斯基台人：草原上的游牧战士

杰出的骑手和伟大的战士，西西里人是游牧的骑手，他们广泛分布在亚洲大草原的草原上，从东部的阿尔泰山脉到公元前一千年的匈牙利大平原。他们的草原家园与南方的几个定居国接壤——中国、波斯人和希腊人——游牧民族和他们的邻居之间不可避免地有着无数的互动。在一次又一次的大草原战争中，大流士人驱赶着波斯国王的进攻。
黑海沿岸与希腊人的关系截然不同——两个社区都从彼此的贸易中受益。这导致了一种辉煌的艺术风格的发展，通常描绘来自斯基台神话和日常生活的场景。正是从历史学家希罗多德这样的希腊人的著作中，我们了解到了西西里岛的生活：他们的信仰、埋葬方式、对战斗的热爱，以及他们对性别的矛盾态度。这个世界也被从斯基台的墓葬中恢复出来的丰富的物质文化所灿烂地照亮，从庞蒂克大草原上的国王坟墓，到阿尔泰山脉的冰冻坟墓，所有的有机材料——木雕、地毯、马鞍，甚至纹身——都保存得惊人地完好。
巴里·坎利夫（Barry Cunliffe）在这里收集了大量的证据——包括考古和文字证据——巧妙地重建了失落的斯基台人世界，使他们在两千多年来首次以其巨大的活力和辉煌出现。
The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe (True EPUB)
Brilliant horsemen and great fighters, the Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south – the Chinese, the Persians and the Greeks – and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
Relations with the Greeks around the shores of the Black Sea were rather different – both communities benefiting from trading with each other. This led to the development of a brilliant art style, often depicting scenes from Scythian mythology and everyday life. It is from the writings of Greeks like the historian Herodotus that we learn of Scythian life: their beliefs, their burial practices, their love of fighting, and their ambivalent attitudes to gender. It is a world that is also brilliantly illuminated by the rich material culture recovered from Scythian burials, from the graves of kings on the Pontic steppe, with their elaborate gold work and vividly coloured fabrics, to the frozen tombs of the Altai mountains, where all the organic material – wooden carvings, carpets, saddles and even tattooed human bodies – is amazingly well preserved.
Barry Cunliffe here marshals this vast array of evidence – both archaeological and textual – in a masterful reconstruction of the lost world of the Scythians, allowing them to emerge in all their considerable vigour and splendour for the first time in over two millennia.

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