Free Republic

Continuing excavations in Türkiye's central Kirikkale province have revealed new findings indicating that Büklükale village was the first settlement of the Cimmerians, an ancient equestrian nomadic people, in Anatolia...Büklükale is thought to be the first settlement of the Cimmerians in Anatolia. The artifacts shed light on the Cimmerians and reveal evidence of warfare within the constructed fortress. Notably, an image of a person on horseback, an animal motif from the Scythian period, and arrowheads believed to date back to the Cimmerian era, which was used in battles, draw attention...During an interview with Ihlas News Agency (IHA), Kimiyoshi Matsumura said they...

Scythian-era people lived across Eurasia from about 700 BCE to 200 BCE, and have long been considered highly mobile warriors who ranged widely across the steppe grasslands. Herodotus describes Scythian populations as living in wagons and engaging in raiding and warfare, and this view has persisted throughout history--supported by archeologists' observations of similar styles of horse harnesses, weapons, burial mounds and animal style motifs throughout what is now Ukraine.Because of this, history has lumped the diverse cultures and periods of people in this region as a single "Scythian" identity, even calling it an "empire." But a study including University of...

...As he and his team began to slice into the mound, located 30 miles east of Stavropol... It took nearly a month of digging to reach the bottom. There, Belinski ran into a layer of thick clay that, at first glance, looked like a natural feature of the landscape, not the result of human activity. He uncovered a stone box, a foot or so deep, containing a few finger and rib bones from a teenager... Nested one inside the other in the box were two gold vessels of unsurpassed workmanship. Beneath these lay three gold armbands, a heavy ring, and...

The genetic variation within the Scythian nomad group is so broad that it must be explained with the group assimilating people it came in contact with. This is shown in a new study on Bronze and Iron Age genetics of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, situated in the Black Sea region... This is likely the strategy needed for the group to have been able to grow as fast, expand as vast and to remain established for as long as they did. The findings emphasize the importance of assimilation to maintain Scythian dominance around the Black Sea region... The vast area of the...

Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant “roaming about for pasture.” They were wanderers and, not infrequently, fierce mounted warriors. Essentially, they were “the other” to the agricultural and increasingly urban civilizations that emerged in the first millennium B.C. As the nomads left no writing, no one knows what they called themselves. To their literate neighbors, they were the ubiquitous and mysterious Scythians or the Saka, perhaps one and the same people. In any case, these...

ARCHEOLOGISTS MAKE UNIQUE FIND IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Archeologists working in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, in the Caucasus, have made a unique find. They have unearthed remains of a horse with outfit. The horse is reported to have belonged to a dignitary of Alan, the state that presumably existed here in the 7th-9th centuries. The horse's outfit is elaborately decorated with gold-plated silver pendants, openwork pendants, and jingle bells, says Ruslan Dzatiati, a senior official at the North Ossetian Humanities Institute. Scholars believe that the horse was buried together with its owner to...

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...