Sarmatians

For other uses, see Sarmatia (disambiguation).

For the people group descended from the ancient Hebrews, see Samaritans.

Depiction of a Sarmatian from a Roman sarcophagus, second century AD

The Sarmatians (/sɑːrˈmeɪʃiənz/; Greek: Σαρμάται, Σαυρομάται; Latin: Sarmatae [ˈsar.mat̪ae̯], Sauromatae [sau̯ˈrɔmat̪ae̯]) were a large Iranian confederation that existed in classical antiquity, flourishing from about the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD.

Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians were part of the wider Scythian cultures. They started migrating westward around the fourth and third centuries BC, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by 200 BC. At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BC, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.

Their territory, which was known as Sarmatia (/sɑːrˈmeɪʃiə/) to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia (it included today's Central Ukraine, South-Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, Russian Volga, and South-Ural regions, also to a smaller extent northeastern Balkans and around Moldova). In the first century AD, the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes. In the third century AD, their dominance of the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Germanic Goths. With the Hunnic invasions of the fourth century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths and other Germanic tribes (Vandals) in the settlement of the Western Roman Empire. Since large parts of today's Russia, specifically the land between the Ural Mountains and the Don River, were controlled in the fifth century BC by the Sarmatians, the Volga–Don and Ural steppes sometimes are called "Sarmatian Motherland".

The Sarmatians were eventually decisively assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe.

Etymology

Map of the Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138 AD), showing the location of the Sarmatae in the Ukrainian steppe region

Sarmatae probably originated as just one of several tribal names of the Sarmatians, but one that Greco-Roman ethnography came to apply as an exonym to the entire group. Strabo in the first century names as the main tribes of the Sarmatians the Iazyges, the Roxolani, the Aorsi, and the Siraces.

The Greek name Sarmatai sometimes appears as "Sauromatai" (Σαυρομάται), which is almost certainly no more than a variant of the same name. Nevertheless, historians often regarded these as two separate peoples, while archaeologists habitually use the term 'Sauromatian' to identify the earliest phase of Sarmatian culture. Any idea that the name derives from the word lizard (sauros), linking to the Sarmatians' use of reptile-like scale armour and dragon standards, is almost certainly unfounded.

Both Pliny the Elder (Natural History book iv) and Jordanes recognised the Sar- and Sauro- elements as interchangeable variants, referring to the same people. Greek authors of the fourth century (Pseudo-Scylax, Eudoxus of Cnidus) mention Syrmatae as the name of a people living at the Don, perhaps reflecting the ethnonym as it was pronounced in the final phase of Sarmatian culture.

20th century English scholar Harold Walter Bailey derived the base word from Avestan sar- (to move suddenly) from tsar- in Old Iranian (tsarati, tsaru-, hunter), which also gave its name to the western Avestan region of Sairima (*salm, – *Saⁱrmi), and also connected it to the tenth–eleventh century AD Persian epic Shahnameh's character "Salm".

Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan *sar-ma(n)t (feminine – rich in women, ruled by women), the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word *sar- (woman) and the Indo-Iranian adjective suffix -ma(n)t/wa(n)t. By this derivation was noted the high status of women (matriarchy) that was unusual from the Greek point of view and went to the invention of Amazons (thus the Greek name for Sarmatians as Sarmatai Gynaikokratoumenoi, ruled by women).

History

Origin

The ethnogenesis of the Sarmatians occurred during the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE, when Scythian-related nomads who had previously until the 5th century BCE lived in the southern Ural foothills region migrated to the southwest into the territory of the Sauromatians, another Scythian-related nomadic group living between the lower Volga and Don rivers. The new arrivants conquered the Sauromatians, who joined these new conquerors and were initially able to preserve their separate identity temporarily, due to which their name, modified into "Sarmatians", eventually came to be applied to the whole of the new people formed out of these migrations, the Sarmatians, whose constituent tribes were the Aorsi, Roxolani, Alans, and the Iazyges. Despite the Sarmatians having a similar name to the Sauromatians, ancient authors distinguished between the two, and Sarmatian culture did not directly develop from the Sauromatian culture, and the core of the Sarmatians was instead composed of the newly arrived migrants from the southern Ural foothills.

In the Pontic Steppe and Europe

The centre of power of the Sarmatians during the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE remained in the areas to the north of the Caucasus, and in the 3rd century BCE the most important Sarmatian centres were in the lower Don area, Kalmykia, the Kuban area, and the Central Caucasus.

During the end of the 4th century BCE, the then dominant power of the Black Sea Steppe, the Scythians, were military defeated by the Macedonian kings Philip II and Lysimachus in respectively 339 and 313 BCE, had experienced another military setback after participating in the Bosporan Civil War in 309 BCE, and were under pressure from the Thracian Getae and the Germanic Bastarnae. At the same time, in Central Asia, following the Macedonian conquest of Persia of the Achaemenid Empire, the new Seleucid Empire started attacking the Saka and Dahae nomads who had lived to the north of its borders, which in turn led to the latter two peoples putting westward pressure on the Sarmatians from the east. Pressured by the Saka and Dahae in the east and taking advantage of the declline of Scythian power, starting in the late 4th century and the early 3rd century BCE the Sarmatians crossed the Don river and invaded Scythia (later in the mediaeval period, the military campaigns of Ismail Samani against the Oghuz Turks in Central Asia would similarly pressure the Hungarians into moving westwards into the Pannonian Basin), and also migrated to the south, into the North Caucasus.

The first wave of Sarmatian migration westwards happened during the 2nd century BCE, and consisted of the Royal Sarmatians, or Saii (from Scytho-Sarmatian *xšaya, meaning "kings"), who in the 2nd century BCE moved into the Pontic Steppe to the west of the Don river, and of the Iazyges, also called the Iaxamatae or Iazamatae, who initially settled between the Don and Dnieper rivers in the 2nd century BCE. The Roxolani, who might have been a mixed Scytho-Sarmatian tribe, followed the Iazyges and occupied the Black Sea steppes until the Dnieper and raided the Crimean region during that century.

After their conquest of Scythia, the Sarmatians became the dominant political power in the northern Pontic Steppe, where Sarmatian graves first started appearing in the 2nd century BCE. Meanwhile the Scythians proper became reduced to Crimea and the Dobruja region, and at one point the Crimean Scythians were the cassals of the Sarmatian queenAmage. Sarmatian power in the Pontic Steppes was also directed against the Greek cities on its shores, with the city of Olbia being forced to pay repeated tribute to the Royal Sarmatians and their king Saitapharnes. Another Sarmatian king, Gatalus, was named in a peace treaty concluded by the king Pharnaces I of Pontus with his enemies.

Two other Sarmatian tribes, the Siraces, who had previously originated in the Transcaspian Plains immediately to the northeast of Hyrcania before migrating to the west, and the Aorsi, moved to the west across the Volga and into the Caucasus mountains' foothills between the 2nd to 1st centuries BCE. From there, the Aorsi and Siraces destroyed the power of the Royal Sarmatians and the Iazyges, and the Aorsi were able to extende their rule over a large region stretching from the Caucasus across the Terek–Kuma Lowland and Kalmykia in the west up to the Aral Sea region in the east. Yet another new Sarmatian grouping, the Alans, originated in Central Asia out of the merger of some old tribal groups with the Massagetae. Related to the Asii who had invaded Bactria in the 2nd century BCE, the Alans were pushed west by the Kang-chü people (known to Graeco-Roman authors as the Ἰαξάρται Iaxártai in Greek, and the Iaxartae in Latin), the latter of whom were living in the Syr Darya basin, from where they expanded their rule from Fergana to the Aral Sea region.

The hegemony of the Sarmatians in the Pontic Steppe continued during the 1st century BCE, when they were allied with the Scythians against Diophantus, a general of the king Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus, before becoming Mithridates's allies against the Romans. During the early 1st century BCE, the Alans had migrated to the area to the northeast of the Sea of Azov. Meanwhile, the Iazyges moved westwards till they reached the right bank of the Danube, and the Roxolani into the area between the Dnieper and the Danube and from there further west, and these two peoples attacked, respectively, the region around Tomis, and Moesia, During this period, the Iazyges and Roxolani also attacked the Roman province of Thracia, whose governor Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus had to defend the Roman border of the Danube. During the 1st century BCE century itself, various Sarmatians had reached the Pannonian Basin, and the Iazyges settled there, in the Tisza valley, by the middle of the 1st century BCE. Meanwhile, some other Sarmatian tribes, possibly the Aorsi, sent ambassadors to the Roman emperor Augustus.

During the 1st century CE, the Siraces and Aorsi, who were mutuallly hostile, participated in the Roman–Bosporan War on opposite sides: the Siraces and their king Zorsines allied with Mithridates III against his half-brother Cotys I, who was allied with Rome and the Aorsi. With the defeat of Cotys, the Siraces were also routed and they lost rulership over most of their lands. Between 50 and 60 CE, the Alans had appeared in the foothills of the Caucasus, from where they attacked the Caucasus and Transcaucasus areas and the Parthian Empire. During the 1st century CE, the Alans expanded across the Volga to the west, absorbing part of the Aorsi and displacing the rest. and pressure from the Alans was what forced the Iazyges and Roxolani to continue attacking the Roman Empire from across the Danube. During the 1st century CE, two Sarmatian rulers from the steppe, named Pharzoios and Inismeus, were minting coins in Olbia.

By the 2nd century CE, the Alans had conquered the steppes of the north Caucasus and of the north Black Sea area and created a powerful confederation of tribes under their rule. Under the hegemony of the Alans existed a trade route connecting the Pontic Steppe, the southern Urals, and the region presently known as Western Turkestan. One group of the Alans, the Antae, migrated to the north into the territory of what is presently Poland.

Sarmatian cataphracts during Dacian Wars as depicted on Trajan's Column

Decline

See also: Alans and Ossetians

The hegemony of the Sarmatians in the steppes started declining during the 2nd to 3rd centuries CE, when the Huns conquered the Sarmatian territories of the Caspian Steppe and the Ural region, and the supremacy of the Sarmatians was finally destroyed when the Germanic Goths migrating from the Baltic Sea region conquered the Pontic Steppe around 200 CE. In 375 CE, the Huns conquered most of the Alans living to the east of the Don river, massacred a significant number of them, and absorbed them into their tribal polity, while the Alans to the west of the Don remained free from Hunnish domination. As part of the Hunnic state, the Alans participated in the Huns' defeat and conquest of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths on the Pontic Steppe. Some free Alans fled into the mountains of the Caucasus, where they participated in the ethnogenesis of populations including the Ossetians and the Kabardians, and other Alan groupings survived in Crimea. Other free Alans migrated into Central and then Western Europe, from where some of them went to Britannia and Hispania, and some Alans joined the Germanic Vandals into crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and creating the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.

During the Early Middle Ages, eventually the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe decisively assimilated and absorbed the Sarmatians. However, a people related to the Sarmatians, known as the Alans, survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.

Archaeology

A Sarmatian-Parthian gold necklace and amulet, second century AD - Tamoikin Art Fund.

In 1947, Soviet archaeologist Boris Grakov defined a culture flourishing from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, apparent in late kurgan graves (buried within earthwork mounds), sometimes reusing part of much older kurgans. It was a nomadic steppe culture ranging from the Black Sea eastward to beyond the Volga that is especially evident at two of the major sites at Kardaielova and Chernaya in the trans-Uralic steppe. The four phases – distinguished by grave construction, burial customs, grave goods, and geographical spread – are:

1. Sauromatian, 6th–5th centuries BC
2. Early Sarmatian, 4th–2nd centuries BC, also called the Prokhorovka culture
3. Middle Sarmatian, late 2nd century BC to late 2nd century AD
4. Late Sarmatian, late 2nd century AD to 4th century AD

While "Sarmatian" and "Sauromatian" are synonymous as ethnonyms, purely by convention they are given different meanings as archaeological technical terms. The term "Prokhorovka culture" derives from a complex of mounds in the Prokhorovski District, Orenburg region, excavated by S. I. Rudenko in 1916.

Reportedly, during 2001 and 2006 a great Late Sarmatian pottery centre was unearthed near Budapest, Hungary in the Üllő5 archaeological site. Typical grey, granular Üllő5 ceramics form a distinct group of Sarmatian pottery is found ubiquitously in the north-central part of the Great Hungarian Plain region, indicating a lively trading activity.

A 1998 paper on the study of glass beads found in Sarmatian graves suggests wide cultural and trade links.

Archaeological evidence suggests that Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have given rise to the Greek legends of Amazons. Graves of armed women have been found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony noted that approximately 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian "warrior graves" on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle as warriors and he asserts that encountering that cultural phenomenon "probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons".

Ethnology

A Sarmatian diadem, found at the Khokhlach kurgan near Novocherkassk (first century AD, Hermitage Museum)

The Sarmatians were part of the Iranian steppe peoples, among whom were also Scythians and Saka. These also are grouped together as "East Iranians". Archaeology has established the connection 'between the Iranian-speaking Scythians, Sarmatians, and Saka and the earlier Timber-grave and Andronovo cultures'. Based on building construction, these three peoples were the likely descendants of those earlier archaeological cultures. The Sarmatians and Saka used the same stone construction methods as the earlier Andronovo culture. The Timber grave (Srubnaya culture) and Andronovo house building traditions were further developed by these three peoples. Andronovo pottery was continued by the Saka and Sarmatians. Archaeologists describe the Andronovo culture people as exhibiting pronounced Caucasoid features.

Great steppe of Kazakhstan in early spring 2004

The first Sarmatians are mostly identified with the Prokhorovka culture, which moved from the southern Urals to the Lower Volga and then to the northern Pontic steppe, in the fourth–third centuries BC. During the migration, the Sarmatian population seems to have grown and they divided themselves into several groups, such as the Alans, Aorsi, Roxolani, and Iazyges. By 200 BC, the Sarmatians replaced the Scythians as the dominant people of the steppes. The Sarmatians and Scythians had fought on the Pontic steppe to the north of the Black Sea. The Sarmatians, described as a large confederation, were to dominate these territories over the next five centuries. According to Brzezinski and Mielczarek, the Sarmatians were formed between the Don River and the Ural Mountains. Pliny the Elder wrote that they ranged from the Vistula River (in present-day Poland) to the Danube.

The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of a fire deity rather than a nature deity.

Language

Main article: Scytho-Sarmatian languages

Sarmatia and other Eastern Iranian speaking lands (shown in orange) circa 170 BC

The Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language that was derived from 'Old Iranian' and was heterogenous. By the first century BC, the Iranian tribes in what is today South Russia spoke different languages or dialects, clearly distinguishable. According to a group of Iranologists writing in 1968, the numerous Iranian personal names in Greek inscriptions from the Black Sea coast indicate that the Sarmatians spoke a North-Eastern Iranian dialect ancestral to Alanian-Ossetian. However, Harmatta (1970) argued that "the language of the Sarmatians or that of the Alans as a whole cannot be simply regarded as being Old Ossetian".

Genetics

In a study conducted in 2014 by Gennady Afanasiev, Dmitry Korobov and Irina Reshetova from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, DNA was extracted from bone fragments found in seven out of ten Alanic burials on the Don River. Four of them turned out to belong to yDNA Haplogroup G2 and six of them possessed mtDNA haplogroup I.

In 2015, the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow conducted research on various Sarmato-Alan and Saltovo-Mayaki culture Kurgan burials. In these analyses, the two Alan samples from the fourth to sixth century AD turned out to belong to yDNA haplogroups G2a-P15 and R1a-z94, while two of the three Sarmatian samples from the second to third century AD were found to belong to yDNA haplogroup J1-M267 while one belonged to R1a. Three Saltovo-Mayaki samples from the eighth to ninth century AD turned out to have yDNA corresponding to haplogroups G, J2a-M410 and R1a-z94.

A genetic study published in Nature Communications in March 2017 examined several Sarmatian individuals buried in Pokrovka, Russia (southwest of the Ural Mountains) between the fifth century BC and the second century BC. The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1b1a2a2. This was the dominant lineage among males of the earlier Yamnaya culture. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the haplogroups U3, M, U1a'c, T, F1b, N1a1a1a1a, T2, U2e2, H2a1f, T1a, and U5a1d2b. The Sarmatians examined were found to be closely related to peoples of the earlier Yamnaya culture and to the Poltavka culture.

A genetic study published in Nature in May 2018 examined the remains of twelve Sarmatians buried between 400 BC and 400 AD. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1, I2b, R (two samples), and R1. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to C4a1a, U4a2 (two samples), C4b1, I1, A, U2e1h (two samples), U4b1a4, H28, and U5a1.

A genetic study published in Science Advances in October 2018 examined the remains of five Sarmatians buried between 55 AD and 320 AD. The three samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1a and R1b1a2a2 (two samples), while the five samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup H2a1, T1a1, U5b2b (two samples), and D4q.

A genetic study published in Current Biology in July 2019 examined the remains of nine Sarmatians. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup Q1c-L332, R1a1e-CTS1123, R1a-Z645 (two samples), and E2b1-PF6746, while the nine samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup W, W3a, T1a1, U5a2, U5b2a1a2, T1a1d, C1e, U5b2a1a1, U5b2c, and U5b2c.

A archaeogenetic study published in Cell in 2022, analyzed 17 Late Sarmatian samples from 4-5th century AD from the Pannonian Basin in Hungary. The nine extraced Y-DNA belonged to a diverse set of haplogroups, 2x I2a1b1a2b1-CTS4348, 2x I1a2a1a1a-Z141, I1a-DF29, G2a1-FGC725, E1b1b-L142.1, R1a1a1b2a2a1-Z2123 and R1b1a1b1a1a2b-PF6570, while the mtDNA haplogroups C5, H, 2x H1, H5, H7, H40, H59, HV0 I1, J1, 2x K1a, T1a, 2x T2b, U2.

Appearance

In the late second or early third century AD, the Greek physician Galen declared that Sarmatians, Scythians, and other northern peoples had reddish hair. They are said to owe their name (Sarmatae) to that characteristic.

The Alans were a group of Sarmatian tribes, according to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus. He wrote that nearly all the Alani were "of great stature and beauty, their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are frighteningly fierce".

Sarmatism

Main article: Sarmatism

Sarmatism (or Sarmatianism) is an ethno-cultural concept with a shade of politics designating the formation of an idea of the origin of Poland from Sarmatians within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility (szlachta) that existed in times of the Renaissance to the eighteenth centuries. Together with another concept of "Golden Liberty", it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranic Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of Slavic lands in antiquity.

Tribes

• Alans
• Aorsi
• Arcaragantes
• Hamaxobii (possibly)
• Iazyges
• Limigantes
• Ossetians
• Roxolani
• Saii
• Serboi
• Siraces
• Spali
• Taifals (possibly)

See also

• List of ancient Iranian peoples
• Andronovo culture
• Alans
• Cimmerians
• Early Slavs

Sources

Books

• Brzezinski, Richard; Mielczarek, Mariusz (2002). The Sarmatians 600 BC–AD 450. Men-At-Arms (373). Bloomsbury USA; Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-485-6.
• Davis-Kimball, Jeannine; Bashilov, Vladimir A.; Yablonsky, Leonid T. (1995). Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age. Berkeley: Zinat Press. ISBN 978-1-885979-00-1.
• Day, John V. (2001). Indo-European origins: the anthropological evidence. Institute for the Study of Man. ISBN 978-0941694759.
• Hinds, Kathryn (2009). Scythians and Sarmatians. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-0-7614-4519-7.
• Istvánovits, Eszter; Kulcsár, Valéria (2017). Sarmatians: History and Archaeology of a Forgotten People. Schnell & Steiner. ISBN 978-3-7954-3234-8.
• Kozlovskaya, Valeriya (2017). The Northern Black Sea in Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01951-5.
• Kuzmina, Elena Efimovna (2007). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. BRILL. pp. 50, 51, 56, 64, 78, 83, 220, 410. ISBN 978-90-04-16054-5.
• Melyukova, A. I. (1990). Sinor, Denis (ed.). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Vol. 1. Translated by Crookenden, Julia. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York City, United States: Cambridge University Press. p. 97-117. ISBN 978-0-521-24304-9.
• Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2000). "Remarks on the Presence of Iranian Peoples in Europe and Their Asiatic Relations". Collectanea Celto-Asiatica Cracoviensia. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka. pp. 105–107. ISBN 978-8-371-88337-8.
• Sinor, Denis, ed. (1990). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-24304-9.
• К.Ф. Смирнов. Сарматы и утверждение их политического господства в Скифии. Рипол Классик. ISBN 978-5-458-40072-5.
• Sulimirski, Tadeusz (1970). The Sarmatians. Ancient People and Places, vol. 73. Praeger.

Journals

• Абрамова, М. П. (1988). "Сарматы и Северный Кавказ". Проблемы сарматской археологии и истории: 4–18.
• Damgaard, P. B.; et al. (May 9, 2018). "137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes". Nature. Nature Research. 557 (7705): 369–373. Bibcode:2018Natur.557..369D. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0094-2. PMID 29743675. S2CID 13670282. Retrieved April 11, 2020.
• Genito, Bruno (1988). "The Archaeological Cultures of the Sarmatians with a Preliminary Note on the Trial-Trenches at Gyoma 133: a Sarmatian Settlement in South-Eastern Hungary (Campaign 1985)" (PDF). Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli. 42: 81–126.
• Gnecchi-Ruscone, Guido Alberto; Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna; Koncz, István; Csiky, Gergely; Rácz, Zsófia; Rohrlach, A. B.; Brandt, Guido; Rohland, Nadin; Csáky, Veronika; Cheronet, Olivia; Szeifert, Bea (2022-04-14). "Ancient genomes reveal origin and rapid trans-Eurasian migration of 7th century Avar elites". Cell. 185 (8): 1402–1413.e21. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.03.007. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 35366416.
• Järve, Mari; et al. (July 11, 2019). "Shifts in the Genetic Landscape of the Western Eurasian Steppe Associated with the Beginning and End of the Scythian Dominance". Current Biology. Cell Press. 29 (14): 2430–2441. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.019. PMID 31303491.
• Harmatta, J. (1970). "Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians". Acta Antique et Archaeologica. XIII.
• Krzewińska, Maja; et al. (October 3, 2018). "Ancient genomes suggest the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe as the source of western Iron Age nomads". Science Advances. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 4 (10): eaat4457. Bibcode:2018SciA....4.4457K. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat4457. PMC 6223350. PMID 30417088.
• Клепиков, В. М.; Скрипкин, А. С. (1997). "Ранние сарматы в контексте исторических событий Восточной Европы". Донские древности. 5: 28–40.
• Козлова, Р. М. (2004). О Сормах, Сарматах, Сорматских горах. Студії з ономастики та етимології (in Ukrainian).
• Lebedynsky, Iaroslav (2002). Les Sarmates: amazones et lanciers cuirassés entre Oural et Danube, VIIe siècle av. J.-C.-VIe siècle apr. J.-C. Errance. ISBN 978-2-87772-235-3.
• Mordvintseva, Valentina I. (2015). "Сарматы, Сарматия и Северное Причерноморье" [Sarmatia, the Sarmatians and the North Pontic Area] (PDF). Вестник древней истории [Journal of Ancient History]. 1 (292): 109–135.
• Mordvintseva, Valentina I. (2013). "The Sarmatians: The Creation of Archaeological Evidence". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 32 (2): 203–219. doi:10.1111/ojoa.12010.
• Moshkova, M. G. (1995). "A brief review of the history of the Sauromatian and Sarmatian tribes". Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age: 85–89.
• Perevalov, S. M. (2002). "The Sarmatian Lance and the Sarmatian Horse-Riding Posture". Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia. 40 (4): 7–21. doi:10.2753/aae1061-195940047. S2CID 161826066.
• Rjabchikov, Sergei V. (2004). "Remarks on the Scythian, Sarmatian and Meotian Beliefs". AnthroGlobe Journal.
• Симоненко, А. В.; Лобай, Б. И. (1991). "Сарматы Северо-Западного Причерноморья в I в. н. э.". Погребения знати у с. Пороги (in Russian).
• Unterländer, Martina; et al. (March 3, 2017). "Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe". Nature Communications. Nature Research. 8 (14615): 14615. Bibcode:2017NatCo...814615U. doi:10.1038/ncomms14615. PMC 5337992. PMID 28256537.

External links

• Yatsenko, S. A. (1992). "CLOTHING vii. Of the Iranian Tribes on the Pontic Steppes and in the Caucaus". CLOTHING vii. Of the Iranian Tribes – Encyclopaedia Iranica. Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. V, Fasc. 7. pp. 758–760.
• Ptolemaic Map (Digital Scriptorium)
• Kurgans, Ritual Sites, and Settlements: Eurasian Bronze and Iron Age
• Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Sarmatians