Hi, Sean
Your explanation of the need to "categorize" people with a commonly recognizable name does make sense. However, we can do better than that, especially if we isolate the customs and art of any given culture. I object to the continuing references to the Pazyryk as "Scythian," because we should know better... and we do know better.
You asked, "What is your favorite generic term for the nomadic peoples of the steppes in the middle of the first millennium BCE?"
I don't have a term for All the steppe people of that period.. because they're not the same, either by culture, religion, or genetics. The term "Scythians" certainly applies to the tribes located west of the Urals, these wonderful pot smoking, scalp-taking, Europoids who so impressed the Greeks. But, we can draw a line through the steppes, north to south below the Urals, and discover the tribes living east of the rivers Oxus and Araxates were an entirely different people, with different cultures, different art, different weapons (including heavy armor), a different religion... plus a significant Asiatic (Mongoloid) admixture. Unlike the Scythians, they were influenced by the proto-Mongols and Chinese. They were Saka or Sacae, as were the Pazyryk and Ukok Cultures, a fact noticed by Rudenko back in the 1920s. Yet almost 100 years later, archaeologists still refer to them as "Scythians."
Why does it bother me? Because we need explicit terms, not generalities. All people who rode a horse and wore trousers were not the same. (Some of them were Texas cowboys.) In like fashion, I'm opposed to the lazy term of "Sarmatian," particularly when it's used to classify the Alans. The Alans descended directly from the Saka, and they were not related to the Early or Middle Sarmatian Cultures. A Saka is a Saka, and an Alan is an Alan, and no amount of misnomering will change that fact.
I'm an analytical historian. I study steppe art-forms because they're the remaining "gateways" into the past, especially when written records are absent. Saka art is Not like Scythian art. Saka religion was Not like Scythian religion, so on and so forth. Let's face it-- Was Buffalo Bill a Scythian?
Your explanation of the need to "categorize" people with a commonly recognizable name does make sense. However, we can do better than that, especially if we isolate the customs and art of any given culture. I object to the continuing references to the Pazyryk as "Scythian," because we should know better... and we do know better.
You asked, "What is your favorite generic term for the nomadic peoples of the steppes in the middle of the first millennium BCE?"
I don't have a term for All the steppe people of that period.. because they're not the same, either by culture, religion, or genetics. The term "Scythians" certainly applies to the tribes located west of the Urals, these wonderful pot smoking, scalp-taking, Europoids who so impressed the Greeks. But, we can draw a line through the steppes, north to south below the Urals, and discover the tribes living east of the rivers Oxus and Araxates were an entirely different people, with different cultures, different art, different weapons (including heavy armor), a different religion... plus a significant Asiatic (Mongoloid) admixture. Unlike the Scythians, they were influenced by the proto-Mongols and Chinese. They were Saka or Sacae, as were the Pazyryk and Ukok Cultures, a fact noticed by Rudenko back in the 1920s. Yet almost 100 years later, archaeologists still refer to them as "Scythians."
Why does it bother me? Because we need explicit terms, not generalities. All people who rode a horse and wore trousers were not the same. (Some of them were Texas cowboys.) In like fashion, I'm opposed to the lazy term of "Sarmatian," particularly when it's used to classify the Alans. The Alans descended directly from the Saka, and they were not related to the Early or Middle Sarmatian Cultures. A Saka is a Saka, and an Alan is an Alan, and no amount of misnomering will change that fact.
I'm an analytical historian. I study steppe art-forms because they're the remaining "gateways" into the past, especially when written records are absent. Saka art is Not like Scythian art. Saka religion was Not like Scythian religion, so on and so forth. Let's face it-- Was Buffalo Bill a Scythian?
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
