Figure 1.--This gold drinking cup found in a Caccauses kurgan shows a older warrior stabbing a younger man. Some see that as evidence of the Bastard War. Others believe that it had more of a symbolic significance. . |
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The Scynthians were a highly militarized horse-based nomadic society. They were marvelous horsmen. They were among the first ancient people to master the art of riding and the use of the horse in warfare. And an mportant part of their culture was military raids to plunder the rich, settled people to the south. They were essentially the Vikings of Central Asia. The horse was used in warfar before the Scynthians, but primrily in chariot combat. It is believed that is is they who developed the striup. Once fully developed, the strirup made it possible for warriors to wield weapons much more effectively on horseback. They were primarily mounted archers. They had short, composit bows. And they were able to achieve amazing accuracy shooting on horseback. Their primary assett was vast heards of horses which gave them mobility lacked in the settled world. If treatened they simply retreated into the vast Steppe. Herodotus recounts a story that when campaign in the south beyond the Steppe into the settled lands of the Middle East they left their wives hehind. Herodotus mentions the Medes. Their lonely wives married their slaves who had been blinded.Thus when the Scythian warriors returned they fond not only their wives had remaairred, but children existed. The result is called by one archaeologist calls the Bastard Wars. [Herodotus] Just what to make of Herodotus' account we are not sure. By all accounts the Scynthians were terrifying wrriors. Once defeating an ememy force, a Scythian warrior would drink the blood of the first enemy he had slain. Then with the bloody taste still in his mouth, he would decapitate the corpses of the enemies he had killed. The severed heads were used as grisly vouchers when time came to distribute the valuable booty. Scalps becme trophies displayed in various ways and even sewn into clokes.
Curry, Andrew. "Rites of the Scynthans," Archaeology (July-August 2016), pp. 26-32.
Herodtus, The History of Herodotus Book IV. (440 BC).
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