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Concept
Massagetae
Summary
The Massagetae or Massageteans, also known as Sakā tigraxaudā or Orthocorybantians were an ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures. The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they kickstarted a series of events with wide-reaching consequences by expelling the Scythians out of Central Asia and into the Caucasian and Pontic Steppes. The Massagetae are most famous for their queen Tomyris's alleged defeating and killing of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
The Massagetae declined after the 3rd century BCE, after which they merged with some other tribes to form the Alans, a people who belonged to the larger Sarmatian tribal confederation, and who moved westwards into the Caucasian and European steppes, where they participated in the events of the Migration Period.
The name is the Latin form of the Ancient Greek name (Massagetai).
The Iranologist Rüdiger Schmitt notes that although the original name of the Massagetae is unattested, it appears that the most plausible etymon is the Iranian . is the plural form, containing the East Iranian suffix , which is reflected in Greek . The singular form is and is composed of the Iranian and , meaning "fish," derived from Young Avestan (; cognate with Vedic ). The name literally means "concerned with fish," or "fisherman." This corresponds with the remark made by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (1.216.3) that "they live on their livestock and fish." Schmitt notes that objections to this reasoning, based on the assumption that, instead of , a derivation from Iranian "fish" (compare Ossetian кӕф ()) would be expected, is "not decisive." Schmitt states that any other interpretations on the origin of the original Iranian name of the Massagetae are "linguistically unacceptable.
Official source
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