Scythia was an ancient kingdom founded by the Scythians in antiquity.
Scythia may also refer to:
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people who had migrated from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia from approximately the 7th century BC until the 3rd century BC.
Gelonus was, according to Herodotus, the capital of the Gelonians.
Indo-Scythians were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples of Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northwestern India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE.
Scythia Minor or Lesser Scythia was a Roman province in late antiquity, corresponding to the lands between the Danube and the Black Sea, today's Dobruja divided between Romania and Bulgaria. It was detached from Moesia Inferior by the Emperor Diocletian to form a separate province sometime between 286 and 293 AD. The capital of province was Tomis. The province ceased to exist around 679–681, when the region was overrun by the Bulgars, which the Emperor Constantine IV was forced to recognize in 681.
Scythian art is the art associated with Scythian cultures, primarily decorative objects, such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes of the area known as Scythia, which encompassed Central Asia, parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula River, and parts of South Asia, with the eastern edges of the region vaguely defined by ancient Greeks. The identities of the nomadic peoples of the steppes is often uncertain, and the term "Scythian" should often be taken loosely; the art of nomads much further east than the core Scythian territory exhibits close similarities as well as differences, and terms such as the "Scytho-Siberian world" are often used. Other Eurasian nomad peoples recognised by ancient writers, notably Herodotus, include the Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Saka, the last a name from Persian sources, while ancient Chinese sources speak of the Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu. Modern archaeologists recognise, among others, the Pazyryk, Tagar, and Aldy-Bel cultures, with the furthest east of all, the later Ordos culture a little west of Beijing. The art of these peoples is collectively known as steppes art.
Scythian Neapolis, also known as Kermenchik, was a settlement that existed from the end of the 3rd century BC until the second half of the 3rd century AD and was previously considered a town of the Tauric Chersonesus (Crimea) and was mentioned by Strabo as being the fortress and palace where the Scythian kings resided. It is regarded as the capital of the Late Scythian Kingdom and the capital of ‘Great Scythia’. The archaeological ruins sit on the outskirts of the present-day Simferopol. This city was the centre of the Crimean Scythian tribes, led by Skilurus and Palacus. The town ruled over a small kingdom, covering the lands between the lower Dnieper river and Crimea. Between the end of the 4th c. BC to the beginning of the 3rd c. BC historians suggest that the Kizil-Koba culture occupied the area of Scythian Neapolis before any Scythian artefacts were found. Neapolis was destroyed halfway through the 3rd century AD by the Goths. This settlement was first excavated in 1945 by Schultz and Golovkina.
The Tauri, or Taurians, also Scythotauri, Tauri Scythae, Tauroscythae were an ancient people settled on the southern coast of the Crimea peninsula, inhabiting the Crimean Mountains in the 1st millennium BC and the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the Black Sea. According to the sources, the Taurians were the first inhabitants of the Crimean peninsula and never abandoned its borders. They gave their name to the peninsula, which was known in ancient times as Taurica, Taurida and Tauris.
The Gelonians, also known as Helonians, are mentioned as a nation in northwestern Scythia by Herodotus. Herodotus states that they were originally Hellenes who settled among the Budinoi, and that they are bilingual in Greek and the Scythian language.
Scythia or Scythica was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 8th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
Ateas was described in Greek and Roman sources as the most powerful king of Scythia, who lost his life and empire in the conflict with Philip II of Macedon in 339 BC. His name also occurs as Atheas, Ateia, Ataias, and Ateus.
Lampedo is an Amazon queen mentioned in Roman historiography. She ruled with her sister Marpesia. The sisters called themselves daughters of Mars to put terror in the heart of their enemies to show they were incredible warriors to be feared. Her name was speculated to refer to traditional New Moon torchlit processions in honor of Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
In Greek mythology, Borysthenis may refer to two distinct individuals:
Idanthyrsus is the name of a Scythian king who lived in the 6th century BCE, when he faced an invasion of his country by the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or reaping crops.
The Scythian campaign of Darius I was a military expedition into parts of European Scythia by Darius I, the king of the Achaemenid Empire, in 513 BC. The Scythians were an East Iranian-speaking people who had invaded Media, revolted against Darius and threatened to disrupt trade between Central Asia and the shores of the Black Sea as they lived between the Danube and Don Rivers and the Black Sea. The campaigns took place in parts of what is now the Balkans, Ukraine, and southern Russia.
Scythians were an ancient Iranian people of the Pontic steppe.
The Scythian archers were a hypothesized police force of 5th- and early 4th-century BC Athens that is recorded in some Greek artworks and literature. The force is said to have consisted of 300 armed Scythians who were public slaves in Athens. They acted for a group of eleven elected Athenian magistrates "who were responsible for arrests and executions and for some aspects of public order" in the city. Despite being called "archers", the Scythian police probably did not use bows and arrows.
The Scythian culture was an Iron Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe from about 700 BC to 200 AD. It is associated with the Scythians and other peoples inhabiting the region of Scythia, and was part of the wider Scytho-Siberian world.
A tarand, also known as a tarandos, tarandus, parandrus, or parandros, is a legendary reindeer/moose-like creature with chameleon properties. It was first described in Aristotle's Corpus Aristotelicum as Tarandos (Τάρανδος). It was also mentioned in Pliny's History of the Animals (Tarandus), Aelian's De Natura Animalium (Tarandos), Solinus (Parandrus) and Caesar, appearing again in key texts of the medieval period, such as The York Mystery Cycle (1440) and Francois Rabelais' Pantagruel (1552). The veracity of the tarand was discussed by Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (1769–1832).
Scythia Minor was the name of a number of various regions in late Classical Antiquity.