Sandakšatru
King of the Cimmerians
Reign640-c. 630s BC
PredecessorTugdamme
SuccessorPosition abolished (Scythian and Lydian defeat of the Cimmerians)
Diedunknown
DynastyTugdamme's dynasty
ReligionScythian religion (?)

Sandakshatru or Sandakuru (Akkadian: 𒁹𒊓𒀭𒁖𒆳𒊒, romanized: Sandakšatru or Sandakuru[1]) was the last known Cimmerian king.

Name

The name of this Cimmerian king is attested in a form which can be read as either Sandakšatru or Sandakuru, which are derived from a name in a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian Scythian language. The linguist János Harmatta reconstructed this original Cimmerian name as *Sandakuru, meaning "splendid son,"[2] while the Scythologist Askold Ivantchik derives the name Sandakšatru from a compound term consisting of the name of the Anatolian deity Šanta, and of the Iranian term -xšaθra[3]

Historical background

An Assyrian relief depicting Cimmerian mounted warriors

In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, a significant movement of the nomads of the Eurasian steppe brought the Scythians into Southwest Asia. According to Herodotus, this movement started when the Massagetae[4] or the Issedones[5] migrated westwards, forcing the Scythians to the west across the Araxes[6] and into the Caspian Steppe,[5][4] from where they displaced the Cimmerians.[6]

Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south through the Klukhor, Alagir and Darial passes in the Greater Caucasus mountains and reached Western Asia, where they would remain active for much of the 7th century BC.[7][5]

Reign

Around 680 BC, the Cimmerians separated into two groups, with their bulk having migrated to the west into Anatolia, while a smaller group remained in the east, in the area near the kingdom of Mannai and later migrated into Media.[8]

Sandakšatru was the son of the previous Cimmerian king, Tugdammi, who had led the western Cimmerian group into invading the kingdoms of Phrygia, which was destroyed by the Cimmerians, and Lydia, whose king Gyges died during the invasion of his kingdom, and into several conflicts with the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was the then superpower in Western Asia. After Tugdammi died of disease in 640 BC, Sandakšatru succeeded his father as the king of the western Cimmerian horde.[9][10]

After succeeding his father, Sandakšatru attempted to continue Tugdammi's attacks against Assyria but failed just like his father had.[3]

Lycian charioteer warriors.
A Thracian mounted warrior followed by a warrior on foot.

Attacks on Lydia

By the later part of the 7th century BC, the western Cimmerians were nomadising in Western Asia together with the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia.[11][5] In 637 BC, Sandakšatru's Cimmerians participated in another attack on Lydia, this time led by the Treres under their king Kōbos, and in alliance with the Lycians.[9] During this invasion, in the seventh year of the reign of Gyges's son Ardys, the Lydians were defeated again and for a second time their capital Sardis was captured, except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack.[12] Ardys's son and successor, Sadyattes, might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia.[12]

Final defeat of the Cimmerians

A relief depicting mounted Lydian warriors on slab of marble from a tomb.

The power of the Cimmerians eventually dwindled quickly after Tugdammi's death. Soon after these Cimmerian attacks on Lydia, with Assyrian approval[13] and in alliance with the Lydians,[14] the Assyrians' Scythian allies under their king Madyes entered Anatolia. They expelled the Treres from Asia Minor and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again. Following this, the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia[15] until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BC.[9][10] This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Sadyattes’s son, Ardys’s grandson, and Gyges's great-grandson, the king Alyattes of Lydia, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.[3][16][5]

Aftermath

Following this final defeat,[10] the Cimmerians likely remained in the region of Cappadocia, whose name in Armenian, Գամիրք Gamirkʿ, may have been derived from the name of the Cimmerians.[17] A group of Cimmerians might also have subsisted for some time in the Troad, around Antandrus,[17] until they were finally defeated by Alyattes of Lydia.[18] The remnants of the Cimmerians were eventually assimilated by the populations of Anatolia,[5] and they completely disappeared from history after their defeat by Madyes and Alyattes.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Sandak-šatru [CIMMERIAN RULER, SON OF TUGDAMMI] (RN)". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania.
  2. ↑ Harmatta, János (1996). "10.4.1. The Scythians". In Hermann, Joachim; de Laet, Sigfried (eds.). History of Humanity. Vol. 3. UNESCO. p. 181. ISBN 978-92-3-102812-0.
  3. 1 2 3 Ivantchik 1993, p. 95-125.
  4. 1 2 Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2000). "Remarks on the Presence of Iranian Peoples in Europe and Their Asiatic Relations". In Pstrusińska, Jadwiga [in Polish]; Fear, Andrew (eds.). Collectanea Celto-Asiatica Cracoviensia. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka. pp. 101–104. ISBN 978-8-371-88337-8.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2000). "The Cimmerian Problem Re-Examined: the Evidence of the Classical Sources". In Pstrusińska, Jadwiga [in Polish]; Fear, Andrew (eds.). Collectanea Celto-Asiatica Cracoviensia. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka. ISBN 978-8-371-88337-8.
  6. 1 2 Sulimirski & Taylor 1991, p. 553.
  7. ↑ Diakonoff 1985, p. 93.
  8. ↑ Ivantchik 1993, p. 57-94.
  9. 1 2 3 Spalinger, Anthony J. (1978). "The Date of the Death of Gyges and Its Historical Implications". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 98 (4): 400–409. doi:10.2307/599752. JSTOR 599752. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Tokhtas’ev 1991.
  11. ↑ Diakonoff 1985, p. 89-109.
  12. 1 2 Dale, Alexander (2015). "WALWET and KUKALIM: Lydian coin legends, dynastic succession, and the chronology of Mermnad kings". Kadmos. 54: 151–166. doi:10.1515/kadmos-2015-0008. S2CID 165043567. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  13. ↑ Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press. pp. 9. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9. A Scythian army, acting in conformity with Assyrian policy, entered Pontus to crush the last of the Cimmerians
  14. ↑ Diakonoff 1985, p. 126.
  15. ↑ Phillips, E. D. (1972). "The Scythian Domination in Western Asia: Its Record in History, Scripture and Archaeology". World Archaeology. 4 (2): 129–138. doi:10.1080/00438243.1972.9979527. JSTOR 123971. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  16. ↑ Ivantchik 2006, p. 151.
  17. 1 2 Sulimirski & Taylor 1991, p. 559.
  18. ↑ Leloux, Kevin (2018). La Lydie d'Alyatte et Crésus: Un royaume à la croisée des cités grecques et des monarchies orientales. Recherches sur son organisation interne et sa politique extérieure (PDF) (PhD). Vol. 1. University of Liège. Retrieved 5 December 2021.

Sources

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