M.I. Artamonov, based on the data of archaeological research, justified doubts about the particulars of Herodotus in Scythian invasion of the land of the Cimmerians [5, с.13].

One way or another, in the VIII century BC Cimmerians penetrated the Near East, and behind them there also rushed Scythians. According to Assyrian sources [6, p. 23-26], in the period before 714 BC, the Cimmerians were able to defeat the army of Rusa I, king of Urartu. The Assyrians called them (Cimmerian), “gimirru” people. The Cimmerians used mainly large masses of light cavalry in the wars. Each man was a natural cavalryman and perfectly mastered the bow (Figures 1, 2). It provided Cimmerians victory in battle.

Figure 1 – Horseback archers Cimmerian. Drawing on the Etruscan vase.

Figure 2 – The Cimmerian, VII BC. Reconstruction. Artist E. Kraj.

“Gimirru” people created their own state in Asia Minor (Figure 3), which lasted for most of the VII century BC.

Figure 3 – The Assyrian Empire about 654 years BC, the Cimmerians and Scythians (On the map the location of these peoples’ areas are marked with red arrows)

But much and apparently the most part of the Cimmerians, once became under military pressure Scythians, rushed to Western Europe, where defeated,  conquered and then colonized and assimilated a number of tribes and peoples of the European natives. So completely the Cimmerians have not disappeared, and many of their distant descendants live in the modern world.

According to [7] the following European languages: “Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Armorican and the ancient Manx Gaelic are related languages, leading the beginning of the single Cimmerian or Celtic source”.

In this way S. Turner (1768 – 1847), highly erudite English history scientist, according to a huge number of sources when writing his papers, puts a sign of equality between the Celts and the Cimmerians.

Then Sharon Turner reports that according to the information of the ancient historians the Cimmerian reached the coast of the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and entered in Italy, where settled near Naples (Figure 4).

Figure 4 – The settlement of the Celtic tribes in the VI – III centuries BC.

The Galatians (Gauls), descendants of the Cimmerians, following the tradition of their ancestors, invaded Asia Minor again at the beginning of the III century BC and almost fifty years plundered and ravaged the neighboring regions. They were assimilated in the end. But in modern Turkey is still a historical region called Galatia.

The Cimbri, one of the people, whose ancestors were the Cimmerians, invaded the Roman Republic in alliance with other “barbarian” peoples of the South Baltic in 113 – 101 years BC [7]. They defeated the Roman’ forces for several times. The Cimbri were defeated by the Roman general Marius in 101 BC already directly in Italy at the Vertsell Battle (nowadays this city in northern Italy is called Vercelli) (Figure 5), and practically physically exterminated, including women and children.

Figure 5 – The Vertsell Battle. Artist J.B. Tiepolo (1725 – 1729), Italy.

The Romans took captive from 60 to 80 thousand people, mostly women and children. All of them were sold into slavery. The Cimbrians had disappeared from history forever [8, 9]. The allies of the Cimbri, the Teutons (people of German origin), were also defeated by the same Marius in Italy and almost completely cut the year before. The Teutons, as well as the Cimbri, were deleted from the history of mankind forever.

Let’s go back to the Scythians.

The map of the Scythia and neighboring peoples and tribes from VII to II century BC is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 – Scythia and its neighboring nations and tribes from VII to II century BC [10, p. 14].

According to Herodotus [1, IV, 6] the endonym of the Scythians of the Northern Black Sea was in following: “All the tribes are collectively called Scolots. The Greeks also call them Scythians”.

What were the Scythians-Scolots? What the appearance did they have?

The answers are in numerous finds made during the excavation of the Scythian burial mounds.

The remains of buried people were founded during the excavation of the Scythian burial mounds of the North Black Sea Coast. The appearance of the Scythians-Scolots has been restored by modern scientists (Figure 7).

                  a                                                                                                                             b                                                                        c

a – Skilur, the king of the Scythians (II century BC); b – a Scythian, Dnieper (V century BC); c – a Scythian woman (IV century BC).

Figure 7 – The external appearance of the Scythians-Scolots. Sculptural reconstruction by M.M. Gerasimov’s workshop

The results of hundreds of reconstructions of the external appearance of the European Scythians (Scolots, Sarmatian) and their Asian cousins ​​(Saks and other peoples) by the method of M.M. Gerasimov have shown that seemingly modern Russian people and the ancient Scythians are remarkably similar to each other and mainly relate to sufficiently close anthropological types although the Scythian peoples of the southern Russian steppes have a distinct anthropological differences between the steppe and forest steppe Scythian groups. This is fully consistent with the numerous images of Scythians, made by themselves.

What does science think about it?

According to the views of M.V. Lomonosov (1711 – 1765) [11, p.10] “… The Slavs and Wendy are all ancient Sarmatians.” Sarmatians (Sauromats) is akin to the Scythians-Scolots people [1, VI, 110-117]. The quote from the V.N. Tatishchev’ labor is presented in Figure 8 (1686 – 1750) [12, c. 398].

Figure 8 – Detail of the page 398 of V.N. Tatishchev’ labor [12].

D.I. Ilovajskij (1832 – 1920 years) concluded [13, VIII]: «In our opinion, there can be no doubt that Ros or Rus and Roksolans are the same name and the same people. The otherwise reprimand of Roksolans is Rossalans”.

According to [14], Roksolans was an alliance of pastoral Sarmatian tribes, lived in the North coast of the Azov Sea. Roksolans fought either in an alliance with the Scythians against the kingdom of Pontus nor against the Scythians themselves in II – I century BC. In any case, Roksolans were one of the Scythian peoples. So look ancient Sarmatians (Figure 9).

Figure 9 – The appearance of the Sarmatians. Sculptural reconstruction by T.S. Balueva. Southern Urals, Filippovsky mounds, V – IV century BC.

URL: http://organizmica.ru/archive/703/atrk.shtml

L. Niederle (1865 – 1944), an outstanding Czech slavicist, thought [214] that Herodotus’ Boudins [1, VI, 21, 102, 108] were probably Slavs. Boudins lived somewhere on the Desna river and in the middle reaches of the Don. Also L. Nederle applied Scythian farmers to the  Slavs [1, VI, 17, 18, 53, 54] (Figure 6).

V.G. Vernadsky (1887 – 1973 years) came to the following conclusion [215, II]:

“The ruling Scythian horde was probably of Iranian origin; some minor hordes could consist of Ugric peoples and the Mongols; and in the same way it is possible that other groups, known under the name of Scythians, – such as the Scythian-plowmen, –  were Proto-Slavic origin”.

Then he makes the assumption that the name of the people “Rus” is derived from the name of Sarmatian tribes Roksolana and Aorses (translated from the Iranian “light” and “white”, respectively) [16, III].

The leading Soviet and Russian slavicist, archaeologist academician B.A. Rybakov (1908 – n2001) [17] (Chapter “Scolots-Ancient Slavs”) makes the following conclusions:

- Scolots’ tribal alliance in the VII century BC entered the great federation of peoples, conventionally called Scythians;

- Scolots-ancient Slavs had a certain autonomy and their fortresses system protected them from nomads from the south;

- Ancient Slavs traded grain with the Greeks through the port of Olbia outside the Royal Scythians’ lands;

- an Ancient Slavs’ (Scolots’) culture eventually became much coalesce with Scythian;

- Slavs accepted the main elements of Scythian culture (weapons, harness, animal style in art, partially language).

Figure 10 shows the Scythians-Scolots (Ancient Slavs according to B.A. Rybakov).

1 – noble Scolot; 2 – Scolot warrior; 3 – Scolot-woman

Figure 10 – The Scythians-Scolots (Ancient Slavs). Reconstruction, V century BC. Artist Agnus McBride

Prominent Soviet skifologist B.N. Grakov in [18, p. 172] (Figure 11) concluded the full unity of language and culture of the Royal Scythians, nomadic Scythians and Scythian farmers. This finding is consistent with the information of Herodotus [1, IV, 5, 6].

Figure 11 – Detail of the page 172 of B.N. Grakov [18].

The pits and catacombs in the above quotation from the work [18] (Figure 11) are a kind of inhumation (burials), which were used by the ancient inhabitants of the Scythian Elizabethan settlement (located four kilometers from the city of Rostov-on-Don in the Don River Delta) at the burial of dead. At the steppes of Northern Black Sea the culture of pits preceded the catacomb, the heyday of which 2000 – 1500 years before AD. Archaeological cultures were identified by the method of burying the dead. Carcass culture had replaced the Catacomb culture (Scythian epoch). But there are pitchers of carcass culture in the catacomb tombs [19]. Availability of pits and catacomb burials in the same period of time may indicate that a significant part of the Scythian population was autochthonous, local, indigenous origin.

Professor A.A. Klesov, one of today’s leading Russian experts in the field of genetic genealogy (science, also called the DNA-genealogy, which allows men to see if they had common ancestor in the male line thanks to a special DNA test) says [20]:

“And if we in all fairness assume languages ​​in this context as a secondary factors, the picture will be quite clear: the Aryans, Scythians and Eastern Slavs are the same people in its natural chronological dynamics”.

What’s about the self-name of the Scythians, which are the Scolots? European Scythians, as well as their Asian counterparts are considered to be Iranian-Turkic people [21, p.7; 22, IV; 23]. But is it true?

The Scythians, as the Slavs, worshiped the solar disk. Circle, including the solar disk, in many ancient Slavic languages was called “kolo”.

The Russian language has a lot of different words that are derived from the word “kolo”: околоток, около, колокол, колодец, коловорот, коловращение, колесо, колено, кольцо, кол (support with a cross-section in the form of a circle), falcon (a bird, flying close to the sun, called as “so kolo”) and others. So, according to [23] the self-name of Scythian people “Scolots” probably means соколята (falcon chicks). A falcon was probably a totem bird of the ancient Slavs and the Rus. The questions of the totems and the falcons we will consider later, in the following publications.

From the sources [11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20] it is clear that a significant part of the European Scythians (Scolots and Sarmatians) could be the Slavs (ancient Slavs) and Russ. The Slavs and the Rus are different people. Differences between the Slavs and the Rus we also consider later, but among these nations they were quite clearly stated by L.N. Gumilyov [24, Part 2, VII, 37]. The second parts of the Scythians were the Saks came from the steppes. Persians called European Scythians as Saks-overseas. A Slavic language became common to the peoples of Scythia – Slavs, Rus and Saks – as a result of ethnogenesis, or the Scolots were a bilingual people.

N.D. Burlankov’ version [23] is quite logical and much more reliable, for example, then the German version of the famous slavicist M. Vasmer about the origin of the Russian word “изба” after the German “Stuba” [25].

The conclusions about the ethnogenesis of the Scolots you can do yourself.

Ancient pagan Scandinavian main group of Gods were Aesir. Aesir’s leader [1] was Woden (Odin) from the country of Aesirs, which was situated in Asia, which lay east of the river Tanaksvil (Tanaksvil is, apparently, river Don, which the ancient Greeks called Tanais). On the left bank of the Tanais began Asia, and on the right bank ended Europe. The capital of Woden was the city of Asgard.

Woden (the supreme god of Scandinavians and Germans), according to Sturluson, before he became a god, fought against the Romans. After the defeat, he was forced to flee and reached distant lands in the north of Europe. There, according to [1]: “… when Woden (Odin) and his dias [priests of the Ases] came to the Northern Countries, they began to teach people the arts that people have since mastered.”

In the new lands, Woden managed to introduce the laws of the country of Aesirs, his distant Fatherland. That is, the Scandinavians and Germans began to live according to the laws of the Aesir, alien to them, the people, whose representatives they deified. In this regard, a question arises as to how fierce and ruthless the Aesirs and their leader were, what made the ancient Scandinavians believe in their divine origin? Apparently, the cruelty of the Aces was unlimited, and all the doubters depicted exponentially. Therefore, the ancestors of the Scandinavians broadcast their lives [2]: “And I believe that Woden and his brothers are rulers in heaven and on earth.”

Recall that, in fact, the name of the supreme god of the Scandinavians is just a quantitative numeral in the Russian language.

About the son of Woden (Odin), the saga [2] reports: “At their head [gods] stands Thor, which is also called Asa Thor ...”. Scandinavians and Germans considered Thor the strongest among all the gods and people. His name, most likely, is simply the name of a wild bull – a mighty tour, exterminated in the Don steppes in the early Middle Ages.

However, who were the Aesirs who got from the steppes of Don River to Scandinavia? More than a thousand years after the appearance of Woden and the Aesirs in Sweden with real Aesirs, but not pagan gods, but the most ordinary Christians, V. de Rubruk [3, p.83], the monk and ambassador in 1253 – 1255 Louis XI, King of France, to the kagan, that is, the emperor, of the Mongolian Khaganate. The Aesirs by Rubruk are Alans. They became the ancestors of modern Ossetians, but were descendants of ancient Aryans and Scythians.

It should be noted that at the time, when Rubruk wrote, the country of the Alans- Aesirs was indeed located at the east of the Don.

T. Heyerdahl, the world-famous Norwegian traveler and scientist, believed that Woden (Odin), the leader of the people of the Aesirs, was forced to leave the Scythian lands at the Sea of Azov (Aesir) [4], and is it still called Azov Sea. During the third and last for the Pontian king Mithridates VI Eupator war against the Romans in 74 – 63 BC. his army was routed by the Roman legions. The king committed suicide. At the fig. 1 you can see the map of Pontus Kingdom.

Fig. 1.  Kingdom of Pontus from 302 to 64 BC.

Woden (Odin) most likely, was a devoted ally of Mithridates in his wars against Rome. Therefore, the leader of the Aesir with his retinue and with all his clan left the lands of Azov to avoid cruel punishment.

Woden (Odin) and Aesir departed far to the north [an excerpt from the saga is quoted from 4]: “… into a country that is now called Sweden. The name of the local king was Gulvi … he went out to meet them and said that Woden (Odin) can rule in his state … noble people saw that neither the beauty, nor the wisdom of the Aesir were not like any other people they had seen before. “

God Woden – Odin (in Old Norse O’ðinn), a native of the people of the Aesir (Ases, Azov), had a simple Russian name – it simply should be correctly stressed. The miniature depicting Woden (Odin) is shown in figure 2.

Fig.2. Woden (Odin) with two raven on his shoulder.

Miniature from the Icelandic manuscript (XVIII century) 

Woden (Odin) civilized the Germans just as long before him the Chinese their first “Yellow Emperor” Huangdi [5].

Who are these Aesirs (Ases)? The Russians called Ases as Alans [6], the warlike Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes of the Sarmatian (Scythian) origin, who in the 1st century AD according to the Romans settled the lands of the Azov Sea and the North Caucasus. The Georgians called the Alans- Ossi, and their country-Ossetia.

However, it follows from [7] that the Aesir lived in the Azov Sea for a rather long time. Since according to [7, II, 16], the fifth century, Herodotus considered Asia to be a separate part of the world, probably derived from the country of the Aesir, bordering on the Don River, according to the concepts of the Greeks – the contemporaries of Herodotus, with the east of Europe. In addition to the above, there are, of course, other versions about the origin of the word Asia, which named the largest part of the world. Nevertheless, these versions are too contradictory.

We have to note that in the Old Slavic alphabet according to [8]: “As the first letter,  first person, I “.

Therefore, in ancient Russian, the word «Az» also means I – a personal place-the first-person estate of the singular.

Hence, between the Slavs, the Russians (the Slavs and the Russians are different folks [9, Pt. 2, VII, § 37], although close enough) and Ossetians (the modern self-designation of this people – the Alans), there are very ancient ties. What kind? We will analyze them in the next publications.

Let’s return to Woden (Odin), his ravens and Iranian-speaking Alans. According to Zoroastrism, the ancient religion of the Aryans of Iran, on the shoulders of each person were two invisible mythical ravens. The raven on the left shoulder inclined man to sin, and on the right – to righteous deeds. So far, in order to avoid any unpleasantness, we are modern Russian people, overwhelmingly right-glorious (verbatim), or orthodox thrice we spit through the left shoulder into a bad tempter bird whispering in our ears vile thoughts leading to trouble.

The memory of our distant ancestors lives in each Russian.

In modern Danish language, the word “ace”(Aesir) means an ace, a card of the highest dignity. As you know, in the card game the ace always beats the king, that is, the pagan gods of the second level are always stronger than any king.

We will repeat once again:

- in Old Slavonic the word “ ѻдинъ ” is just a quantitative number, and in Old Norse the word “O’ðinn” is the name of the supreme god;

- in Old Slavonic the word “Az” is the first letter of the alphabet (the Slavonic alphabet) and, simultaneously, the personal pronoun of the singular of the first person “I”, and in Old Norse the word “as (Aesir)” means younger gods and assistants of the supreme god Odin (Woden);

- Woden (Odin) and Aesirs were real people who lived in the Azov Sea in the I century BC. The high culture and unlimited cruelty of the Aesirs (Azov) and their leader “convinced” the ancient Scandinavians in their divine origin.

As you know, the skillful retinue, if desired, can play not only the king, but even God. However, for such a game, a rather wacky audience is required. Is it possible, even theoretically, that the Scandinavians, the descendants of savages for whom the ancient Aesirs became gods, could found a state in Russia in the 9th century?

The Georgian (Ossi) and Danish (Aesir) name of the Azes (Aesir) are very similar to the Russian plural number of the word AZ-AZY. Think for yourself, is this coincidence is coincidental, or the Slavs were part of the Alan community. Do not forget that the leader of the Aesir (Aces, Azy), who became the main god of the ancient Scandinavians, was called Odin (Woden).

If you want to find out new facts about the Scythians and the ancient Slavs see the publication [10], about Scythian cities, manners and customs – articles [11, 12].

From the above-mentioned material, we should make a completely logical conclusion that the so-called “Norman theory” about the origin of the Russian state is some age-old scientific insanity or political fraud [13]. The last is many times more likely.
 
FOR HELP AND CONTEMPLATION. The Swedish people are a product of mixing of two nationalities: Swedes (Germans) and Geats. The Geats lived in the south of Sweden (and in our time southern Sweden is called Goethe-Land, and its center is the city of Gothenburg). Swedes – to the north of the Gets, in our time the historical region where they lived in ancient times, is called Svealand [14]. The Geats are a very interesting ethnic community. It belonged to the ancient Hittites, who founded in the II millennium BC. mighty kingdom in Anatolia, the Scythian people of Massagetae, who at the end of the sixth century BC. extremely successfully repulsed the attack on them by the troops of the Persian king Cyrus II the Great.  Another people who lived in the north of the Balkan Peninsula and fought against Rome for two whole first centuries of the new era, the Romans called dacians, and the Greeks – Getae. The capital of the kingdom of the Dacians was Sarmisegetusa (Latin Sarmisegetusa). In its name you can clearly hear the self-name of the Dacians. Sarmats were related to Getae (dacians) and, apparently, also belonged to the Getae ethnic community. To her the attitude, most likely, also the Aesir (Aces, Azy). So the basis of the military valor of the Scandinavian Vikings was the Scythian blood of their distant ancestors and, at the same time, the gods. Therefore, in the course of a comparative study of Russian and Swedish history, there arises a completely natural and very interesting question: who, when and who brought them out of the dense wildness onto the high road of European civilization? And the solution of this question still still requires tremendous efforts of many honest and unselfish researchers.

The most surprising thing about the history of the German-Scandinavian gods, which were from the southern Russian steppes, is as follows. The insane and semi-literate German Fuhrer in the middle of the twentieth century (!) managed to declare the Germans as the highest race, apparently without even suspecting who the Aesir (Ases) were originally from the Azov Sea for the ancestors of the Germans. Many Germans, even more surprisingly, sincerely believed in this wild delirium of Hitler. That is, the supreme god of the ancient Germans, first of all the Scandinavians, was a warlike and competent leader with a beautiful Russian name Odin (Scandinavian O’ðinn). The leader’s name fully corresponded to his social position among his people – the Aesir.

Hitler, fond of mysticism and German paganism, despite the elementary logic flowing from his hobbies, attacked the power of the descendants of the ancient Aesir (Ases), the descendants of the pagan gods of the Germans. He did not think about what would happen if on the side of the Aesir, Wodan (Odin) himself entered the battle against the enemies.

For such an unpardonable barbarous stupidity committed in the civilized twentieth century, the German people were severely punished – Germany, after the defeat in World War II, was occupied by foreign troops and deprived, to this day, of sovereignty.

During the Great Patriotic War, not only Russians but also representatives of virtually all peoples of the USSR, including Ossetians, fought against the fascists in the Red Army. The Ossetians who raided the German army in the Red Army were quite possibly relatives or even direct descendants of the ancient German gods. Similarly, probably the descendants of the Aesir – the pagan gods of the “higher race” – there were many among the Russians.

From the stated above, very simple conclusions follow.

1. Apparently, it is impossible for ordinary mortal Germans to encroach on the lives of Russians and Ossetians – very distant relatives and descendants of ancient pagan Germanic gods. For the Germans, the war against the Russian state is a pride, a terrible mortal sin, cruelly punished by higher powers.

2. And, if to say seriously, then no one should go to Germanic or any other Fuhrer until he has at least learned at school the history of his own folk. Otherwise for his life will come the distant descendants of the “divine” Aces (Aesir).