The Scythians were a nomadic Iranian-speaking people indigenous to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Constantly at war with the more well known civilisations of Ancient Greece (and later the Roman Empire) to the west and the Persians to the south, these people are characterised typically as barbarians. True to form, they did make cups out of their enemies' skulls and shot arrows covered in poison and horseshit and went about pillaging and raiding, but they were also a very complex and artistic culture, commissioning exquisitely beautiful gold artifacts and burying their dead in magnificent monuments known as kurgans. Some kurgans even had female skeletons dressed in armor and having battle scars, indicating the egalitarian nature of Scythian society.
So, what did these fine people worship?
Well, we do know from Greek and Persian sources. Not terribly unbiased but in Herodotos' case he did try to paint them as a complex culture with royalty and client states and even castles. The gods of the Scythians were probably very similar to those of the Hindus and Zoroastrians due to their shared Proto-Indo-Iranian origin, albeit very different to modern practitioners of these religions. For example, the Top God was Tabiti, a female fire goddess; most top gods in both religions are male, though Hindus still have women tend to the fire and Zoroastrians envision their prophet as being birthed from flames.
The Pantheon offered by Herodotos was:
- Tabiti, queen of the gods. Equated by him with Hestia of all people.
- Papaios, the sky god and grandpapi of the Scythians themselves, though lesser to Tabiti. Equated with Zeus.
- Api, earth mother and bonafide Eldritch Abomination with snake/plant feet. Equated by Herodotos with Gaia or Echidna.
- Argimpasa, some sort of sky or love goddess that grants power to the Enarei, the Scythian androgynous priests. Equated with Aphrodite Urania
- Oitosyros, god equated with Apollo.
- Thagimasidas, god equated with Poseidon (since Scythians lived on the steppe, and this god ruled over the royal class, it seems likely that it was a horse god.)
- Targitaos, a heroic ancestor and heavily implied to be what Herodotos calls the "Scythian Hercules".
- "Scythian Ares", a currently unnamed god of war (no doubt a form of Iranian Vayu-Vata, as Lucian of Samosata attests that this god had two natures - as the wind (which brings life) and the sword(which brings death). Temples to Scythian Ares were also a representation of the axis mundi - Vayu-Vata was also a god of space and time), who might have had warrior woman priests, the basis for the Greek Amazons.
Though this strange and poorly understood religion did not survive the invasion of the Huns and conversions to Christianity (though conversely the Scythian-descended Alans seem to have brought "Ares" worship as far west as the Iberian Peninsula), the Ossetians have recorded the Nart Sagas, which may offer echoes of the ancient Scythian mythology.
See also Persian Mythology for more interesting information about the religion and mythology of another Iranian civilization further south and Altaic Mythology for the religions and mythologies of other nomadic peoples native to Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Note: when researching Scythian religion, be VERY careful due to Nazis and Turkic nationalists alike having tried to claim the Scythians as their own.note Fairly neutral sources include this
, this and this. And of course, don't forget to read their chapter in The Histories.
- Amazon Brigade: Probably the Trope Maker. The Scythians had warrior women, as related by Herodotos in The Histories plus other Greek historians, and confirmed by modern archeology. It so astonished the Greeks that many historians believe they inspired the legend of the Amazons.
- Ambiguous Gender: The Enarei, a class of priests led by Argimpasa, were described by Herodotus as males cursed with a "female" sickness that made them androgynous. Some have speculated this was nothing more than a fancy name for impotency. However, there's also some indication they were what now would be called transgender, third gender or something similar, as they're described to cross-dress and act "like women" (in the Greeks' conception), with the commentators explicitly saying the Scythians had a fluid concept of gender. It's not impossible some were intersex as well of course. These individuals were also described among their laity.
- Botanical Abomination: Monstrous plant-footed figurines found in kurgans seem to represent Api, the earth goddess.
- God of Fire: Tabiti, queen of the gods and goddess of the fire and the sun.
- God of Light:
- Tabiti is the queen of the gods and equated by Herodotus with the Greek Hestia. Often depicted with sun discs in images attributed to her, she is thought to either be a solar goddess or play a role similar to the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda and be the light from where all other gods spawned from.
- Artimpasa is thought to be a remnant of the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess.
- In spite of these, god Oitosyros (equated by Herodotus with Apollo) has also been suggested to be a sun god.
- God of Order: Tabiti, the queen of the gods, was also the goddess of the hearth and possibly also the sun. Its speculated that she held a role as a cosmic arbiter of order, extending to the social realm (Idanthyrsus did claim that she protected the king after all).
- God of Thunder: Both Targitaos and Thagimasidas stake a claim, the former due to etymological links to various Indo-European thunder gods and the latter to Avestan storm words.
- The High Queen: Tabiti is the queen of the gods, and is depicted in art with regal robes and wielding suns.
- The Marvelous Deer: The symbol of the Scythians was the stag. May have been symbolic of Tabiti herself, depending on who you ask.
- Matriarchy: Scythians' Top God was the goddess Tabiti, whereas in most other Indo-European pantheons its a male sky god who leads the gods. Their culture is believed to have inspired the Amazons, as they had more gender equality than most in the region, which included women warriors. For the Greeks it may have all been too unthinkable, so they concluded the Scythians had female rulers. In fact, they're mentioned as having kings.
- Mother Nature: Api, goddess of the Earth and water, whom the Scythians depicted as having plant feet. She also represented birthing and fertility more broadly. Myths held that she gave birth to all the very first living things. Api remained aloof and indifferent after this however, much like nature is often viewed as being.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: For one thing it's where gryphon myths started. They are depicted in gold in kurgans, as guardians or as hunting other animals.
- Top God: The queen of the gods was Tabiti, which Herodotus equated with the Greek Hestia; Papaios and Api, gods he equated with Zeus and Gaia respectively, rank beneath her.
