Scythians facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Scythians
	Approximate extent of East Iranian languages the 1st century BC is shown in orange.
Total population
	Unknown
Regions with significant populations
	Eastern Europe; Central Asia; West Asia; Northern India
Languages
	Scythian language
Religion
	Animism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism
Related ethnic groups
	Sarmatians; Dahae; Sakas; Indo-Scythians; Massagetes; Jatts; Cheemas; Nairs; Kambojs;

The Scythians or Scyths. were Iranian nomadic Eurasian people.

They were nomadic, famous for their skills at horse riding, who dominated the Pontic steppe (modern Ukraine and Southern Russia) throughout the ancient world. By the 2nd century AD the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scyths in this area. Much of our information about the Scyths comes from the famous Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories, and from archaeologically from the beautiful goldwork found in Scythian kurgan burial mounds in Ukraine and southern Russia.

Images for kids

Scythian comb from Solokha, early 4th century BC
The 5th-century BC Greek historian Herodotus is the most important literary source on the origins of the Scythians
Gold Scythian belt title, Mingachevir (ancient Scythian kingdom), Azerbaijan, 7th century BC
Reliefs depicting the soldiers of the Achaemenid army, Xerxes I tomb, circa 480 BCE. The Achaemenids referred to all nomads to their north as Saka, and divided them into three categories: The Sakā tayai paradraya ("beyond the sea", presumably the Scythians), the Sakā tigraxaudā ("with pointed caps"), and the Sakā haumavargā ("Hauma drinkers", furthest East).
The territory of the Scythae Basilaei ("Royal Scyths") along the north shore of the Black Sea around 125 AD
Scythian defence line 339 BC reconstruction in Polgár, Hungary
An arm from the throne of a Scythian king, 7th century BC. Found at the Kerkemess kurgan, Krasnodar Krai in 1905. On exhibit at the Hermitage Museum
The famous gold stag of Kostromskaya, Russia
Distribution of Scythian kurgans and other sites along the Dnieper Rapids during the Classical Scythian period
West side of the Kozel Kurgans
Kurgan stelae of a Scythian at Khortytsia, Ukraine
Gold pectoral, or neckpiece, from a royal kurgan in Tolstaya Mogila, Pokrov, Ukraine, dated to the second half of the 4th century BC, of Greek workmanship. The central lower tier shows three horses, each being torn apart by two griffins. Scythian art was especially focused on animal figures.
An Attic vase-painting of a Scythian archer (a police force in Athens) by Epiktetos, 520–500 BC
Scythians at the Tomb of Ovid (c. 1640), by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Romantic nationalism: Battle between the Scythians and the Slavs (Viktor Vasnetsov, 1881)
Eugène Delacroix's painting of the Roman poet, Ovid, in exile among the Scythians