10-18-2015, 08:39 AM
The Issedones were a mysterious people mentioned by Greek poets Alcman and Aristeas around the 7th century BC. JP Mallory wrote that the Issedones were regarded by some as trading middlemen who seemed spread out like a lot of steppe tribes, over a large area and that they both controlled the Ekaterinburg Pass through the Urals and the territory as far east as the Yenisei River. They seemed, according to the maps to have lived north or north-east of the Massagetae in semi-desert country so were probably traders and pastoralists. Whether they controlled all these areas at one time we don't know but Aristeas mentions that the Arimaspians fell upon the Issedones and that they in turn attacked the Scythians who in turn attacked the Cimmerians around the Black Sea.
Some associate the Issedones with the Sarmatians, some with the Wusun and judging by their location at one time around the Tarim Basin, with the Yueh-chih. So possibly Indo-Iranian or Tocharian but distinct from the Scythians and Saka while Grousset in his book Empire of the Steppes suggests maybe even Finno-Ugrian stock.
If the Issedones drove the Scythians west around the 7th century BC then I often wonder if the Pazyryk kurgans from around the 3rd or 4th centuries BC are Scythian at all and maybe they could be Issedone. Sergei Rudenko who discovered the Pazyryk kurgans mentioned that the chieftain buried at Pazyryk had been carefully embalmed with brains and viscera as well as muscle tissue removed. He theorised that the muscle tissue may have been consumed in a ritual cannibalistic rite which Herodotus mentioned was a characteristic of Issedone burials although the skull was not removed and gilded like in the description by Herodotus.
Below is a rough schematic from the book The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages which tries to trace the movements of various tribes and groups. :-)
[attachment=12914]schematic2.jpg[/attachment]
Some associate the Issedones with the Sarmatians, some with the Wusun and judging by their location at one time around the Tarim Basin, with the Yueh-chih. So possibly Indo-Iranian or Tocharian but distinct from the Scythians and Saka while Grousset in his book Empire of the Steppes suggests maybe even Finno-Ugrian stock.
If the Issedones drove the Scythians west around the 7th century BC then I often wonder if the Pazyryk kurgans from around the 3rd or 4th centuries BC are Scythian at all and maybe they could be Issedone. Sergei Rudenko who discovered the Pazyryk kurgans mentioned that the chieftain buried at Pazyryk had been carefully embalmed with brains and viscera as well as muscle tissue removed. He theorised that the muscle tissue may have been consumed in a ritual cannibalistic rite which Herodotus mentioned was a characteristic of Issedone burials although the skull was not removed and gilded like in the description by Herodotus.
Below is a rough schematic from the book The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages which tries to trace the movements of various tribes and groups. :-)
[attachment=12914]schematic2.jpg[/attachment]
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
