Nomads and markets
Pastoral nomads are sometimes imagined as isolated and self-sufficient, but the Scythians were closely involved with exchange. The steppe lay between farmland, forest, mountains and the Mediterranean, and Scythian elites controlled routes, supplies of livestock and, in some areas, grain. What survives in burials, from imported wine jars to gold ornaments made by foreign craftsmen, shows how much they valued access to distant goods. The evidence is uneven, and many conclusions about trade have to be drawn from objects found in graves.
Greek colonies on the Black Sea
From around 600 BCE, Greek settlers, notably from Miletus in Ionia, founded colonies on the northern Black Sea coast. Olbia was established near the mouth of the Bug and Dnieper rivers, Pantikapaion on the Kerch Strait in Crimea, and Tanais at the mouth of the Don. Chersonesos, in the south-west of Crimea, was another important Greek city. These were not conquered by the Scythians, but they depended on the surrounding steppe and its peoples.
The Greek cities offered a harbour and a market. The Scythians and the peoples under their influence offered land, raw materials and protection. Relations were not always peaceful, since Herodotus tells of tensions and mentions a Greek-speaking Scythian king who was killed after taking part in Greek rites. Still, trade appears to have been steady for centuries.
Grain, and what else went north and south
Black Sea grain was a major export to the Aegean, and Athens in particular relied on imported cereals in the 4th century BCE. Part of this grain came from farming communities in the Scythian sphere, and Herodotus describes farmers within Scythian territory who grew wheat for sale. The Bosporan kingdom around Pantikapaion also produced grain. It is hard to say how much came directly from lands controlled by Scythian elites, but their cooperation helped keep the supply moving.
Other exports probably included dried and salted fish, hides, livestock, honey and wax, and enslaved people. Written sources are limited, and the proportions are uncertain. In return, the Scythians received:
- wine and olive oil, known from the many amphorae found in graves and settlements;
- fine painted pottery, sculpture and other forms of Greek sculpture and pottery;
- metalwork, jewellery and ornaments, including gold items produced to order.
Because the amphorae often carry stamps from specific cities or islands, archaeologists can trace the sources of wine and oil and the changing patterns of trade over time.
Gold and Greek craftsmen
Some of the finest gold objects found in Scythian kurgans in the north Black Sea region show Greek technique and sometimes Greek subjects, but with Scythian themes: horsemen, archers, hunting scenes and animals. Scholars generally think that Greek goldsmiths in the Bosporan cities made them for Scythian clients. Such pieces illustrate a market in which elite buyers on the steppe shaped the products of foreign workshops. This is one reason why the same site can contain both Greek vessels and local animal-style plaques.
Gold in the Scythian world also came from the east. The Altai and other mountain regions have gold deposits, and Greek tradition spoke of gold guarded by fantastic creatures in the far north. The details are legendary, but they hint at Greek awareness that precious metal came from distant places along steppe routes. As with the Thracian gold treasures of the western Black Sea, gold served as a way for rulers to display status and reward followers.
Money and coins
Coinage developed in the Greek cities of the Black Sea, where Olbia issued bronze money cast in the shape of arrowheads and dolphins, a local form that may have been linked to trade with nomadic neighbours. Some Scythian rulers, including a king named Scyles in the 5th century BCE and later kings in Crimea, are known from coins that follow Greek models. For comparison, the development of coin minting in Lydia and Greece belongs to a different setting, but the Scythian case shows how monetary ideas travelled across cultural lines. The Lydian gold coinage of Anatolia, among the earliest in the world, helped to set a pattern that spread widely.
Links across the steppe
Scythian-type culture stretched from the Danube to the Altai and Tuva. Herodotus describes a route to the east, with peoples between the Scythians and the far north-east, and says that traders needed interpreters speaking several languages. Archaeology supports a long chain of contacts rather than a single route. Items found in the frozen tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai include felt, Chinese silk, a Chinese mirror, a woollen textile in Persian style and cowrie shells from far to the south. Not every find shows direct trade, as goods might pass through many hands, but they show that nomads were linked to the Near East, Central Asia and China.
These early links are sometimes seen as forerunners of the later Silk Road trade routes, although the later system was larger, better organised and involved other peoples. It is fair to say that steppe nomads had been moving goods and ideas across Eurasia long before.
Economic life
Trade did not replace herding. It worked alongside it. Elites gained by controlling access, taking gifts or tribute, and distributing imported goods to followers. Ordinary herders and farmers probably saw less of these luxuries. In this respect the Scythians resemble other ancient economies in which prestige goods and basic goods moved through different channels.
The Scythian legacy in trade is thus one of connection: a mobile people at the junction of settled worlds, who both profited from and shaped the movement of goods and styles.