A nomadic people of S Russia who were driven out by the Scythians in the 8th-c BC. They migrated through the Caucasus Mts to Assyria and Asia Minor, where they caused widespread havoc and destruction.
The Cimmerians (Greek: Κιμμέριοι, Kimmerioi) were ancient equestrian nomads who, according to Herodotus, originally inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, in what is now Russia and Ukraine, in the 8th and 7th century BC. Assyrian records, however, first place them in the region of Azerbaijan in 714 BC.
Origins
Their origins are obscure, but they are believed to have been Indo-European.
Very little is known archaeologically of the Cimmerians of the Northern Black Sea Coast, if indeed they did live there. This parallels the Greek account of how the Cimmerians were displaced by the Scythians. However, the ouster of the Catacomb culture is carbon-dated to the 2nd millennium BC, several hundred years before the Scythians are recorded as having appeared in Asia;
A few stone stelae found in the Ukraine and the northern Caucasus have been connected with the Cimmerians.
Historical accounts
The first historical record of the Cimmerians appears in Assyrian annals in the year 714 BC.
Some modern authors assert that the Cimmerians included mercenaries, whom the Assyrians knew as Khumri, who had been resettled there by Sargon. However, later Greek accounts describe the Cimmerians as having previously lived on the steppes, between the Tyras (Dniester) and Tanais (Don) rivers. Several kings of the Cimmerians are mentioned in Greek and Mesopotamian sources, including Tugdamme (Lygdamis in Greek; mid-7th century BC), and Sandakhshatra (late-7th century).
According to the Histories of Herodotus (c. 440 BC), the Cimmerians had been expelled from the steppes at some point in the past by the Scythians.
The migrations of the Cimmerians were recorded by the Assyrians, whose king, Sargon II, died in battle against them in 705 BC. They are subsequently recorded as having conquered Phrygia in 696 BC-695 BC, prompting the Phrygian king Midas to take poison rather than face capture.
In 654 BC or 652 BC – the exact date is unclear – the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of Lydia, killing the Lydian king Gyges and causing great destruction to the Lydian capital, Sardis.
The Cimmerian occupation of Lydia was brief, however -- possibly due to an outbreak of plague. Between 637 BC and 626 BC they were beaten back by Alyattes II of Lydia. 515 BC) as a Babylonian equivalent of Persian Saka (Scythians), but otherwise Cimmerians are not heard of again in Asia, and their ultimate fate is uncertain.
A reference to the Cimmerians is preserved in Gomer גמר of the Hebrew Bible (Standard Hebrew Gómer, Tiberian Hebrew Gōmer, Genesis 10:2, Ezekiel 38:6).
The Cimmerians are also referred to in Homer's Oddyssey.
Timeline
721-715 BC – Sargon II mentions a land of Gamirr near to Urartu. 714 – suicide of Rusas I of Urartu, after defeat by both the Assyrians and Cimmerians. 676-674 – Cimmerians invade and destroy Phrygia, and reach Paphlagonia. 654 or 652 – Gyges of Lydia dies in battle against the Cimmerians. Cimmerians and Treres plunder Ionian colonies. 644 – Cimmerians occupy Sardis, but withdraw soon afterwards 637-626 – Cimmerians defeated by Alyattes II. 515 – Last historical record of Cimmerians, in the Behistun inscription of Darius.Language
Of the language of the Cimmerians, only a few personal names have survived in Assyrian inscriptions:
Te-ush-pa, mentioned in the annals of Esarhaddon, has been compared to the Hurrian war deity Teshub;Some researchers have attempted to trace various place names to Cimmerian origins. It has been suggested that Crimea is named after the Cimmerians as well as the Armenian city of Gyumri.
The Cimmerians are now often classified as an Iranian people, but based on ancient Greek historical sources, a Thracian or (less commonly) a Celtic association is sometimes assumed. Lehmann-Haupt, the language of the Cimmerians could have been a "missing link" between Thracian and Iranian.
Possible offshoots
The Cimmerians are thought to have had a number of offshoots. The Thracians have been identified as a possible western branch of the Cimmerians. Whereas the Cimmerians would have departed this ancestral homeland by heading east and south across the Caucasus, the Thracians migrated west and south into the Balkans, where they established a successful and long-lived culture.
Although the Cimmerians of historical record only appear on the stage of world history for a brief time (during the 7th century BC), numerous Celtic and Germanic peoples have traditions of being descended from the Cimmerians or Scythians, and some of their ethnic names seem to bear out this belief (e.g. It is unlikely that either Proto-Celtic or Proto-Germanic entered Europe as late as the 7th century BC, their formation being commonly associated with the Bronze Age Urnfield and Nordic Bronze Age cultures, respectively.
The etymology of Cymru (i.e. Cumbria), said in Welsh tradition to derive directly from the "Cimmerians", is instead considered by detractors of this theory as being Celtic kom-broges meaning "fellow countrymen". In addition, in sources beginning with the Royal Frankish Annals, the Merovingian kings of the Franks traditionally traced their lineage, through a pre-Frankish tribe called the Sicambri, to a group of "Cimmerians" who lived near the mouth of the Danube river.
If the Scythians are assumed to be related to the Cimmerians, as has often been claimed, many other peoples claiming possible Scythian descent could also be added to this list.
The association of the Cimmerians with one of the Lost Tribes of Israel plays a certain role in British Israelism.
User Comments Add a comment…