Origins The Scythian/Saka cultures emerged on the
Eurasian Steppe at the dawn of the
Iron Age in the early 1st millennium BC. Their origin has long been a source of debate among archaeologists. The
Pontic–Caspian steppe was initially thought to have been their place of origin, until the
Soviet archaeologist
Aleksey Terenozhkin suggested a
Central Asian origin. Archaeological evidence now suggests 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 Altai 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 BC. Genetic evidence corroborates archaeological findings, suggesting an initial eastwards expansion of
Western Steppe Herders towards the
Altai region and
Western Mongolia, spreading
Iranian languages, and subsequent contact episodes with local Siberian and Eastern Asian populations, giving rise to the initial (Eastern) Scythian material cultures (Saka). It was, however, also found that the various later Scythian sub-groups of the Eurasian Steppe had local origins; different Scythian groups arose locally through cultural adaption, rather than via migration patterns from East-to-West or West-to-East. These burials show striking similarities with the earlier
Tarim mummies at
Gumugou. Some scholars contend that in the 8th century BC, a Saka raid from the
Altai may be "connected" with a raid on
Zhou China.
Early history tribute bearers to the
Achaemenid Empire,
Apadana, Staircase 12. The Saka are attested in historical and archaeological records dating to around the 8th century BC. The Saka tribe of the
Massagetae/ rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BC, when they migrated from the east into Central Asia, 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. 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, 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, and invaded
Western Asia, where their presence had an important role in the history of the ancient civilisations of
Mesopotamia,
Anatolia,
Egypt, and
Iran. During the 7th century BC itself, Saka presence started appearing in the
Tarim Basin region. According to the Greek historian
Ctesias, once the
Persian Achaemenid 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 , 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. Cyrus, accompanied by the of his ally Amorges, later carried out a campaign against the
Massagetae/ in 530 BC. 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. After Cyrus had been mortally wounded by the Derbices/Massagetae, Amorges and his 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. 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, and the Saka then supplied the Achaemenid army with a large number of mounted bowmen. 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. After Darius's administrative reforms of the Achaemenid Empire, the were included within the same tax district as the
Medes. During the period of Achaemenid rule, Central Asia was in contact with Saka populations who were themselves in contact with
China. After
Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, the Saka resisted his incursions into Central Asia.
Kingdoms in the Tarim Basin Kingdom of Khotan ,
Kazakhstan The
Kingdom of Khotan was a Saka city state on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin. As a consequence of the
Han–Xiongnu War spanning from 133 BC to 89 AD, the Tarim Basin (now Xinjiang,
Northwest China), including
Khotan and
Kashgar, fell under
Han Chinese influence, beginning with the reign of
Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC). , 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. 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. 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. From the late eighth to ninth centuries, the region changed hands between the rival Tang and
Tibetan Empires. 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. written in
Khotanese Saka, part of the
Eastern Iranian branch of the
Indo-European languages, listing the animals of the
Chinese zodiac in the cycle of predictions for people born in that year; ink on paper, early 9th century Later Khotanese-Saka-language documents, ranging from medical texts to
Buddhist literature, have been found in Khotan and
Tumshuq (northeast of Kashgar). Similar documents in the Khotanese-Saka language dating mostly to the 10th century have been found in the
Dunhuang manuscripts. 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.
Shule Kingdom 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. 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. 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, and Kanchaki is thought to belong to the Saka language group. It is believed that the Tarim Basin was linguistically Turkified before the 11th century ended.
Southern migrations cataphract armour with neck-guard, from
Khalchayan. 1st century BC.
Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan, nb 40. The Saka were pushed out of the Ili and Chu River valleys by the
Yuezhi. 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. 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). 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"). 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. ("Land of the Sakas"), where the Sakas resettled c. 100 BC
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."
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. 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.
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. The
Shakya clan of India, to which
Gautama Buddha, called
Śākyamuni "Sage of the Shakyas", belonged, were also likely Sakas, as
Michael Witzel and
Christopher I. Beckwith 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.
Indo-Scythians , from
Khalchayan, northern
Bactria, 1st century BC. The region in modern Afghanistan and Iran where the Saka moved to became known as "land of the Saka" or
Sakastan. 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, 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). The most famous Indo-Scythian king was
Maues. An Indo-Scythian kingdom was established in
Mathura (200 BC – 400 AD). According to historian Michael Mitchiner, the
Abhira tribe were a Saka people cited in the Gunda inscription of the
Western Satrap Rudrasimha I dated to AD 181. File:Map_of_the_Indo-Scythians.png|The
Indo-Scythians ruled in northwestern South Asia from circa 100 BC File:Map_of_the_Northern_Satraps_(Northern_Sakas).jpg|The
Northern Satraps ruled in northern India until their replacement by the Kushans circa 150 AD File:Map_of_the_Western_Satraps.png|The
Western Satraps was a Saka dynasty which ruled in western India until circa 400 AD == Historiography ==