Cimmerians

Cimmerians
Cimmerians
	The Cimmerian migrations across West Asia
Common languages	Scythian
Religion	Scythian religion (?); Ancient Iranic religion (?); Luwian religion (?)
Government	Monarchy
King
• Unknown–679 BC	Teušpâ
• 679–640 BC	Dugdammî
• 640–630s BC	Sandakšatru
Historical era	Iron Age
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex
	Phrygia
Lydia
Scythians

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The Cimmerians were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.^[1]

The Cimmerians themselves left no written records, and most information about them is largely derived from Neo-Assyrian records of the 8th to 7th centuries BC and from Graeco-Roman authors from the 5th century BC and later.

^ Tokhtas’ev 1991: "As the Cimmerians cannot be differentiated archeologically from the Scythians, it is possible to speculate about their Iranian origins. In the Neo-Babylonian texts (according to D’yakonov, including at least some of the Assyrian texts in Babylonian dialect) Gimirri and similar forms designate the Scythians and Central Asian Saka, reflecting the perception among inhabitants of Mesopotamia that Cimmerians and Scythians represented a single cultural and economic group"

[Tokhtas’evNeoBabylonian-1] Tokhtas’ev 1991: "As the Cimmerians cannot be differentiated archeologically from the Scythians, it is possible to speculate about their Iranian origins. In the Neo-Babylonian texts (according to D’yakonov, including at least some of the Assyrian texts in Babylonian dialect) Gimirri and similar forms designate the Scythians and Central Asian Saka, reflecting the perception among inhabitants of Mesopotamia that Cimmerians and Scythians represented a single cultural and economic group"

[1]