The Scythian Empire

A rich, discovery-filled history that tells how a forgotten empire transformed the ancient world In the late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE, Scythian warriors conquered and unified most of the vast Eurasian continent, creating an innovative empire that would give birth to the age of philosophy and the Classical age across the ancient world—in the West, the Near East, India, and China. Mobile horse herders who lived with their cats in wheeled felt tents, the Scythians made stunning contributions to world civilization—from capital cities and strikingly elegant dress to political organization and the world-changing ideas of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Laotzu—Scythians all. In The Scythian Empire, Christopher I. Beckwith presents a major new history of a fascinating but often forgotten empire that changed the course of history. At its height, the Scythian Empire stretched west from Mongolia and ancient northeast China to northwest Iran and the Danube River, and in Central Asia reached as far south as the Arabian Sea. The Scythians also ruled Media and Chao, crucial frontier states of ancient Iran and China. By ruling over and marrying the local peoples, the Scythians created new cultures that were creole Scythian in their speech, dress, weaponry, and feudal socio-political structure. As they spread their language, ideas, and culture across the ancient world, the Scythians laid the foundations for the very first Persian, Indian, and Chinese empires. Filled with fresh discoveries, The Scythian Empire presents a remarkable new vision of a little-known but incredibly important empire and its peoples.

Brilliant horsemen and great fighters, the Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south - the Chinese, the Persians and the Greeks - and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe. Relations with the Greeks around the shores of the Black Sea were rather different - both communities benefiting from trading with each other. This led to the development of a brilliant art style, often depicting scenes from Scythian mythology and everyday life. It is from the writings of Greeks like the historian Herodotus that we learn of Scythian life: their beliefs, their burial practices, their love of fighting, and their ambivalent attitudes to gender. It is a world that is also brilliantly illuminated by the rich material culture recovered from Scythian burials, from the graves of kings on the Pontic steppe, with their elaborate gold work and vividly coloured fabrics, to the frozen tombs of the Altai mountains, where all the organic material - wooden carvings, carpets, saddles and even tattooed human bodies - is amazingly well preserved. Barry Cunliffe here marshals this vast array of evidence - both archaeological and textual - in a masterful reconstruction of the lost world of the Scythians, allowing them to emerge in all their considerable vigour and splendour for the first time in over two millennia.

Scythians and Greeks focuses on the ancient history of the northern Black Sea region: a major 'new frontier' of Classical studies. The book presents a series of engagements with key themes bearing on cultural interactions within the region, from archaic Greek colonial settlement (approx. sixth century BC) down to the region's inclusion within the Roman imperial system (first century AD). By bringing together contributors from Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, the book makes available material and ideas which are either wholly new or known only to a very limited circle of specialists. The particular focus is on the relationships which developed, in peace and war, between the local peoples of the region (conventionally termed 'Scythians') and the cultures of the classical Graeco-Roman world.

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The majority of people on Earth are racially mixed, largely due to ancient historic clashes between blacks and whites. All the ancient nations of antiquity were black. The present political situation of blacks in America is due to their lack of knowledge of war philosophy, and the use of force and violence in the social organization of the state, as well as the liberation of colonial oppression here and in Africa. The book shows a white falsification of history. There is a war being waged against black people in America and in Africa to maintain an insidious global white supremacy.

F.R. Grahame's comprehensive history looks at the conqauests of the Mongols and other groups in Central Asia and Eastern Europe during antiquity and the Middle Ages. From the introduction:"From the depths of Tartary, or Asiatic Scythia, has originally issued every torrent of invading barbarians that have overrun Eastern Europe for the last nine hundred years. Cradled on the gloomy steppes of Mongolia, where the earth for nine months remains buried under a thick bed of snow, and where the Sole vegetation consists of short grass, and a few scanty tufts of heath, these hordes of martial shepherds have periodically poured down in search of a richer country and more grateful soil, and, spreading over the barren plains of Tartary and Russia, have formed themselves into moving empires, who for a few years have domineered over the surrounding trembling nations, and then vanished and melted away; leaving little other trace of their existence than the record of destruction. Such were the monarchies of the Huns, the Igoura, and Avars; the Chazars, Polotzi, and Monguls; while the Ottoman Turks, who are also Scythian in origin and descent, more fortunate than their predecessors, have maintained a position in one of the finest countries of Europe for the last four hundred years.As the most enduring, most powerful, and the most known, both in ancient and modern times, of these turbulent nations of the north, Russia occupies by far the most prominent part in the history of the Scythian empires; and I shall therefore make the annals of that country my principal subject. After tracing the origin of her people, I shall glance at the progress of the Huns, the Chazars, and the numerous other Tartar tribes, whose names were only known, by their inroads in the middle ages, to the countries and inhabitants of eastern, Europe. Then, sketching, the rise of the Russian monarchy, I shall proceed to the conquests of Zingis Khan and the Monguls, and the wars of his descendant, and still; more formidable countryman Timur, with the short-lived domination of Samarcand."

Deals with the reality of the indigenous peoples of Europe - Thracians, Scythians, Celts, Germans, Etruscans, and other peoples of Italy, the Alps, and beyond.