scythian groups arose locally, rather than through migration patterns from East-to-West or West-to-East.[64][65]
ARchaeological evidence now tends to suggest that the origins of Scythian culture, characterized by its kurgans (a type of burial mound) and its Animal style of the 1st millennium BC, are to be found among Eastern Scythians rather than their Western counterparts: eastern kurgans are older than western ones (such as the Altaic kurgan Arzhan 1 in Tuva), and elements of the Animal style are first attested in areas of the Yenisei river and modern-day China in the 10th century BCE.[66]
The Saka are attested in historical and archaeological records dating to around the 8th century BC.[74]
The Saka tribe of the Massagetae/Tigraxaudā rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BC, when they migrated from the east into Central Asia,[52] from where they expelled the Scythians, another nomadic Iranian tribe to whom they were closely related, after which they came to occupy large areas of the region beginning in the 6th century BC.[41] The Massagetae forcing the Early Scythians to the west across the Araxes river and into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes started a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe,[75] following which the Scythians displaced the Cimmerians and the Agathyrsi, who were also nomadic Iranian peoples closely related to the Massagetae and the Scythians, conquered their territories,[75][76][41][77][78][79] and invaded Western Asia, where their presence had an important role in the history of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran.[77]
During the 7th century BC itself, Saka presence started appearing in the Tarim Basin region.[74]
According to the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Parthians rebelled against the Medes during the reign of Cyaxares, after which the Parthians put their country and capital city under the protection of the Sakas. This was followed by a long war opposing the Medes to the Saka, the latter of whom were led by the queen Zarinaea. At the end of this war, the Parthians accepted Median rule, and the Saka and the Medes made peace.[80][81][82]
According to the Greek historian Ctesias, once the PersianAchaemenid Empire's founder, Cyrus, had overthrown his grandfather the Median king Astyages, the Bactrians accepted him as the heir of Astyages and submitted to him, after which he founded the city of Cyropolis on the Iaxartes river as well as seven fortresses to protect the northern frontier of his empire against the Saka. Cyrus then attacked the Sakā haumavargā, initially defeated them and captured their king, Amorges. After this, Amorges's queen, Sparethra, defeated Cyrus with a large army of both men and women warriors and captured Parmises, the brother-in-law of Cyrus and the brother of his wife Amytis, as well as Parmises's three sons, whom Sparethra exchanged in return for her husband, after which Cyrus and Amorges became allies, and Amorges helped Cyrus conquer Lydia.[83][84][85][86][87][88]
Cyrus, accompanied by the Sakā haumavargā of his ally Amorges, later carried out a campaign against the Massagetae/Sakā tigraxaudā in 530 BC.[52] According to Herodotus, Cyrus captured a Massagetaean camp by ruse, after which the Massagetae queen Tomyris led the tribe's main force against the Persians, defeated them, and placed the severed head of Cyrus in a sack full of blood. Some versions of the records of the death of Cyrus named the Derbices, rather than the Massagetae, as the tribe against whom Cyrus died in battle, because the Derbices were a member tribe of the Massagetae confederation or identical with the whole of the Massagetae.[89][52] After Cyrus had been mortally wounded by the Derbices/Massagetae, Amorges and his Sakā haumavargā army helped the Persian soldiers defeat them. Cyrus told his sons to respect their own mother as well as Amorges above everyone else before dying.[88]
Possibly shortly before the 520s BC, the Saka expanded into the valleys of the Ili and Chu in eastern Central Asia.[61] Around 30 Saka tombs in the form of kurgans (burial mounds) have also been found in the Tian Shan area dated to between 550 and 250 BC.[74]
Darius I waged wars against the eastern Sakas during a campaign of 520 to 518 BC where, according to his inscription at Behistun, he conquered the Massagetae/Sakā tigraxaudā, captured their king Skunxa, and replaced him with a ruler who was loyal to Achaemenid rule.[52][88][90] The territories of the Saka were absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire as part of Chorasmia that included much of the territory between the Oxus and the Iaxartes rivers,[91] and the Saka then supplied the Achaemenid army with a large number of mounted bowmen.[92] According to Polyaenus, Darius fought against three armies led by three kings, respectively named Sacesphares, Amorges or Homarges, and Thamyris, with Polyaenus's account being based on accurate Persian historical records.[88][93][94] After Darius's administrative reforms of the Achaemenid Empire, the Sakā tigraxaudā were included within the same tax district as the Medes.[95]
During the period of Achaemenid rule, Central Asia was in contact with Saka populations who were themselves in contact with China.[96]
After Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, the Saka resisted his incursions into Central Asia.[56]
At least by the late 2nd century BC, the Sakas had founded states in the Tarim Basin.[23]
Coin of Gurgamoya, king of Khotan. Khotan, first century. Obv:Kharosthi legend, "Of the great king of kings, king of Khotan, Gurgamoya. Rev: Chinese legend: "Twenty-four grain copper coin". British Museum
Archaeological evidence and documents from Khotan and other sites in the Tarim Basin provided information on the language spoken by the Saka.[99][100]
The official language of Khotan was initially Gandhari Prakrit written in Kharosthi, and coins from Khotan dated to the 1st century bear dual inscriptions in Chinese and Gandhari Prakrit, indicating links of Khotan to both India and China.[101] Surviving documents however suggest that an Iranian language was used by the people of the kingdom for a long time. Third-century AD documents in Prakrit from nearby Shanshan record the title for the king of Khotan as hinajha (i.e. "generalissimo"), a distinctively Iranian-based word equivalent to the Sanskrit title senapati, yet nearly identical to the Khotanese Saka hīnāysa attested in later Khotanese documents.[101] This, along with the fact that the king's recorded regnal periods were given as the Khotanese kṣuṇa, "implies an established connection between the Iranian inhabitants and the royal power," according to the Professor of Iranian Studies Ronald E. Emmerick.[101] He contended that Khotanese-Saka-language royal rescripts of Khotan dated to the 10th century "makes it likely that the ruler of Khotan was a speaker of Iranian."[101] Furthermore, he argued that the early form of the name of Khotan, hvatana, is connected semantically with the name Saka.[101]
The region once again came under Chinese suzerainty with the campaigns of conquest by Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649).[102] From the late eighth to ninth centuries, the region changed hands between the rival Tang and Tibetan Empires.[103][104] However, by the early 11th century the region fell to the Muslim Turkic peoples of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, which led to both the Turkification of the region as well as its conversion from Buddhism to Islam.
Later Khotanese-Saka-language documents, ranging from medical texts to Buddhist literature, have been found in Khotan and Tumshuq (northeast of Kashgar).[99] Similar documents in the Khotanese-Saka language dating mostly to the 10th century have been found in the Dunhuang manuscripts.[105]
Although the ancient Chinese had called Khotan Yutian (于闐), another more native Iranian name occasionally used was Jusadanna (瞿薩旦那), derived from Indo-Iranian Gostan and Gostana, the names of the town and region around it, respectively.[106]
Much like the neighboring people of the Kingdom of Khotan, the people of Kashgar, the capital of Shule, spoke Saka, one of the Eastern Iranian languages.[107] According to the Book of Han, the Saka split and formed several states in the region. These Saka states may include two states to the northwest of Kashgar, Tumshuq to its northeast, and Tushkurgan south in the Pamirs.[108] Kashgar also conquered other states such as Yarkand and Kucha during the Han dynasty, but in its later history, Kashgar was controlled by various empires, including Tang China,[109][110][111] before it became part of the Turkic Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 10th century. In the 11th century, according to Mahmud al-Kashgari, some non-Turkic languages like Kanchaki and Sogdian were still used in some areas in the vicinity of Kashgar,[112] and Kanchaki is thought to belong to the Saka language group.[108] It is believed that the Tarim Basin was linguistically Turkified before the 11th century ended.[113]
The Saka were pushed out of the Ili and Chu River valleys by the Yuezhi.[115][20][21] An account of the movement of these people is given in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. The Yuehzhi, who originally lived between Tängri Tagh (Tian Shan) and Dunhuang of Gansu, China,[116] were assaulted and forced to flee from the Hexi Corridor of Gansu by the forces of the Xiongnu ruler Modu Chanyu, who conquered the area in 177–176 BC.[117][118][119][120][121][122] In turn the Yuehzhi were responsible for attacking and pushing the Sai (i.e. Saka) west into Sogdiana, where, between 140 and 130 BC, the latter crossed the Syr Darya into Bactria. The Saka also moved southwards toward the Pamirs and northern India, where they settled in Kashmir, and eastward, to settle in some of the oasis-states of Tarim Basin sites, like Yanqi (焉耆, Karasahr) and Qiuci (龜茲, Kucha).[123][124] The Yuehzhi, themselves under attacks from another nomadic tribe, the Wusun, in 133–132 BC, moved, again, from the Ili and Chu valleys, and occupied the country of Daxia, (大夏, "Bactria").[61][125]
The Heavenly Horse, commonly known as the Ferghana Horse, is an ancient ceremonial bronze finial. It originates from Bactria, dating back to the 4th-1st century BCE, and was skillfully crafted by Saka tribes.
The ancient Greco-Roman geographer Strabo noted that the four tribes that took down the Bactrians in the Greek and Roman account – the Asioi, Pasianoi, Tokharoi and Sakaraulai – came from land north of the Syr Darya where the Ili and Chu valleys are located.[126][61] Identification of these four tribes varies, but Sakaraulai may indicate an ancient Saka tribe, the Tokharoi is possibly the Yuezhi, and while the Asioi had been proposed to be groups such as the Wusun or Alans.[126][127]
Map of Sakastan ("Land of the Sakas"), where the Sakas resettled c. 100 BCE
René Grousset wrote of the migration of the Saka: "the Saka, under pressure from the Yueh-chih [Yuezhi], overran Sogdiana and then Bactria, there taking the place of the Greeks." Then, "Thrust back in the south by the Yueh-chih," the Saka occupied "the Saka country, Sakastana, whence the modern Persian Seistan."[126] Some of the Saka fleeing the Yuezhi attacked the Parthian Empire, where they defeated and killed the kings Phraates II and Artabanus.[115] These Sakas were eventually settled by Mithridates II in what become known as Sakastan.[115] According to Harold Walter Bailey, the territory of Drangiana (now in Afghanistan and Pakistan) became known as "Land of the Sakas", and was called Sakastāna in the Persian language of contemporary Iran, in Armenian as Sakastan, with similar equivalents in Pahlavi, Greek, Sogdian, Syriac, Arabic, and the Middle Persian tongue used in Turfan, Xinjiang, China.[99] This is attested in a contemporary Kharosthi inscription found on the Mathura lion capital belonging to the Saka kingdom of the Indo-Scythians (200 BC – 400 AD) in North India,[99] roughly the same time the Chinese record that the Saka had invaded and settled the country of Jibin 罽賓 (i.e. Kashmir, of modern-day India and Pakistan).[128]
Iaroslav Lebedynsky and Victor H. Mair speculate that some Sakas may also have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China following their expulsion by the Yuezhi. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian Kingdom of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing.[129] The scenes depicted on these drums sometimes represent these horsemen practising hunting. Animal scenes of felines attacking oxen are also at times reminiscent of Scythian art both in theme and in composition.[130]Migrations of the 2nd and 1st century BC have left traces in Sogdia and Bactria, but they cannot firmly be attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of Sirkap and Taxila in ancient India. The rich graves at Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan are seen as part of a population affected by the Saka.[131]
The Shakya clan of India, to which Gautama Buddha, called Śākyamuni "Sage of the Shakyas", belonged, were also likely Sakas, as Michael Witzel[132] and Christopher I. Beckwith[133] have alleged. The scholar Bryan Levman however criticised this hypothesis for resting on slim to no evidence, and maintains that the Shakyas were a population native to the north-east Gangetic plain who were unrelated to Iranic Sakas.[134]
The region in modern Afghanistan and Iran where the Saka moved to became known as "land of the Saka" or Sakastan.[99] This is attested in a contemporary Kharosthi inscription found on the Mathura lion capital belonging to the Saka kingdom of the Indo-Scythians (200 BC – 400 AD) in northern India,[99] roughly the same time the Chinese record that the Saka had invaded and settled the country of Jibin 罽賓 (i.e. Kashmir, of modern-day India and Pakistan).[128] In the Persian language of contemporary Iran the territory of Drangiana was called Sakastāna, in Armenian as Sakastan, with similar equivalents in Pahlavi, Greek, Sogdian, Syriac, Arabic, and the Middle Persian tongue used in Turfan, Xinjiang, China.[99] The Sakas also captured Gandhara and Taxila, and migrated to North India.[138] The most famous Indo-Scythian king was Maues.[139] An Indo-Scythian kingdom was established in Mathura (200 BC – 400 AD).[99][22]Weer Rajendra Rishi, an Indian linguist, identified linguistic affinities between Indian and Central Asian languages, which further lends credence to the possibility of historical Sakan influence in North India.[138][140] According to historian Michael Mitchiner, the Abhira tribe were a Saka people cited in the Gunda inscription of the Western SatrapRudrasimha I dated to AD 181.[141]
Later Saka polities
The Indo-Scythians ruled in northwestern South Asia from circa 100 BC
The Northern Satraps ruled in northern India until their replacement by the Kushans circa 150 AD
The Western Satraps was a Saka dynasty which ruled in western India until circa 400 AD
Historiography
Distribution of Iranic peoples in Central Asia during the Iron Age. Saka included.Silver coin of the Indo-Scythian King Azes II (ruled c. 35–12 BC). Note the royal tamga on the coin.
Persians referred to all northern nomads as Sakas. Herodotus (IV.64) describes them as Scythians, although they figure under a different name:
The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point. They bore the bow of their country and the dagger; besides which they carried the battle-axe, or sagaris. They were in truth Amyrgian (Western) Scythians, but the Persians called them Sacae, since that is the name which they gave to all Scythians.
Strabo
In the 1st century BC, the Greek-Roman geographer Strabo gave an extensive description of the peoples of the eastern steppe, whom he located in Central Asia beyond Bactria and Sogdiana.[142]
Strabo went on to list the names of the various tribes he believed to be "Scythian",[142] and in so doing almost certainly conflated them with unrelated tribes of eastern Central Asia. These tribes included the Saka.
Now the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Däae, but those who are situated more to the east than these are named Massagetae and Sacae, whereas all the rest are given the general name of Scythians, though each people is given a separate name of its own. They are all for the most part nomads. But the best known of the nomads are those who took away Bactriana from the Greeks, I mean the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli, who originally came from the country on the other side of the Iaxartes River that adjoins that of the Sacae and the Sogdiani and was occupied by the Sacae. And as for the Däae, some of them are called Aparni, some Xanthii, and some Pissuri. Now of these the Aparni are situated closest to Hyrcania and the part of the sea that borders on it, but the remainder extend even as far as the country that stretches parallel to Aria.
Between them and Hyrcania and Parthia and extending as far as the Arians is a great waterless desert, which they traversed by long marches and then overran Hyrcania, Nesaea, and the plains of the Parthians. And these people agreed to pay tribute, and the tribute was to allow the invaders at certain appointed times to overrun the country and carry off booty. But when the invaders overran their country more than the agreement allowed, war ensued, and in turn their quarrels were composed and new wars were begun. Such is the life of the other nomads also, who are always attacking their neighbors and then in turn settling their differences.
(Strabo, Geography, 11.8.1; transl. 1903 by H. C. Hamilton & W. Falconer.)[142]
Attestations of the Saka language show that it was an Eastern Iranian language. The linguistic heartland of Saka was the Kingdom of Khotan, which had two varieties, corresponding to the major settlements at Khotan (now called Hotan) and Tumshuq (now titled Tumxuk).[146][147] Tumshuqese and Khotanese varieties of Saka contain many borrowings from the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, but also share features with the modern Eastern Iranian languages Wakhi and Pashto.[148]
The Issyk inscription, a short fragment on a silver cup found in the Issyk kurgan in Kazakhstan is believed to be the earliest example of Saka, constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic traces of that language.[149] The inscription is in a variant of Kharosthi. Harmatta suggests that the inscriptions are a variant of the Kharosthi language, while Christopher Baumer has said that they closely resemble the Old Turkic runic alphabet. From Khotanese Saka, Harmatta translates the inscription as: "The vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on".[150]
Linguistic evidence suggest the Wakhi language is descended from Saka languages.[151][152][153][154] According to the Indo-Europeanist Martin Kümmel, Wakhi may be classified as a Western Saka dialect; the other attested Saka dialects, Khotanese and Tumshuqese, would then be classified as Eastern Saka.[155]
Unterländer, et al. (2017) found genetic evidence that the modern-day descendants of Eastern Scythians are found "almost exclusively" among modern-day Siberian Turkic speakers, suggesting that future studies could determine the extent to which the Eastern Scythians were involved in the early formation of Turkic-speaking populations.[156] According to Tikhonov, et al. (2019), the Eastern Scythians "possibly bore proto-Turkic elements".[157] Another study suggests that this research casts doubt on the historical consensus that the Scythians only spoke an Iranian language.[158]
Simplified admixture analysis of ancient steppe populations, including the Pazyryk culture.[159]
The earliest studies could only analyze segments of mtDNA, thus providing only broad correlations of affinity to modern West Eurasian or East Eurasian populations. For example, in a 2002 study the mitochondrial DNA of Saka period male and female skeletal remains from a double inhumation kurgan at the Beral site in Kazakhstan was analysed. The two individuals were found to be not closely related. The HV1 mitochondrial sequence of the male was similar to the Anderson sequence which is most frequent in European populations. The HV1 sequence of the female suggested a greater likelihood of Asian origins.[160]
More recent studies have been able to type for specific mtDNA lineages. For example, a 2004 study examined the HV1 sequence obtained from a male "Scytho-Siberian" at the Kizil site in the Altai Republic. It belonged to the N1a maternal lineage, a geographically West Eurasian lineage.[161] Another study by the same team, again of mtDNA from two Scytho-Siberian skeletons found in the Altai Republic, showed that they had been typical males "of mixed Euro-Mongoloid origin". One of the individuals was found to carry the F2a maternal lineage, and the other the D lineage, both of which are characteristic of East Eurasian populations.[162]
These early studies have been elaborated by an increasing number of studies by Russian and western scholars. Conclusions are (i) an early, Bronze Age mixing of both west and east Eurasian lineages, with western lineages being found far to the east, but not vice versa; (ii) an apparent reversal by Iron Age times, with an increasing presence of East Eurasian mtDNA lineages in the Western steppe; (iii) the possible role of migrations from the south, the Balkano-Danubian and Iranian regions, toward the steppe.[164][165]
There is strong evidence for genetic continuity from the Eastern Scythians (such as the Pazyryk culture) to the Proto-Turkic tribes.[166]
Haplogroups
Ancient Y-DNA data was finally provided by Keyser et al in 2009. They studied the haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area in Siberia dated from between the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and the 4th century AD (Scythian and Sarmatian timeframe). Nearly all subjects belonged to haplogroup R-M17. The authors suggest that their data shows that between the Bronze and the Iron Ages the constellation of populations known variously as Scythians, Andronovians, etc. were blue- (or green-) eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people who might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilisation. Moreover, this study found that they were genetically more closely related to modern populations in eastern Europe than those of central and southern Asia.[167] The ubiquity and dominance of the R1a Y-DNA lineage contrasted markedly with the diversity seen in the mtDNA profiles.
A genetic study published in Nature in May 2018 examined the remains of twenty-eight Inner Asian Sakas buried between ca. 900 BC to AD 1, compromising eight Sakas of southern Siberia (Tagar culture), eight Sakas of the central steppe (Tasmola culture), and twelve Sakas of the Tian Shan. The six samples of Y-DNA extracted from the Tian Shan Saka belonged to the West Eurasian haplogroups R (four samples), R1 and R1a1. For the five central steppe Saka males, four belonged to haplogroup R1a while one individual (DA19) belonged to haplogroup E1b1b-FT167798*.[168]
The 2018 in study detected significant genetic differences between the Inner Asian Sakas and Scythians of the Pannonian Basin, as well as between different Saka subgroups of southern Siberia, the central steppe and the Tian Shan. While Scythians (or "Hungarian Saka") harbored exclusively ancestry associated with Western Steppe Herders, Inner Asian Saka displayed additional Neolithic Iranian (BMAC) and Southern Siberian hunter-gatherer (represented through a proxy of modern Altaians) components in varying degrees. Tian Shan Sakas were found to be of about 70% Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry, 25% Southern Siberian Hunter-Gatherer ancestry and 5% Iranian Neolithic ancestry. The Iranian Neolithic ancestry was probably from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex. Sakas of the Tasmola culture were found to be of about 56% WSH ancestry and 44% Southern Siberian Hunter-Gather ancestry. The peoples of the Tagar culture had about 83.5% WSH ancestry, 9% Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry and 7.5% Southern Siberian Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. The study suggested that the Inner Asian Saka were the source of West Eurasian ancestry among the Xiongnu, and that the Huns probably emerged through minor male-driven geneflow into the Saka through westward migrations by the Xiongnu.[169]
Map of Saka cultures with genetic profiles, according to Jeong et al. (2020): the Sakas combined Western Eurasian (Sintashta, ) and Ancient Northeast Asian (Baikal EBA, ) ancestry, with a smaller BMAC admixture ().[170]
A genetic study published in 2020 in Cell,[171] successfully modeled the ancestry of major Saka groups as a combination of Sintashta (Western Steppe Herders) and Baikal EBA ancestry (Western Baikal early Bronze Age hunter-gatherers, a profile consisting of about 80% Ancient Northeast Asian and 20% Ancient North Eurasian ancestries),[172] with varying degrees of an additional Neolithic Iranian (BMAC) component.[171] Specifically, Central Sakas (Tasmola culture) were found to be of about 43% Sintashta ancestry, 50% Baikal_EBA ancestry and 7% BMAC ancestry. Tagar Sakas (Tagar culture) were found to have an elevated Sintashta proportion (69% Sintashta, 24% Baikal_EBA, and 7% BMAC), while Tian Shan Sakas had an elevated BMAC proportion at 24% (50% Sintashta, 26% Baikal_EBA, and 24% BMAC). The eastern Uyuk Sakas (Chandman culture) had 50% Sintashta, 44% Baikal_EBA, and 6% BMAC ancestry. The Pazyryk Sakas had elevated Baikal_EBA ancestry, with a nearly non-existent BMAC component (32% Sintashta, 68% Baikal_EBA, and ~0% BMAC).[173]
Physical appearance
Early physical analyses have unanimously concluded that the Saka, even those far to the east (e.g. the Pazyryk region), possessed predominantly Europid features, although mixed Euro-Mongoloid phenotypes also occur, depending on site and period.[174]
The spectacular grave-goods from Arzhan, and others in Tuva, have been dated from about 800 BC onward, and the kurgans of Shilikty in eastern Kazakhstan circa 700 BC, and are associated with the Early Sakas.[178] Burials at Pazyryk in the Altay Mountains have included some spectacularly preserved Sakas of the "Pazyryk culture" – including the Ice Maiden of the 5th century BC.
Arzhan-1 was excavated by M. P. Gryaznov in the 1970s, establishing the origins of Scythian culture in the region in the 10th to 8th centuries BCE:[179] Arzhan-1 was carbon-dated to circa 800 BCE.[180] Many of the styles of the artifacts found in Arzhan 1 (such as the animal style images of deer, boar, and panther) soon propagated to the west, probably following a migration mouvement from the east to the west in the 9th-7th centuries BCE, and ultimately reaching European Scythia and influencing artistic styles there.[181]
Arzhan-1, dated to circa 800 BCE, partly looted in Antiquity
Curled-up feline animal from Arzhan-1, circa 800 BCE.[182]
Shilikty is an archaeological site in eastern Kazakhstan with numerous 8th-6th century BCE Early Saka kurgans.[184][185] Carbon-14 dating suggests date of 730-690 BCE for the kurgans, and a broad contemporaneity with the Arzhan-2 kurgan in Tuva.[184]
The Kurgans contained vast quantities of precious golden jewelry.[186] Remains of a "golden man" (similar to the Issyk kurgan golden man) were found in 2003, with 4262 gold finds.[187]
Arzhan-2 was an undisturbed burial.[189] Archaeologists found a royal couple, sixteen murdered attendants, and 9,300 objects.[189] 5,700 of these artifacts were made of gold, weighing a Siberian record-breaking twenty kilograms.[189] The male, who researchers guess was some sort of king, wore a golden torc, a jacket decorated with 2,500 golden panther figurines, a gold-encrusted dagger on a belt, trousers sewn with golden beads, and gold-cuffed boots.[189] The woman wore a red cloak that was also covered in 2,500 golden panther figurines, as well as a golden-hilted iron dagger, a gold comb, and a wooden ladle with a golden handle.[189]
"Animal style" deer, (7-6th century BC) Tuva.
Pectoral plate, from burial mound Arzhan (7-6th century BC) Tuva.
Akinak (dagger) burial mound Arzhan (7-6th century BC) Tuva.
Eleke Sazy Burial Complex (c. 800-400 BC)
Recumbent stag plaque, Eleke Sazy, Kazakhstan; 8th to 6th century BC
In 2020, archaeologists excavated multiple burial mounds in the Eleke Sazy Valley in East Kazakhstan. Here, a large number of gold artifacts were found. These artifacts included golf harness fittings, pendants, chains, appliqués, and more – most of which are in the Animal Style of the Scythian-Saka era dating back to the 5th–4th centuries BC.[190]
A Pazyryk horseman in a felt painting from a burial around 300 BC. The Pazyryks appear to be closely related to the Scythians.[193]
Saka burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan (Red) district of the Altai Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (near Mongolia). Archaeologists have extrapolated the Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. The burial mounds concealed chambers of larch-logs covered over with large cairns of boulders and stones.[194]
The Pazyryk culture flourished between the 7th and 3rd century BC in the area associated with the Sacae.
Ordinary Pazyryk graves contain only common utensils, but in one, among other treasures, archaeologists found the famous Pazyryk Carpet, the oldest surviving wool-pile oriental rug. Another striking find, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funerary chariot, survived well-preserved from the 5th to 4th century BC.[195]
Artifacts found the tombs 2 and 4 of Tillya Tepe and reconstitution of their use on the man and woman found in these tombs
A site found in 1968 in Tillia Tepe (literally "the golden hill") in northern Afghanistan (former Bactria) near Shebergan consisted of the graves of five women and one man with extremely rich jewelry, dated to around the 1st century BC, and probably related to that of Saka tribes normally living slightly to the north. Altogether the graves yielded several thousands of pieces of fine jewelry, usually made from combinations of gold, turquoise and lapis-lazuli.
A high degree of cultural syncretism pervades the findings, however. Hellenistic cultural and artistic influences appear in many of the forms and human depictions (from amorini to rings with the depiction of Athena and her name inscribed in Greek), attributable to the existence of the Seleucid empire and Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the same area until around 140 BC, and the continued existence of the Indo-Greek kingdom in the northwestern Indian sub-continent until the beginning of our era. This testifies to the richness of cultural influences in the area of Bactria at that time.
Culture
Gender roles
Recently, evidence confirmed by the full-genomic analysis of a Scythian child's remains found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, which was discovered in Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva, revealed that the individual, previously thought to be male because it had items that were associated with the belief that Scythian society was male-dominated, was actually female. Along with the leather skirt, the burial also contained a leather headdress painted with red pigment, a coat sewn from jerboa fur, a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles, a leather quiver with arrows with painted ornaments on the shafts, a fully-preserved battle pick, and a bow. These items provide valuable insights into the material culture and lifestyle of the Scythians, including their hunting and warfare practices, and their use of animal hides for clothing.[196]
Battle scenes between "Kangju" Saka warriors, from the Orlat plaques. 1st century CE.
The art of the Saka was of a similar styles as other Iranian peoples of the steppes, which is referred to collectively as Scythian art. In 2001, the discovery of an undisturbed royal Scythian burial-barrow at Arzhan illustrated Scythian animal-style gold that lacks the direct influence of Greek styles. Forty-four pounds of gold weighed down the royal couple in this burial, discovered near Kyzyl, capital of the Siberian republic of Tuva.
Ancient influences from Central Asia became identifiable in China following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories from the 8th century BC. The Chinese adopted the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat), particularly the rectangular belt-plaques made of gold or bronze, and created their own versions in jade and steatite.[197]
Following their expulsion by the Yuezhi, some Saka may also have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China. Saka warriors could also have served as mercenaries for the various kingdoms of ancient China. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian civilisation of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing.[198]
Saka influences have been identified as far as Korea and Japan. Various Korean artifacts, such as the royal crowns of the kingdom of Silla, are said to be of "Scythian" design.[199] Similar crowns, brought through contacts with the continent, can also be found in Kofun era Japan.[200]
Similar to other eastern Iranian peoples represented on the reliefs of the Apadana at Persepolis, Sakas are depicted as wearing long trousers, which cover the uppers of their boots. Over their shoulders they trail a type of long mantle, with one diagonal edge in back. One particular tribe of Sakas (the Saka tigraxaudā) wore pointed caps. Herodotus in his description of the Persian army mentions the Sakas as wearing trousers and tall pointed caps.[202]
Men and women wore long trousers, often adorned with metal plaques and often embroidered or adorned with felt appliqués; trousers could have been wider or tight fitting depending on the area. Materials used depended on the wealth, climate and necessity.[206]
Herodotus says Sakas had "high caps tapering to a point and stiffly upright." Asian Saka headgear is clearly visible on the Persepolis Apadana staircase bas-relief – high pointed hat with flaps over ears and the nape of the neck.[207] From China to the Danube delta, men seemed to have worn a variety of soft headgear – either conical like the one described by Herodotus, or rounder, more like a Phrygian cap.
Saka women dressed in much the same fashion as men. A Pazyryk burial, discovered in the 1990s, contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe. Herodotus mentioned that Sakas had "high caps and … wore trousers." Clothing was sewn from plain-weave wool, hemp cloth, silk fabrics, felt, leather and hides.
The Taerpo horserider, a Chinese Warrior-State Qin terracotta figurine from a tomb in the Taerpo cemetery near Xianyang in Shaanxi Province, 4th-3rd century BCE. This is the earliest known representation of a cavalryman in China.[208] The outfit is of Central Asian style, probably Scythian,[209] and the rider with his high-pointed nose appears to be a foreigner.[208] King Zheng of Qin (246–221 BCE) is known to have employed steppe cavalry men in his army, as seen in his terracotta army.[210]
Pazyryk findings give the most almost fully preserved garments and clothing worn by the Scythian/Saka peoples. Ancient Persian bas-reliefs, inscriptions from Apadana and Behistun and archaeological findings give visual representations of these garments.
Based on the Pazyryk findings (can be seen also in the south Siberian, Uralic and Kazakhstan rock drawings) some caps were topped with zoomorphic wooden sculptures firmly attached to a cap and forming an integral part of the headgear, similar to the surviving nomad helmets from northern China. Men and warrior women wore tunics, often embroidered, adorned with felt applique work, or metal (golden) plaques.
Persepolis Apadana again serves a good starting point to observe the tunics of the Sakas. They appear to be a sewn, long-sleeved garment that extended to the knees and was girded with a belt, while the owner's weapons were fastened to the belt (sword or dagger, gorytos, battle-axe, whetstone etc.). Based on numerous archeological findings, men and warrior women wore long-sleeved tunics that were always belted, often with richly ornamented belts. The Kazakhstan Saka (e.g. Issyk Golden Man/Maiden) wore shorter and closer-fitting tunics than the Pontic steppe Scythians. Some Pazyryk culture Saka wore short belted tunic with a lapel on the right side, with upright collar, 'puffed' sleeves narrowing at the wrist and bound in narrow cuffs of a color different from the rest of the tunic.
Men and women wore coats: e.g. Pazyryk Saka had many varieties, from fur to felt. They could have worn a riding coat that later was known as a Median robe or Kantus. Long sleeved, and open, it seems that on the Persepolis Apadana Skudrian delegation is perhaps shown wearing such coat. The Pazyryk felt tapestry shows a rider wearing a billowing cloak.
Warfare
A skull from an Iron Age cemetery in South Siberia shows evidence of scalping. It lends physical evidence to the practice of scalp taking by the Scythians living there.[211]
Later depictions of "Sakas" in China (1st-3rd century CE)
Numerous depictions of foreigners of Saka appearance appear in China around the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE), sometimes as far as east as Shandong. They may have appeared in relation with the conflicts against the Scythoïd Xirong in the west or the Donghu people in the North, or the Kushans in the area of Xinjiang. They were generally called "Hu" by the Chinese.[212][213][214]
Eastern Han tombs sometimes have depiction of battles between Hu barbarians, with bows and arrows and wearing pointed hats (left), against Han troops. Eastern Han Dynasty (151–153 CE). Tsangshan Han tomb in Linyi city. Also visible in Yinan tombs.[214]
General appearance of the numerous ScythoïdHu monumental statues from Shandong, featuring people with a high nose, deep eyes and a pointed hat. Eastern Han period.[213]
Yinan tombs relief, depicting an attack by Hu barbarians with pointed hats, bow and arrows. 2nd century CE, Eastern Han.[215]
^Rhie, Marylin M. (2002). Early Buddhist art of China and Central Asia. Leiden: Brill. p. Fig. 5.70d. ISBN978-90-04-11499-9. Fig. 5.70d Gold mail suit, crown and leg covers, from an Issik tomb, period of the Saka tribes, 5th to 4th century B.C., Institute of Archaeology, History and Ethnography, Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan (after Shiruku rodo no yuihO, pl. 18)
^ abBeckwith 2009, p. 68 "Modern scholars have mostly used the name Saka to refer specifically to Iranians of the Eastern Steppe and Tarim Basin"
^ abcdDandamayev 1994, p. 37 "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism."
^Unterländer et al. 2017: "During the first millennium BC, nomadic people spread over the Eurasian Steppe from the Altai Mountains over the northern Black Sea area as far as the Carpathian Basin... Greek and Persian historians of the 1st millennium BCE chronicle the existence of the Massagetae and Sauromatians, and later, the Sarmatians and Sacae: cultures possessing artefacts similar to those found in classical Scythian monuments, such as weapons, horse harnesses and a distinctive 'Animal Style' artistic tradition. Accordingly, these groups are often assigned to the Scythian culture..."
^Kramrisch, Stella. "Central Asian Arts: Nomadic Cultures". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved September 1, 2018. The Śaka tribe was pasturing its herds in the Pamirs, central Tien Shan, and in the Amu Darya delta. Their gold belt buckles, jewelry, and harness decorations display sheep, griffins, and other animal designs that are similar in style to those used by the Scythians, a nomadic people living in the Kuban basin of the Caucasus region and the western section of the Eurasian plain during the greater part of the 1st millennium bc.
^David & McNiven 2018: "Horse-riding nomadism has been referred to as the culture of 'Early Nomads'. This term encompasses different ethnic groups (such as Scythians, Saka, Massagetae, and Yuezhi)..."
^ abDiakonoff 1985: the Persians called "Saka" all the northern nomads, just as the Greeks called them "Scythians", and the Babylonians "Cimmerians".
^ abTokhtas’ev, Sergei R. (1991). "Cimmerians". Encyclopædia Iranica. As the Cimmerians cannot be differentiated archeologically from the Scythians, it is possible to speculate about their Iranian origins. In the Neo-Babylonian texts (according to D'yakonov, including at least some of the Assyrian texts in Babylonian dialect) Gimirri and similar forms designate the Scythians and Central Asian Saka, reflecting the perception among inhabitants of Mesopotamia that Cimmerians and Scythians represented a single cultural and economic group
^ abBeckwith 2009, p. 85 "The Saka, or Śaka, people then began their long migration that ended with their conquest of northern India, where they are also known as the Indo-Scythians."
^Callieri, Pierfrancesco (2016). "SAKAS: IN AFGHANISTAN". Encyclopædia Iranica. The ethnonym Saka appears in ancient Iranian and Indian sources as the name of the large family of Iranian nomads called Scythians by the Classical Western sources and Sai by the Chinese (Gk. Sacae; OPers. Sakā).
^Jacobson, Esther (1995). The art of the Scythians: the interpenetration of cultures at the edge of the Hellenic world. Handbuch der Orientalistik / hrsg. von B. Spuler ... Abt. 8. Handbook of Uralic studies. Leiden New York Köln: Brill. p. 31. ISBN978-90-04-09856-5.
^ ab* Dandamayev 1994, p. 37: "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism."
Cernenko 2012, p. 3: "The Scythians lived in the Early Iron Age, and inhabited the northern areas of the Black Sea (Pontic) steppes. Though the 'Scythian period' in the history of Eastern Europe lasted little more than 400 years, from the 7th to the 3rd centuries BC, the impression these horsemen made upon the history of their times was such that a thousand years after they had ceased to exist as a sovereign people, their heartland and the territories which they dominated far beyond it continued to be known as 'greater Scythia'."
Melyukova 1990, pp. 97–98: "From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central- Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians [...] "[I]t may be confidently stated that from the end of the 7th century to the 3rd century B.C. the Scythians occupied the steppe expanses of the north Black Sea area, from the Don in the east to the Danube in the West."
Ivantchik 2018: "Scythians, a nomadic people of Iranian origin who flourished in the steppe lands north of the Black Sea during the 7th–4th centuries BC (Figure 1). For related groups in Central Asia and India, see [...]"
Sulimirski 1985, pp. 149–153: "During the first half of the first millennium B.C., c. 3,000 to 2,500 years ago, the southern part of Eastern Europe was occupied mainly by peoples of Iranian stock [...] The main Iranian-speaking peoples of the region at that period were the Scyths and the Sarmatians [...] [T]he population of ancient Scythia was far from being homogeneous, nor were the Scyths themselves a homogeneous people. The country called after them was ruled by their principal tribe, the "Royal Scyths" (Her. iv. 20), who were of Iranian stock and called themselves "Skolotoi" (iv. 6); they were nomads who lived in the steppe east of the Dnieper up to the Don, and in the Crimean steppe [...] The eastern neighbours of the "Royal Scyths," the Sauromatians, were also Iranian; their country extended over the steppe east of the Don and the Volga."
Sulimirski & Taylor 1991, p. 547: "The name 'Scythian' is met in the classical authors and has been taken to refer to an ethnic group or people, also mentioned in Near Eastern texts, who inhabited the northern Black Sea region."
West 2002, pp. 437–440: "Ordinary Greek (and later Latin) usage could designate as Scythian any northern barbarian from the general area of the Eurasian steppe, the virtually treeless corridor of drought-resistant perennial grassland extending from the Danube to Manchuria. Herodotus seeks greater precision, and this essay is focussed on his Scythians, who belong to the North Pontic steppe [...] These true Scyths seems to be those whom he calls Royal Scyths, that is, the group who claimed hegemony [...] apparently warrior-pastoralists. It is generally agreed, from what we know of their names, that these were people of Iranian stock [...]"
Jacobson 1995, pp. 36–37: "When we speak of Scythians, we refer to those Scytho-Siberians who inhabited the Kuban Valley, the Taman and Kerch peninsulas, Crimea, the northern and northeastern littoral of the Black Sea, and the steppe and lower forest steppe regions now shared between Ukraine and Russia, from the seventh century down to the first century B.C [...] They almost certainly spoke an Iranian language [...]"
Di Cosmo 1999, p. 924: "The first historical steppe nomads, the Scythians, inhabited the steppe north of the Black Sea from about the eight century B.C."
Rice, Tamara Talbot. "Central Asian arts: Nomadic cultures". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved October 4, 2019. [Saka] gold belt buckles, jewelry, and harness decorations display sheep, griffins, and other animal designs that are similar in style to those used by the Scythians, a nomadic people living in the Kuban basin of the Caucasus region and the western section of the Eurasian plain during the greater part of the 1st millennium bc.
^Kramrisch, Stella. "Central Asian Arts: Nomadic Cultures". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved September 1, 2018. The Śaka tribe was pasturing its herds in the Pamirs, central Tien Shan, and in the Amu Darya delta. Their gold belt buckles, jewelry, and harness decorations display sheep, griffins, and other animal designs that are similar in style to those used by the Scythians, a nomadic people living in the Kuban basin of the Caucasus region and the western section of the Eurasian plain during the greater part of the 1st millennium bc.
^Olbrycht 2021: "Apparently the Dahai represented an entity not identical with the other better known groups of the Sakai, i.e. the Sakai (Sakā) tigrakhaudā (Massagetai, roaming in Turkmenistan), and Sakai (Sakā) Haumavargā (in Transoxania and beyond the Syr Daryā)."
^Briant, Pierre (29 July 2006). From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns. p. 178. ISBN978-1-57506-120-7. This is Kingdom which I hold, from the Scythians [Saka] who are beyond Sogdiana, thence unto Ethiopia [Cush]; from Sind, thence unto Sardis.
^Zadneprovskiy, Y. A. (1994). "The Nomads of Northern Central Asia After the Invansion of Alexander". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan; Harmatta, János; Puri, Baij Nath; Etemadi, G. F.; Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (eds.). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Paris, France: UNESCO. pp. 448–463. ISBN978-9-231-02846-5. The middle of the third century b.c. saw the rise to power of a group of tribes consisting of the Parni (Aparni) and the Dahae, descendants of the Massagetae of the Aral Sea region.
^ abcdYu 2010: "The Daxia 大夏 people in the valley of the Amu Darya came from the valleys of the rivers Ili and Chu. From the Geography of Strabo one can infer that the four tribes of the Asii and others came from these valleys (the so-called "land of the Sai 塞" in the Hanshu 漢書, ch. 96A). "
^Unterländer et al. 2017 "Genomic inference reveals that Scythians in the east and the west of the steppe zone can best be described as a mixture of Yamnaya-related ancestry and an East Asian component. Demographic modelling suggests independent origins for eastern and western groups with ongoing gene-flow between them, plausibly explaining the striking uniformity of their material culture. We also find evidence that significant gene-flow from east to west Eurasia must have occurred early during the Iron Age." and "The blend of EHG [European hunter-gatherer] and Caucasian elements in carriers of the Yamnaya culture was formed on the European steppe and exported into Central Asia and Siberia"
We therefore considered an alternative model in which we treat them as a mix of Yamnaya and the Han (Supplementary Table 25). This model fits all of the Iron Age Scythian groups, consistent with these groups having ancestry related to East Asians not found in the other populations. Alternatively, the Iron Age Scythian groups can also be modelled as a mix of Yamnaya and the north Siberian Nganasan (Supplementary Note 2, Supplementary Table 26).
^Gnecchi-Ruscone 2021: "Our findings shed new light onto the debate about the origins of the Scythian cultures. We do not find support for a western Pontic-Caspian steppe origin, which is, in fact, highly questioned by more recent historical/archeological work (1, 2). The Kazakh Steppe origin hypothesis finds instead a better correspondence with our results, but rather than finding support for one of the two extreme hypotheses, i.e., single origin with population diffusion versus multiple independent origins with only cultural transmission, we found evidence for at least two independent origins as well as population diffusion and admixture (Fig. 4B). In particular, the eastern groups are consistent with descending from a gene pool that formed as a result of a mixture between preceding local steppe_MLBA sources (which could be associated with different cultures such as Sintashta, Srubnaya, and Andronovo that are genetically homogeneous) and a specific eastern Eurasian source that was already present during the LBA in the neighboring northern Mongolia region (27)."
^Järve, Mari; Saag, Lehti; Scheib, Christiana Lyn; Pathak, Ajai K.; Montinaro, Francesco; Pagani, Luca; Flores, Rodrigo; Guellil, Meriam; Saag, Lauri; Tambets, Kristiina; Kushniarevich, Alena; Solnik, Anu; Varul, Liivi; Zadnikov, Stanislav; Petrauskas, Oleg (2019-07-22). "Shifts in the Genetic Landscape of the Western Eurasian Steppe Associated with the Beginning and End of the Scythian Dominance". Current Biology. 29 (14): 2430–2441.e10. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.019. ISSN0960-9822. PMID31303491. S2CID195887262. Recently, studies of ancient Scythian genomes have affirmed the confederate nature of the Scythian tribes, showing them to be genetically distinct from one another but finding little or no support for large-scale east-to-west movements, instead generally suggesting separate local origins of various Scythian groups [1, 2, 3].
^Järve 2019 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFJärve2019 (help). "The Early Iron Age nomadic Scythians have been described as a confederation of tribes of different origins, based on ancient DNA evidence [1, 2, 3]. All samples of this study also possessed at least one additional eastern component, one of which was nearly at 100% in modern Nganasans (orange) and the other in modern Han Chinese (yellow; Figure S2). The eastern components were present in variable proportions in the samples of this study."
^Unterländer et al. 2017 "The origin of the widespread Scythian culture has long been debated in Eurasian archaeology. The northern Black Sea steppe was originally considered the homeland and centre of the Scythians until Terenozhkin formulated the hypothesis of a Central Asian origin. On the other hand, evidence supporting an east Eurasian origin includes the kurgan Arzhan 1 in Tuva, which is considered the earliest Scythian kurgan. Dating of additional burial sites situated in east and west Eurasia confirmed eastern kurgans as older than their western counterparts. Additionally, elements of the characteristic 'Animal Style' dated to the tenth century BCE were found in the region of the Yenisei river and modern-day China, supporting the early presence of Scythian culture in the East."
^de Laet & Herrmann 1996, p. 443 "The rich kurgan burials in Pazyryk, Siberia probably were those of Saka chieftains"
^ abKuzmina 2008, p. 94 "Analysis of the clothing, which has analogies in the complex of Saka clothes, particularly in Pazyryk, led Wang Binghua (1987, 42) to the conclusion that they are related to the Saka Culture."
^ abKuzmina 2007, p. 103 "The dress of Iranian-speaking Saka and Scythians is easily reconstructed on the basis of... numerous archaeological discoveries from the Ukraine to the Altai, particularly at Issyk in Kazakhstan... at Pazyryk... and Ak-Alakha"
^Harmatta 1996, p. 488: "Their royal tribes and kings (shan-yii) bore Iranian names and all the Hsiung-nu words noted by the Chinese can be explained from an Iranian language of Saka type. It is therefore clear that the majority of Hsiung-nu tribes spoke an Eastern Iranian language."
^According to Donald N. Wilber's book Persepolis, The Archaeology of Parsa, Seat of the Persian Kings, the group depicted in this panel is "the Saka tigrakhauda (Pointed-hat Scythians). All are armed and wear the appropriate headgear. They are accompanied by a horse, and offer a bracelet and folded coats and trousers, apparently copies of their own costumes."
^Francfort 1988, p. 185: Besides trade and exchange within the borders of the Achaemenid empire, it seems that the part of Central Asua under Achaemenid rule was in contact with the Saka tribes who were in touch with China (see the finds of kurgans II and V of Pazyryk and of Xinyuan and Alagou in Xinjiang).
^Loewe, Michael. (1986). "The Former Han Dynasty," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 103–222. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 197–198. ISBN978-0-521-24327-8.
^Yü, Ying-shih. (1986). "Han Foreign Relations," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 377–462. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 410–411. ISBN978-0-521-24327-8.
^Xue, Zongzheng (薛宗正). (1992). History of the Turks (突厥史). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, p. 596-598. ISBN978-7-5004-0432-3; OCLC 28622013
^Beckwith, Christopher. (1987). The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp 36, 146. ISBN0-691-05494-0.
^Wechsler, Howard J.; Twitchett, Dennis C. (1979). Denis C. Twitchett; John K. Fairbank, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589–906, Part I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 225–227. ISBN978-0-521-21446-9.
^Xavier Tremblay, "The Spread of Buddhism in Serindia: Buddhism Among Iranians, Tocharians and Turks before the 13th Century", in The Spread of Buddhism, eds Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacker, Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2007, p. 77.
^Lurje, Pavel (2009). "YARKAND". Encyclopædia Iranica. The territory of Yārkand is for the first time mentioned in the Hanshu (1st century BCE), under the name Shache (Old Chinese, approximately, *s³a(j)-ka), which is probably related to the name of the Iranian Saka tribes.
^Wechsler, Howard J.; Twitchett, Dennis C. (1979). Denis C. Twitchett; John K. Fairbank, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589–906, Part I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 225–228. ISBN978-0-521-21446-9.
^Torday, Laszlo. (1997). Mounted Archers: The Beginnings of Central Asian History. Durham: The Durham Academic Press, pp. 80–81, ISBN978-1-900838-03-0.
^Yü, Ying-shih. (1986). "Han Foreign Relations," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 BC – A.D. 220, 377–462. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 377–388, 391, ISBN978-0-521-24327-8.
^Chang, Chun-shu. (2007). The Rise of the Chinese Empire: Volume II; Frontier, Immigration, & Empire in Han China, 130 BC – AD 157. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 5–8 ISBN978-0-472-11534-1.
^Yu Taishan (June 2010), "The Earliest Tocharians in China" in Victor H. Mair (ed), Sino-Platonic Papers, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, pp. 13–14, 21–22.
^Bernard, P. (1994). "The Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia". In Harmatta, János. History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Paris: UNESCO. pp. 96–126. ISBN92-3-102846-4.
^Levman, Bryan Geoffrey (2014). "Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures". Buddhist Studies Review. 30 (2): 145–180. doi:10.1558/bsrv.v30i2.145. ISSN1747-9681. "The evidence for this final wave is however, very slim and there is no evidence for it in the Vedic texts; for their western origin, Witzel relies on a reference in Pāṇini (4.2.131, madravṛjyoḥ) to the Vṛjjis in dual relation with the Madras who are from the northwest, and to the Mallas in the Jaiminīya Brāhamaṇa (§198) as arising from the dust of Rajasthan. Neither the Sakyas nor any of the other eastern tribes are mentioned, and of course there is no proof that any of these are Indo-Aryan groups. I view the Sakyas and the later Śakas as two separate groups, the former being aboriginal."
^ abSulimirski, Tadeusz (1970). The Sarmatians. Ancient peoples and places. Vol. 73. New York: Praeger. pp. 113–114. ISBN9789080057272. The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas) / Massagetan tribes from the Syr Daria Delta (Central Asia) by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India.
^Sarah Iles Johnston, Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, Harvard University Press, 2004. pg 197
^Edward A Allworth,Central Asia: A Historical Overview,Duke University Press, 1994. pp 86.
^Litvinsky, Boris Abramovich; Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya, M.I (1999). "Religions and religious movements". History of civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 421–448. ISBN8120815408.
^Frye, R.N. (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. p. 192. ISBN9783406093975. [T]hese western Saka he distinguishes from eastern Saka who moved south through the Kashgar-Tashkurgan-Gilgit-Swat route to the plains of the sub-continent of India. This would account for the existence of the ancient Khotanese-Saka speakers, documents of whom have been found in western Sinkiang, and the modern Wakhi language of Wakhan in Afghanistan, another modern branch of descendants of Saka speakers parallel to the Ossetes in the west.
^Bailey, H.W. (1982). The culture of the Sakas in ancient Iranian Khotan. Caravan Books. pp. 7–10. It is noteworthy that the Wakhi language of Wakhan has features, phonetics, and vocabulary the nearest of Iranian dialects to Khotan Saka.
^Windfuhr, G. (2013). Iranian Languages. Routeledge. p. 15. ISBN978-1-135-79704-1. "In addition to the continuation of Middle Persian in New Persian, three small modern languages show significant grammatical and lexical reflexes of other documented Middle Iranian languages: In Iran, Sangesari of the Semnan group shares a distinct set of features with Khwarezmian. In the east, Yaghnobi in Tajikistan continues a dialect of Sogdian, and Wakhi in the Pamirs shows distinct reflexes of Khotanese and Tumshuqese Saka. In fact, Wakhi is an example of the repeated invasions of Saka since antiquity."
^Carpelan, C.; Parpola, A.; Koskikallio, P. (2001). "Early Contacts Between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations: Papers Presented at an International Symposium Held at the Tvärminne Research Station of the University of Helsinki, 8–10 January, 1999". Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. 242: 136. ...descendants of these languages survive now only in the Ossete language of the Caucasus and the Wakhi language of the Pamirs, the latter related to the Saka once spoken in Khotan.
^Novak, L. (2014). "Question of (Re)classification of Eastern Iranian Languages". Linguistica Brunensia. 62 (1): 77–87.
^Unterländer 2017, p. 69: "Thirdly, contemporary populations with the highest likelihood of being directly descended from eastern Scythian groups are almost exclusively Turkic language speakers (Supplementary Fig. 10b). Particularly high statistical support was documented for some Turkic speaking groups geographically located close to the archaeological sites of the eastern Scythians (e.g. Telenghits, Tubular, Tofalar), but also among Turkic speaking populations located in Central Asia (e.g. Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Karakalpaks) (Supplementary Fig. 11). These same results were found for some Turkic groups located even further to the West, such as the Kazan Volga-Tatars. Finally, contemporary populations likely to share a common ancestor with eastern Scythians were mainly found among Turkic, Mongolian and Siberian groups located in eastern Eurasia (Supplementary Fig. 10d and Supplementary Fig. 11). In summary, these results provide further support for a multi-regional origin of the various Scythian groups from the Iron Age." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFUnterländer2017 (help)
^Tikhonov et al. 2019, p. 42: "In other words, there is an apparent population continuity from the Scythians to the Xiongnu and then onto the Turkic people, possibly because the former two already bore proto-Turkic elements."
^Dzhaubermezov, M.A.; Ekomasova, N.V.; Litvinov, S.S.; Gabidullina, L.R.; Khusnutdinova, E.K. (2019). "Haplogroup R1a-M198 in Turkic-speaking populations of the North Caucasus". Ecological Medicine. 2 (1): 35. doi:10.34662/2588-0489.2019.2.1.33-38. "The opinion existing in historical literature about the ubiquitous Iranian language of the Scythians does not seem so correct, especially in the light of recent works showing the exceptional connection of the Eastern Scythians with Turkic-speaking peoples, especially those whose languages belong to the Kypchak group of the Altai language family [26]."
^Clisson, I.; et al. (2002). "Genetic analysis of human remains from a double inhumation in a frozen kurgan in Kazakhstan (Berel site, early 3rd century BC)". International Journal of Legal Medicine. 116 (5): 304–308. doi:10.1007/s00414-002-0295-x. PMID12376844. S2CID27711154.
^Ricaut F.; et al. (2004). "Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations". Human Biology. 76 (1): 109–125. doi:10.1353/hub.2004.0025. PMID15222683. S2CID35948291.
^Ricaut, F.; et al. (2004). "Genetic Analysis and Ethnic Affinities From Two Scytho-Siberian Skeletons". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 123 (4): 351–360. doi:10.1002/ajpa.10323. PMID15022363.
^Tikhonov, Dmitrii; Gurkan, Cemal; Peler, Gökçe; Dyakonov, Viktor (2019). "On The Genetic Continuity of the Iron Age Pazyryk Culture: Geographic Distributions of the Paternal and Maternal Lineages from the Ak-Alakha-1 Burial". International Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1). doi:10.31901/24566330.2019/19.01.709. S2CID202015095. "The substantial presence of the Ak-Alakha-1 mtDNA and Y-STR haplotypes in the contemporary Anatolian populations may be attributed to two major historical events: (a) the less likely being the Scythian invasion of Anatolia around 7th century BCE and settlement for around 30 years near the Aras or Araxes River (Herodotus 1920), and (b) the more likely being the Central Asiatic Turkic migrations into Anatolia from around 11th century CE onwards, keeping in mind the ever growing support for a strong genetic continuity between the ancient eastern Scythians and the proto-Turkic tribes (Unterlander et al. 2017)."
^Keyser, C; Bouakaze, C; Crubézy, E; et al. (September 2009). "Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people". Human Genetics. 126 (3): 395–410. doi:10.1007/s00439-009-0683-0. PMID19449030. S2CID21347353.
^Damgaard, Peter de Barros (May 2018). "137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes". Nature. 557 (7705): 369–374. Bibcode:2018Natur.557..369D. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0094-2. hdl:1887/3202709. PMID29743675. S2CID13670282. "Principal component analyses and D-statistics suggest that the Xiongnu individuals belong to two distinct groups, one being of East Asian origin and the other presenting considerable admixture levels with West Eurasian sources... Principal Component Analyses and D-statistics suggest that the Xiongnu individuals belong to two distinct groups, one being of East Asian origin and the other presenting considerable admixture levels with West Eurasian sources... We find that Central Sakas are accepted as a source for these 'western-admixed' Xiongnu in a single-wave model. In line with this finding, no East Asian gene flow is detected compared to Central Sakas as these form a clade with respect to the East Asian Xiongnu in a D-statistic, and furthermore, cluster closely together in the PCA (Figure 2)... Overall, our data show that the Xiongnu confederation was genetically heterogeneous, and that the Huns emerged following minor male-driven East Asian gene flow into the preceding Sakas that they invaded... As such our results support the contention that the disappearance of the Inner Asian Scythians and Sakas around two thousand years ago was a cultural transition that coincided with the westward migration of the Xiongnu. This Xiongnu invasion also led to the displacement of isolated remnant groups related to Late Bronze Age pastoralists that had remained on the southeastern side of the Tian Shan mountains."
^Jeong et al. 2020, "Previously, we reported a shared genetic profile among EBA western Baikal hunter-gatherers (Baikal_EBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA) pastoralists in northern Mongolia (Khövsgöl_LBA) (Jeong et al., 2018). This genetic profile, composed of major and minor ANA and ANE ancestry components, respectively, is also shared with the earlier eastern Baikal (Fofonovo_EN) and Mongolian (centralMongolia_preBA) groups analyzed in this study (Figures 3A, 3B, and 4A), suggesting a regional persistence of this genetic profile for nearly three millennia." (...) "Ancient ANA individuals fall close to the cluster of present-day Tungusic- and Nivkh-speaking populations in northeast Asia, indicating that their genetic profile is still present in indigenous populations of the Far East today".
^Jeong et al. 2020, Visualization: Figure 3C Statistics: Table S5. Population Modeling, Related to Figures 3, 4, and 5. (D).
^Chugunov, K. V.; Parzinger, H.; Nagler, A. (2004). "Chronology and Cultural Affinity of the Kurgan Arzhan-2 Complex According to Archaeological Data". Impact of the Environment on Human Migration in Eurasia. NATO Science Series: IV: Earth and Environmental Sciences. Vol. 42. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. pp. 24–32. doi:10.1007/1-4020-2656-0_1. ISBN1-4020-2655-2. "We can only note certain elements in the culture of European Scythia which doubtless have an Asiatic origin and are connected with the cultures of Asia." "In many scholars' opinion it is necessary to distinguish the following cultural components of European Scythia genetically tied with the East: daggers with butterfly-shaped guards, arrowheads early forms, helmets of the Kelermes type, spiked battle-axes, horse-bits, cheek-pieces of the Chernogorovo and Zhabotinsk type, bordered mirrors, bronze cauldrons of the Beshtaugor type and "stag-stones". We can follow the development of some animal style images (deer, boar, and panther) from east to west. There are elements of stylization and degradation on the objects from the western part of the Scythian World
^Noyanuly, Noyanov Edyl (2016). "THE "GOLDEN PEOPLE" OF KAZAKHSTAN". World Science: 47. 2003 Associate Professor of National University of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and Professor Gani lobster Abde§ Tulebaev in East -Kazakhstan near Zaisan in place Baygetobe "Chilikti-3" number 1, the mound of the "golden man" (4262 gold find) (Figure 4)
^ abcdeMan, John (2020). Empire of Horses: The First Nomadic Civilization and the Making of China. New York: Pegasus Books. p. 20. ISBN978-1-64313-327-0.
^New Kilunovskaya, M. E., Semenov, V. A., Busova, V. S., Mustafin, Kh. Kh., Alborova, I. E., & Matzvai, A. D. (2018). The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva). Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, 46(3), 379–406.
^Mallory and Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, 2000
^Crowns similar to the Scythian ones discovered in Tillia Tepe "appear later, during the 5th and 6th century at the eastern edge of the Asia continent, in the tumulus tombs of the Kingdom of Silla, in South-East Korea. "Afganistan, les trésors retrouvés", 2006, p282, ISBN978-2-7118-5218-5
^The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Photographic Archives. Persepolis – Apadana, E Stairway, Tribute Procession, the Saka Tigraxauda Delegation.[1]Archived 2012-10-12 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2012-6-27
^ abKhayutina, Maria (Autumn 2013). "From wooden attendants to terracotta warriors"(PDF). Bernisches Historisches Museum the Newsletter. No.65: 2, Fig.4. Other noteworthy terracotta figurines were found in 1995 in a 4th-3rd century BCE tomb in the Taerpo cemetery near Xianyang in Shaanxi Province, where the last Qin capital of the same name was located from 350 to 207 BCE. These are the earliest representations of cavalrymen in China discovered up to this day. One of this pair can now be seen at the exhibition in Bern (Fig. 4). A small, ca. 23 cm tall, figurine represents a man sitting on a settled horse. He stretches out his left hand, whereas his right hand points downwards. Holes pierced through both his fists suggest that he originally held the reins of his horse in one hand and a weapon in the other. The rider wears a short jacket, trousers and boots – elements of the typical outfit of the inhabitants of the Central Asian steppes. Trousers were first introduced in the early Chinese state of Zhao during the late 4th century BCE, as the Chinese started to learn horse riding from their nomadic neighbours. The state of Qin should have adopted the nomadic clothes about the same time. But the figurine from Taerpo also has some other features that may point to its foreign identity: a hood-like headgear with a flat wide crown framing his face and a high, pointed nose. Also in Khayutina, Maria (2013). Qin: the eternal emperor and his terracotta warriors (1. Aufl ed.). Zürich: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. p. cat. no. 314. ISBN978-3-03823-838-6.
^Qingbo, Duan (January 2023). "Sino-Western Cultural Exchange as Seen through the Archaeology of the First Emperor's Necropolis"(PDF). Journal of Chinese History. 7 (1): 26 Fig.1, 27. doi:10.1017/jch.2022.25. S2CID251690411. In terms of formal characteristics and style of dress and adornment, the closest parallels to the Warring States-period Qin figurines are found in the Scythian culture. Wang Hui 王輝 has examined the exchanges between the cultures of the Yellow River valley and the Scythian culture of the steppe. During a 2007 exhibition on the Scythians in Berlin, there was a bronze hood on display labeled a "Kazakh military cap." This bronze hood and the clothing of the nomads in kneeling posture [also depicted in the exhibition] are very similar in form to those of the terracotta figurines from the late Warring States Qin-period tomb at the Taerpo site (see Figure 1). The style of the Scythian bronze horse figures and the saddle, bridle, and other accessories on their bodies are nearly identical to those seen on the Warring States-period Qin figurines and a similar type of artifact from the Ordos region, and they all date to the fifth to third centuries BCE.
^Rawson, Jessica (April 2017). "China and the steppe: reception and resistance". Antiquity. 91 (356): 386. doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.276. S2CID165092308. King Zheng of Qin (246–221 BC), who was to be the First Emperor (221–210 BC), took material from many regions. As he unified the territory, he employed steppe cavalry men in his army, as we now recognise from the terracotta warriors guarding his tomb (Khayutina 2013: cat. no. 314), whose dress resembles that of the steppe leaders known to the Achaemenids and Parthians (Curtis 2000: front cover), but he proclaimed his conquest in the language of the Central Plains: Chinese. The First Emperor must have had advisors who knew something of the seals, weights and measures of Central Asia and Iran (Khayutina 2013: cat. nos 115–17), and also retained craftsmen who had mastered Western technologies and cast bronze birds for his tomb in hitherto unknown life-like forms (Mei et al. 2014). He also exploited mounted horsemen and iron weaponry originally from the steppe, and agriculture and settlements of the Central Plains, turning to the extraordinary organisation of people and manufacturing from this area to create a unified state. This could only be achieved by moving towards the centre, as the Emperor indeed did.
^Murphy, Eileen; Gokhman, Ilia; Chistov, Yuri; Barkova, Ludmilla (2002). "Prehistoric Old World Scalping: New Cases from the Cemetery of Aymyrlyg, South Siberia". American Journal of Archaeology. 106 (1): 1–10. doi:10.2307/507186. JSTOR507186. S2CID161894416.
^ abKurbanov, Sharofiddin (2021). Tadjikistan : au pays des fleuves d'or. Paris, Gand: Musée Guimet, Editions Snoeck. p. 144. ISBN978-9461616272.
^ abSeveral photographs and descriptions in: 徐, 龙国 (2017). "山东发现的汉代大型胡人石雕像再研究"(PDF). 美术研究 (Art Research). 上述石雕像为胡人形象，对此学者们均无异议。胡人是我国古代中原汉人对北方和西方异族的通称。在汉人的认知领域，胡人的概念比较模糊，大致也有个变化的过程。先秦时的胡，专指匈奴，汉晋时期泛指匈奴、鲜卑、羯、氐、羌，"胡人"的范围已由北方逐渐扩大到西部族群。 "The above-mentioned stone statues are images of Hu people, and scholars have no objection to this. Hu people are the general name given by the Han people in the Central Plains of our country to the foreign ethnic groups in the north and west in ancient China. In the cognitive field of Han people, the concept of Hu people is relatively vague, and it has a tendancy to change with time. The Hu in the pre-Qin period refer specifically to the Xiongnu, but in the Han and Jin dynasties generally Hu refers to the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di, and Qiang. The scope of "Hu people" also expanded from the north to the west." 山东发现的这种高鼻深目、头戴尖帽的胡人形象，很可能是与斯基泰人文化有关的某些白种民族，并推测可能是月氏或早于月氏的民族 "The image of a barbarian with a high nose, deep eyes, and a pointed hat found in Shandong is likely to be some white ethnic group related to the Scythian culture, and it is speculated that it may be the Yuezhi or an ethnic group earlier than the Yuezhi."
^Bi, Zhicheng (2019). "Stone Reliefs of the Han Tombs in Shandong Province: Relationship Between Motifs and Composition"(PDF). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research. 368. This type of composition is characteristic of the reliefs describing the Hu and Han war found in the Wurongci Temple and Wukaimingci Temple in Jiaxiang County, as well as of the image on the table at the entrance to the Yinan Beizhai tomb in the Linyi city. These works have a symmetrical composition with the center in the form of a bridge.
^Guan, Liu; Bing, Huang (2023). "The hybrid origin of the dragon-wrapped column in Han dynasty China". Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering. 22 (4): 1970–1994. doi:10.1080/13467581.2022.2153057. S2CID256778140. Other evidence to support our argument is that Western, Asian-style architectural elements such as Hu statue columns and arched doorways (Figure 35) indicate the influence of foreign styles in some of the large, high-grade Han pictorial stone tombs currently found in this region, such as the afore-mentioned Wu Baizhuang 吳白莊 tomb in Linyi 臨 沂, Shandong.
^Guan, Liu; Bing, Huang (2023). "The hybrid origin of the dragon-wrapped column in Han dynasty China". Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering. 22 (4): 1970–1994. doi:10.1080/13467581.2022.2153057. S2CID256778140. Other evidence to support our argument is that Western, Asian-style architectural elements such as Hu statue columns and arched doorways (Figure 35) indicate the influence of foreign styles in some of the large, high-grade Han pictorial stone tombs currently found in this region, such as the afore-mentioned Wu Baizhuang 吳白莊 tomb in Linyi 臨 沂, Shandong.
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Yü, Ying-shih. (1986). "Han Foreign Relations," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 377–462. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-24327-8.
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, Śaka; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): शक Śaka, शाक Śāka), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: Σάκαι Sákai; Latin: Sacae) were a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin.[7][8]
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![Curled-up feline animal from Arzhan-1, circa 800 BCE.[182]](/en/File:Arzhan_animal_ring.jpg)
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![Mingqi (Chinese funerary statuette) of a young Central Asian man, with Saka-type caftan and conical hat reminiscent of early 3rd century CE Kushans. Later Han, 3rd century CE. Guimet Museum (MA 4660).[212]](/en/File:Mingqi_(Chinese_funerary_statuette)_of_a_young_western_man,_with_scythian_type_caftan_and_conical_hat_reminiscent_of_early_3rd_century_CE_Kushans._Later_Han_3rd_century_CE._Guimet_Museum_(MA_4660).jpg)
![Eastern Han tombs sometimes have depiction of battles between Hu barbarians, with bows and arrows and wearing pointed hats (left), against Han troops. Eastern Han Dynasty (151–153 CE). Tsangshan Han tomb in Linyi city. Also visible in Yinan tombs.[214]](/en/File:Hu_and_Han_war_narratives._Eastern_Han_Dynasty_(151%E2%80%93153_CE)._Tsangshan_Han_tomb_in_Linyi_city.png)
![General appearance of the numerous Scythoïd Hu monumental statues from Shandong, featuring people with a high nose, deep eyes and a pointed hat. Eastern Han period.[213]](/en/File:Han_monumental_statues_of_Barbarian_(%E5%B1%B1%E4%B8%9C%E5%8F%91%E7%8E%B0%E7%9A%84%E6%B1%89%E4%BB%A3%E5%A4%A7%E5%9E%8B%E8%83%A1%E4%BA%BA%E7%9F%B3%E9%9B%95%E5%83%8F).png)
![Yinan tombs relief, depicting an attack by Hu barbarians with pointed hats, bow and arrows. 2nd century CE, Eastern Han.[215]](/en/File:Yinan_battle_scene,_2nd_century_CE,_Eastern_Han_(Hu_attack).png)
![Hu statue from Wu Baizhuang tomb (吳白莊), Han dynasty period, Linyi, Shandong.[216]](/en/File:Hu_statue_columns_from_Wu_Baizhuang_%E5%90%B3%E7%99%BD%E8%8E%8A_Han_period_tomb_in_Linyi,_Shandong.jpg)
![Hu statue from Wu Baizhuang tomb (吳白莊), Han dynasty period, Linyi, Shandong.[217]](/en/File:Hu_statue_with_lion_column_from_Wu_Baizhuang_%E5%90%B3%E7%99%BD%E8%8E%8A_Han_period_tomb_in_Linyi,_Shandong.jpg)
![Man hunting, circa 500 BCE, Gansu Museum.[218]](/en/File:Foreigner_hunting,_circa_500_BCE,_Gansu_Museum.jpg)
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