Sindi people

Not to be confused with Sindhis, an ethnolinguistic group in South Asia.

The Sindi (Ancient Greek: Σινδοι, romanized: Sindoi; Latin: Sindi) (Sinto-Meaotays) were an ancient Scythian people who primarily lived in western Ciscaucasia. A portion of the Sindi also lived in Central Europe. Their name is variously written, and Pomponius Mela calls them Sindones, Lucian, Sindianoi.

History

Ciscaucasia

Kingdom of Sindica
c. 8th century BC–c. 380 BC
Common languages	Scythian Maeotian Ancient Greek
Religion	Scythian religion Maeotian religion Ancient Greek religion
Government	Monarchy
King
Historical era	Iron Age Scythian culture
• Scythian retreat from Ciscaucasia	c. 8th century BC
• Conquest by the Bosporan Kingdom	c. 380 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Scythia Bosporan Kingdom
Today part of	Southern Russia

Sindi warrior statue. Limestone, I A.D. Kerch Archaeology Museum.

Ancient terracotta vessels unearthed at the Sindian necropolis near Phanagoria. The photograph by Prokudin-Gorskii (c. 1912).

The Sindi were a tribe of the Scythians who established themselves on the Taman peninsula, where they formed a ruling class over the indigenous North Caucasian Maeotians. Archaeologically, the Sindi belonged to the Scythian culture, and they progressively became Hellenised due to contact with the Bosporan Kingdom.

As the Scythians lost more territory in Ciscaucasia to the Sauromatians over the course of the late 6th century BC, the Sindi remained the only Scythian group still present in the region, in the area called Sindica (Ancient Greek: Σινδικη, romanized: Sindikē; Latin: Sindica) by the Greeks and which corresponded to the area west of present-day Krasnodar, in the Taman peninsula.

The Kingdom of Sindica existed for over 400 years, and it was after annexed by the Bosporan Kingdom.

Central Europe

Unlike the majority of the Sindi, who remained in the northern Caucasus, a smaller section of the Sindi migrated westwards and settled into the Hungarian Plain as part of the expansion of the Scythian into Central Europe during the 7th to 6th centuries BC, and they soon lost contact with the Scythians who remained in the Pontic Steppe. The 3rd century BC Greek author Apollonius of Rhodes located a population of the Sindi living alongside the Sigynnae and the otherwise unknown Grauci in the "plain of Laurion", which is likely the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin.

Archaeology

North Caucasus

The Scythian ruling class in the Maeotian country initially buried their dead in kurgans while the native Maeotian populace were buried in flat cemeteries. Burials in Sindica continued this tradition, and members of the Sindi ruling class continued being buried in kurgans while the Maeotians continued to be buried in flat graves.

After earlier Scythian earthworks built in the 6th century BC along the right bank of the Kuban river were abandoned in the 4th century BC, when the Sauromatians took over most of Ciscaucasia, the Sindi built a new series of earthworks on their eastern borders. One of the Sindi earthworks was located at Yelizavetinskaya, where was located a c. 400 BC kurgan in which several humans were buried and which contained the skeletons of 200 horses.

References

Sources

• Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2000). "Remarks on the Presence of Iranian Peoples in Europe and Their Asiatic Relations". Collectanea Celto-Asiatica Cracoviensia. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka. pp. 105–107. ISBN 978-8-371-88337-8.
• Sulimirski, T. (1985). "The Scyths". In Gershevitch, I. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 149–199. ISBN 978-1-139-05493-5.
• Sulimirski, Tadeusz; Taylor, T. F. (1991). "The Scythians". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S.; Hammond, N. G. L.; Sollberger, E.; Walker, C. B. F. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 560–590. ISBN 978-1-139-05429-4.
• Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.