Saka

the order of Darius the Great.* [8] (These people were

reported to be mainly interested in settling in the kingdom of Urartu, later part of Armenia and Shacusen, in
The Saka (Old Persian: Sak; New Persian/Pashto:
*
;Sanskrit: aka; Greek: ; Latin: Sacae; Uti Province derives its name from them. [9]) The Behistun inscription mentions four divisions of Scythians,
Chinese: ; pinyin: Si; Old Chinese: *Sk) was
the term used in Persian and Sanskrit sources for the
the Sak paradraya Saka beyond the seaof
Scythians, a large group of Eastern Iranian nomadic tribes
Sarmatia,
*
*
*
on the Eurasian Steppe. [1] [2] [3]
the Sak tigraxaudSaka with pointy hats/caps,
For other uses, see Saka (disambiguation).

the Sak haumavarg "haoma-drinking Saka* [10]

(Amyrgians, the Saka tribe in closest proximity to
Bactria and Sogdiana),

Usage of the name Saka

the Sak para Sugdam Saka beyond Sugda

(Sogdiana)" at the Jaxartes.
Of these, the Sak tigraxaud were the Saka proper. The
Sak paradraya were the western Scythians or Sarmatians, the Sak haumavarg and Sak para Sugdam were
likely Scythian tribes associated with or split-of from the
original Saka.

Gold artifacts of the Saka in Bactria, at the site of Tillia tepe.

Modern debate about the identity of the Sakais due

partly to ambiguous usage of the word by ancient, nonSaka authorities. According to Herodotus, the Persians
gave the name Sakato all Scythians.* [4] However,
Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 2379)
claims that the Persians gave the name Sakai only to the
Scythian tribes nearest to them.* [5] The Scythians
to the far north of Assyria were also called the Saka suni
Saka or Scythian sonsby the Persians. The Assyrians
of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a
people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza.* [6]

In the modern era, the archaeologist Hugo Winckler

(18631913) was the rst to associate the Sakas with the
Scyths. I. Gershevitch, in The Cambridge History of Iran
states: The Persians gave the single name Sak both to
the nomads whom they encountered between the Hunger
steppe and the Caspian, and equally to those north of the
Danube and Black Sea against whom Darius later campaigned; and the Greeks and Assyrians called all those
who were known to them by the name Skuthai (Ikuzai).
Sak and Skuthai evidently constituted a generic name for
the nomads on the northern frontiers.* [11] Conversely,
the political historian B. N. Mukerjee has claimed that
ancient Greek and Roman scholars believed that while
all Sakai were Scythians, not all Scythians were
Sakai. * [12] Persian sources often tream them as a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or Sakas), but Greek and
Latin texts suggest that the Scythians were composed of
many sub-groups.* [13]* [14]

Another people, the Gimirrai,* [6] who were known to the 2 History
ancient Greeks as the Cimmerians, were closely associated with the Sakas. In ancient Hebrew texts, the Ashkuz Migrations of the 2nd and 1st century BCE have left
(Ashkenaz) are considered to be a direct oshoot from traces in Sogdia and Bactria, but they cannot rmly be
the Gimirri (Gomer).* [7]
attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of Sirkap
The Saka regarded by the Babylonians as synonymous and Taxila in ancient India. The rich graves at Tillya Tepe
with the Gimirrai; both names are used synonymously on in Afghanistan are seen as part of a population aected
the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 515 BC on by the Saka.* [15]
1

3 LANGUAGE

Artifacts found the tombs 2 and 4 of Tillia Tepe and reconstitution of their use on the man and woman found in these tombs

Central Asian languages, which further lends credence to

the possibility of historical Sakan inuence in North India.* [16]* [17] According to historian Michael Mitchiner,
the Abhira tribe were a Saka people cited in the Gunda
inscription of the Western Satrap Rudrasimha I dated to
181 CE.* [18]

2.2 Kingdom of Khotan

Main article: Kingdom of Khotan

3 Language
Main article: Saka language
The only record from their early history is the Issyk in-

A cataphract-style parade armour of a Saka royal from the Issyk

kurgan, Kazakhstan.

2.1

Indo-Scythians

Main article: Indo-Scythians

Drawing of the Issyk inscription

scription, a short fragment on a silver cup found in the

Issyk kurgan, Kazakhstan. The inscription is in a variant
Tadeusz Sulimirski notes that the Saka also migrated to of the Kharoh script, and is probably in a Saka dialect,
North India.* [16] Weer Rajendra Rishi, an Indian lin- constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic
guist, identied linguistic anities between Indian and traces of that language. Harmatta (1999) identies the

3
language as Khotanese Saka, tentatively translatingThe [12] B. N. Mukerjee, Political History of Ancient India, 1996,
p 690-91.
vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so
much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on
[13] Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society ... Google Books.
.
2007-04-06. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
What is nowadays called the Saka language is the lan[14] Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain &
guage of the kingdom of Khotan which was ruled by the
Ireland By Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and
Saka. This was gradually conquered and acculturated by
Ireland-page-323
the Turkic expansion to Central Asia beginning in the
4th century. The only known remnants of the Khotanese [15] Yaroslav Lebedynsky, P. 84
Saka language come from Xinjiang, China. The language [16] Sulimirski, Tadeusz (1970). The Sarmatians. Volume 73
there belongs to the Eastern Iranian group. It also is diof Ancient peoples and places. New York: Praeger. pp.
vided into two divergent dialects. Both dialects share fea113114. The evidence of both the ancient authors and
tures with modern Wakhi and Pashto, but both of the
the archaeological remains point to a massive migration
of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan tribes from the Syr Daria
Saka dialects contain many borrowings from the Middle
Delta (Central Asia) by the middle of the second century
Indo-Aryan Prakrit.* [19]
B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded
North India.

See also
Saka era
Saka calendar
Saka language
Saka Kingdom

Notes

[1] West 2009, p. 713-717

[2] Scythian. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. Retrieved
January 18, 2015.
[3] P. Lurje,Yrkand, Encyclopdia Iranica, online edition
[4] Herodotus Book VII, 64
[5] Naturalis Historia, VI, 19, 50

[17] Rishi, Weer Rajendra (1982). India & Russia: linguistic

& cultural anity. Roma. p. 95.
[18] Mitchiner, Michael (1978). The ancient & classical world,
600 B.C.-A.D. 650. Hawkins Publications ; distributed by
B. A. Seaby. p. 634. ISBN 978-0-904173-16-1.
[19] Litvinsky, Boris Abramovich; Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya,
M.I (1999). Religions and religious movements. History of civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass.
pp. 421448. ISBN 8120815408.

6 References
Bailey, H. W. 1958. Languages of the Saka.
Handbuch der Orientalistik, I. Abt., 4. Bd., I. Absch., Leiden-Kln. 1958.
Bailey, H. W. (1979). Dictionary of Khotan Saka.
Cambridge University Press. 1979. 1st Paperback
edition 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-14250-2.

[6] Westermann, Claus; John J. Scullion, Translator (1984). :

A Continental Commentary. Minneapolis. p. 506. ISBN
0800695003.

Davis-Kimball, Jeannine. 2002. Warrior Women:

An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden
Heroines. Warner Books, New York. 1st Trade
printing, 2003. ISBN 0-446-67983-6 (pbk).

[7]The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath,[a] and Togarmah.See also the entry for Ashkenaz in Young, Robert.
Analytical Concordance to the Bible. McLean, Virginia:
Mac Donald Publishing Company. ISBN 0-917006-291.

Bulletin of the Asia Institute: The Archaeology and

Art of Central Asia. Studies From the Former Soviet Union. New Series. Edited by B. A. Litvinskii
and Carol Altman Bromberg. Translation directed
by Mary Fleming Zirin. Vol. 8, (1994), pp. 3746.

[8] George Rawlinson, noted in his translation of History of

Herodotus, Book VII, p. 378
[9] Kurkjian, Vahan M. (1964). A History of Armenia. New
York: Armenian General Benevolent Union of America.
p. 23.
[10] http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/haumavarga
[11] I. Gershevitch,The Cambridge History of Iran (Volume 2),
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 253 .

Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome:

A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. John E. Hill. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-14392-2134-1.
Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from
the Weilue by Yu Huan : A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and
265 CE. Draft annotated English translation.

7
Lebedynsky, Iaroslav. (2006). Les Saces: Les
<<Scythes>> d'Asie, VIII* e av. J.-C.-IV* e sicle apr.
J.-C. Editions Errance, Paris. ISBN 2-87772-337-2
(in French).
Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1970. The Wu-sun and
Sakas and the Yeh-chih Migration.Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies 33 (1970),
pp. 154160.
Puri, B. N. 1994. The Sakas and Indo-Parthians.
In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume
II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Harmatta, Jnos,
ed., 1994. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, pp. 191
207.
Thomas, F. W. 1906. Sakastana.Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society (1906), pp. 181216.
Yu, Taishan. 1998. A Study of Saka History. SinoPlatonic Papers No. 80. July, 1998. Dept. of Asian
and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
Yu, Taishan. 2000. A Hypothesis about the Source
of the Sai Tribes. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 106.
September, 2000. Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
West, Barbara A. (January 1, 2009). Encyclopedia
of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 1438119135. Retrieved January 18,
2015.

External links
Scythians/Sacae by Jona Lendering
Article by Kivisild et al. on genetic heritage of early
Indian settlers
Indian, Japanese and Chinese Emperors

EXTERNAL LINKS

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