Saka


The Saka were a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who lived in the Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin from the 9th century BC to the 5th century AD. The Saka were closely related to the Scythians, and both groups formed parts of the wider Scythian cultures. However, both groups have differing specific geographical and cultural traits. The Saka languages formed part of the Scythian phylum, a branch of the Eastern Iranian languages.
Derived from the earlier Andronovo, Sintashta and Srubnaya cultures, the Saka were later influenced by the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Culture and Iron-Age East Asian genetic influx. The ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads. However, the name "Saka" is used specifically for the ancient nomads of the eastern steppe, while "Scythian" is used for the related group of nomads living in the western steppe.
Prominent archaeological remains of the Sakas include Arzhan, Tunnug, the Pazyryk burials, the Issyk kurgan, Saka Kurgan tombs, the Barrows of Tasmola and possibly Tillya Tepe. In the 2nd century BC, many Sakas were driven by the Yuezhi from the steppe into Sogdia and Bactria and then into the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, where they became known as the Indo-Scythians. Other Sakas invaded the Parthian Empire, eventually settling in Sistan, while others may have migrated to the Dian Kingdom in Yunnan, China. In the Tarim Basin and Taklamakan Desert of today's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, they settled in Khotan, Yarkand, Kashgar and other places.

Name

Etymology

Derived from an Iranian verbal root, "go, roam" and thus meaning "nomad" was the term, from which came the names:
  • Old Persian: , used by the ancient Persians to designate all nomads of the Eurasian steppe, including the Pontic Scythians
  • Ancient Greek:
  • Latin:
  • Sanskrit: शक
  • Old Chinese: 塞
Although the Scythians, Saka and Cimmerians were closely related nomadic Iranic peoples, and the ancient Babylonians, ancient Persians and ancient Greeks respectively used the names "Cimmerian," "Saka," and "Scythian" for all the steppe nomads, and early modern historians such as Edward Gibbon used the term Scythian to refer to a variety of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples across the Eurasian Steppe. The name "Scythian" in contemporary modern scholarship generally refers to the nomadic Iranic people who, from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century BC, dominated the steppe and forest-steppe zones to the north of the Black Sea, Crimea, the Kuban valley, as well as the Taman and Kerch peninsulas,while the name "Saka" is used specifically for their eastern members who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin.

Identification

The name was used by the ancient Persian to refer to all the Iranian nomadic tribes living to the north of their empire, including both those who lived between the Caspian Sea and the Hungry steppe, and those who lived to the north of the Danube and the Black Sea.
File:Xerxes detail three types of Sakas cleaned up.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|For the Achaemenids, there were three types of Sakas: the Sakā tayai paradraya, the Sakā Tigraxaudā, the . Soldiers of the Achaemenid army, Xerxes I tomb detail, circa 480 BC.
The Achaemenid inscriptions initially listed a single group of. However, following Darius I's campaign of 520 to 518 BC against the Asian nomads, they were differentiated into two groups, both living in Central Asia to the east of the Caspian Sea:
  • the Massagetae| – " who wear pointed caps," who were also known as the.
  • the Amyrgians| – interpreted as " who lay hauma ", which can be interpreted as "Saka who revere hauma."
A third name was added after the Darius's campaign north of the Danube:
  • the Scythians| – "the who live beyond the Sea," who were the Pontic Scythians of the East European steppes
An additional term is found in two inscriptions elsewhere:
  • the – "Saka who are beyond Sogdia", a term was used by Darius for the people who formed the north-eastern limits of his empire at the opposite end to the satrapy of Kush. These have been suggested to have been the same people as the
Moreover, Darius the Great's Suez Inscriptions mention two groups of Saka:
  • the – " of the Marshes"
  • the – " of the Land"
The scholar David Bivar had tentatively identified the with the, and John Manuel Cook had tentatively identified the with the. More recently, the scholar Rüdiger Schmitt has suggested that the and the might have collectively designated the /Massagetae.
The Achaemenid king Xerxes I listed the Saka coupled with the Dahae| people of Central Asia, who might possibly have been identical with the.

Modern terminology

Although the ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads, modern scholars now use the term Saka to refer specifically to Iranian peoples who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin; and while the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they may have differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.

Location

The and both lived in the steppe and highland areas located in northern Central Asia and to the east of the Caspian Sea.
The /Massagetae more specifically lived around Chorasmia and in the lowlands of Central Asia located to the east of the Caspian Sea and the south-east of the Aral Sea, in the Kyzylkum Desert and the Ustyurt Plateau, most especially between the Araxes and Iaxartes rivers. The /Massagetae could also be found in the Caspian Steppe. The imprecise description of where the Massagetae lived by ancient authors has however led modern scholars to ascribe to them various locations, such as the Oxus delta, the Iaxartes delta, between the Caspian and Aral seas or further to the north or northeast, but without basing these suggestions on any conclusive arguments. Other locations assigned to the Massagetae include the area corresponding to modern-day Turkmenistan.
The lived around the Pamir Mountains and the Ferghana Valley.
The, who may have been identical with the, lived on the north-east border of the Achaemenid Empire on the Iaxartes river.
Some other Saka groups lived to the east of the Pamir Mountains and to the north of the Iaxartes river, as well as in the regions corresponding to modern-day Qirghizia, Tian Shan, Altai, Tuva, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Kazakhstan.
The, that is the Saka who were in contact with the Chinese, inhabited the Ili and Chu valleys of modern Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, which was called the "land of the ", i.e. "land of the Saka", in the Book of Han.

History

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 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, 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 Scythian material cultures. 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.
The Sakas spoke a language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. The Pazyryk burials of the Pazyryk culture in the Ukok Plateau in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC are thought to be of Saka chieftains. These burials show striking similarities with the earlier Tarim mummies at Gumugou. The Issyk kurgan of south-eastern Kazakhstan, and the Ordos culture of the Ordos Plateau has also been connected with the Saka. It has been suggested that the ruling elite of the Xiongnu was of Saka origin, or at least significantly influenced by their Eastern Iranian neighbours. 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

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 ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Parthians rebelled against the Medes during the reign of Cyaxares, after which the Parthians put their country and capital city under the protection of the Sakas. This was followed by a long war opposing the Medes to the Saka, the latter of whom were led by the queen Zarinaea. At the end of this war, the Parthians accepted Median rule, and the Saka and the Medes made peace.
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.
Possibly shortly before the 520s BC, the Saka expanded into the valleys of the Ili and Chu in eastern Central Asia. Around 30 Saka tombs in the form of kurgans have also been found in the Tian Shan area dated to between 550 and 250 BC.
Darius I waged wars against the eastern Sakas during a campaign of 520 to 518 BC where, according to his inscription at Behistun, he conquered the Massagetae/, captured their king Skunxa, and replaced him with a ruler who was loyal to Achaemenid rule. 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.
At least by the late 2nd century BC, the Sakas had founded states in the Tarim Basin.