This second theory is supported by anthropological evidence which has found that Scythian skulls are similar to preceding findings from the Timber Grave culture, and distinct from those of the Central Asian Sacae.

Benet argues that in support of the theory that reads cannabis as an ingredient of the holy anointing oil is that most of the other ingredients, if not all, are also theorized to come from Central Asian lands in which, Benet claims, cannabis was frequently used for spiritual ( Scythian ) and medicinal use ( sana of the Buddhist vinya shared by many ancient schools of Buddhism ).

Anacharsis (; ) was a Scythian philosopher who travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea to Athens in the early 6th century BC and made a great impression as a forthright, outspoken " barbarian ", apparently a forerunner of the Cynics, though none of his works have survived.

Anacharsis the son of Gnurus, a Scythian chief, was half Greek and from a mixed Hellenistic culture, apparently in the region of the Cimmerian Bosporus.

The replacement of the Roman saddle by variants on the Scythian model, with pommel and cantle, was also a significant factor as was the adoption of stirrups and the concomitant increase in stability of the rider's seat.

In Athens, a group of 300 Scythian slaves ( the, " rod-bearers ") was used to guard public meetings to keep order and for crowd control, and also assisted with dealing with criminals, handling prisoners, and making arrests.

Prokofiev's first major success breaking out of the composer-pianist mould was with his purely orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes ; Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev – Chout, Le pas d ' acier and The Prodigal Son – which at the time of their original production were all highly successful.

The word cannabis is from Greek () ( see Latin ), which was originally Scythian or Thracian.

8. 4 ) how Alans ( whom he calls a " Scythian " tribe ) living near the Sea of Azov, crossed the Iron Gates for plunder and defeated the armies of Pacorus, king of Media, and Tiridates, King of Armenia, two brothers of Vologeses I ( for whom the above-mentioned inscription was made ):

Aeschines, Demosthenes ' greatest political rival, maintained that his mother Kleoboule was a Scythian by blood — an allegation disputed by some modern scholars.

A large portion of the city's population was ethnically Scythian, later Sarmatian, as the large royal barrow at Kul-Oba testifies.

In Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn Ireland's " ninth appellation it received likewise from the sons of Milesius, who named it Scotia, from their mother's name, Scota, who was the daughter of Pharaoh Nectanebo I, king of Egypt ; or perhaps from themselves, they being originally of the Scythian race.

Sakestan was not the only province of Scythian origin on the eastern margin of the Persian Empire.

Subsequently, the term Scythian, like Cimmerian, was used to refer to a variety of groups from the Black Sea to southern Siberia and central Asia.

The final development of Scythian culture was intimately linked to a variety of elements, including a Scytho-Siberian platform modified by Caucasian, Greek and Assyrian-Urartian influences.

The mummy of a Scythian warrior, which is believed to be about 2, 500 years old, was a 30-to-40 year-old man with blond hair, and was found in the Altai, Mongolia ( see also Pazyryk burials ).

However, the Scythian army was defeated by Alexander at the Battle of Jaxartes.

One grave find on the lower Volga gave a similar date, and one of the Steblev graves from the East European end of the Scythian area was dated to the late 8th century BC.

Foremost in the Scythian pantheon stood Tabiti, who was later replaced by Atar, the fire-pantheon of Iranian tribes, and Agni, the fire deity of Indo-Aryans.

The Scythian belief was a more archaic stage than the Zoroastrian and Hindu systems.

The use of cannabis to induce trance and divination by soothsayers was a characteristic of the Scythian belief system.

According to the 11th c. Lebor Gabála Érenn ( The Book of the Taking of Ireland ), the 14th c. Auraicept na n-Éces and other Irish folklore, the Irish originated in Scythia and were descendants of Fénius Farsaid, a Scythian prince who created the Ogham alphabet and who was one of the principal architects of the Gaelic language.

The idea was taken up in the British Israelism of John Wilson, who adopted and promoted the " idea that the " European Race, in particular the Anglo-Saxons, were descended from certain Scythian tribes, and these Scythian tribes ( as many had previously stated from the Middle Ages onward ) were in turn descended from the ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

The dubious assertion, based on a single Syriac source, that the Eastern-Roman rebel general Vitalian, to whom Dionysius seems to have been related, was of Gothic extraction was the base for the labelling, without any further evidence, of all of the Scythian monks, Dionysius included, as " Goths ".

However, the rule of the Indo-Greeks over territories south of the Hindu Kush lasted for a further 150 years, ultimately collapsing under the pressure of the Yüeh-chih and Scythian ( Saka ) invasions in around 10 BCE, with the last Indo-Greek ruler Strato II.

Artemis, the eponymous goddess of hunting, is seen using a curved bow, which may have been typical of Scythian tribes and further supports his affiliation with them.

Linguistics offers further evidence of prehistoric use of cannabis by Germanic peoples: The word hemp derives from Old English hænep, from Proto-Germanic * hanapiz, from the same Scythian word that cannabis derives from.

The statues found at Sirkap in the late Scythian to Parthian level ( level 2, 1 – 60 CE ) suggest an already developed state of Gandharan art at the time or even before Parthian rule.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days ' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.

Greetings from Anacharsis to Hanno: My clothing is a Scythian cloak, my shoes are the hard soles of my feet, my bed is the earth, my food is only seasoned by hunger-and I eat nothing but milk and cheese and meat.

It is also possible that the name Axeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian Iranic axšaina-' unlit ,' ' dark '; the designation " Black Sea " may thus date from Antiquity.

Quilted leather open jackets and trousers were worn by Scythian horsemen before the 4th century BC, as can be seen on Scythian gold ornaments crafted by Greek goldsmiths.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days ' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.

Diaghilev commissioned ballet music from composers such as Nikolai Tcherepnin ( Narcisse et Echo, 1911 ), Claude Debussy ( Jeux, 1913 ), Maurice Ravel ( Daphnis et Chloé, 1912 ), Erik Satie ( Parade, 1917 ), Manuel de Falla ( El Sombrero de Tres Picos, 1917 ), Richard Strauss ( Josephslegende, 1914 ), Sergei Prokofiev ( Ala and Lolly, rejected by Diaghilev and turned into the Scythian Suite ; Chout, 1915 revised 1920 ; Le pas d ' acier, 1926 ; and The Prodigal Son, 1929 ), Ottorino Respighi ( La Boutique fantasque, 1918 ), Francis Poulenc ( Les biches, 1923 ) and others.

* Reign in Northern India by Nahapana, Scythian king.

* The Scythian king Rudradaman I reconquers from the Andhra the lands annexed by Gautamiputra.

The rebels are defeated by the Eastern Roman army under John the Scythian and John the Hunchback in the Battle of Cotyaeum ( subordinate commanders including the future Justin I ).

The restored Scythian name is * Skuda ( archer ), which among the Pontic or Royal Scythians became * Skula, in which the d has been regularly replaced by an l.

A Scythian army sought to take revenge for the death of Ateas against the Macedonians, as they pushed the borders of their empire north and east, and take advantage of a revolt by the local Sogdian satrap.

Some of the first Bronze Age Scythian burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan ( Red ) district of the Altai Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia ( near Mongolia ).

In 1788 Jean Jacques Barthelemy ( 1716 – 95 ), a highly esteemed classical scholar and Jesuit, published The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, about a young Scythian descended from Anacharsis.

On this anchorage, being the best sheltered within the maritime region of Sweden ( Suevoniae ), all the ships belonging to Danes ( Danorum ) known as Norwegians ( Nortmannorum ) as well as to Slavs ( Sclavorum ), Sembrians ( Semborum ) and other Scythian ( Scithiae ) peoples use to convene every year for sundry necessary commerce.

This may have been a construction meaning " cow-cheese ", from βοῦς ( bous ), " ox, cow " + τυρός ( turos ), " cheese ", but perhaps this is a false etymology of a Scythian word.

Scythians shooting with the Composite bow | Scythian bow, Kerch ( antique Panticapeum ), Ukraine, 4th century BC

Greek craftsmen from the colonies north of the Black Sea made spectacular Scythian-style gold ornaments ( see below ), applying Greek realism to depict Scythian motifs of lions, antlered reindeer, and gryphons.

Archaeological remains of the Scythians include kurgan tombs ( ranging from simple exemplars to elaborate " Royal kurgans " containing the " Scythian triad " of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild-animal art ), gold, silk, and animal sacrifices, in places also with suspected human sacrifices.

It is likely that certain peoples included under the " Scythian " umbrella term spoke other languages ; for example, the Meotians ( Sindi ), had adopted Indo-Aryan dialects.

# Firstly ( 4. 7 ), the Scythians ' legend about themselves, which portrays the first Scythian king, Targitaus, as the child of the sky-god and of a daughter of the Dnieper.

Some legends of the Poles, the Picts, the Gaels, the Hungarians ( in particular, the Jassics ), the Serbs and the Croats, among others, also include mention of Scythian origins.

In addition to being credited for pithy sayings, the wise men were also apparently famed for practical inventions ; in Plato's Republic ( 600a ), it is said that it " befits a wise man " to have " many inventions and useful devices in the crafts or sciences " attributed to him, citing Thales and Anacharsis the Scythian as examples.

According to Diodorus Siculus ( III. 55 ), Mopsus was a Thracian commander who had lived long before the Trojan War, and along with Sipylus the Scythian, had been driven into exile from Thrace by its king Lycurgus.