Babylon in the Forest-steppe

This ancient settlement in the Poltava re -gion is indicated on the maps of the General Staffquite precisely. It is not surprising because thelength of its ramparts amounts to more than thir-ty three kilometers2. Let me remind you that theperimeter of the walls of Assyrian Nineveh underwhich Scythians under the command of kingMadius distinguished themselves amounted“only” to twelve kilometers. A huge triangle withits apex to the South surrounded by high rampartsalong the perimeter occupies the area of aboutforty square kilometers. It is by five times morethan the mentioned above city in distant Me so po -ta mia and almost by ten times more than the glo-rious city of Kyiv in the 13th century. In the west-ern and eastern parts of the ancient settlementthere are two citadels which are separated withramparts from the internal part of fortifications.

The dimensions of the citadels are alsovery impressive – the perimeter of the walls ofthe eastern one amounts to four kilometers. Now

M aking the lands of Ukraine habitable a few centuries ago, our ancestors paid attention to the remains of fortifi-cations the origin of which was not known. You could encounter ancient abandoned fortresses and towns in thelands from the Dniester and the boundaries of Polissya in the West to Slobozhanshchyna in the East. Even an

appropriate word appeared – “Gorodysche” “ancient settlement1” which later became an official name of some populatedareas. And ancient earth mounds also attracted attention; this is how numerous villages with the name “Valky” appeared.

When archeologists began studying all these earth mounds and ancient settlements in earnest, they determinedthat most of them had been built long before the appearance of not only Ukraine, but also Rus on the pages of chron-icles. Now the age of the construction of these ancient fortresses is called “Scythian” or the early Iron Age (shortly theEIA). Since the age is Scythian, the ancient settlements are also called “Scythian”. However, in reality Scythians, as arule, had nothing to do with their construction at all.

In fact, Scythians at their time most likely wished these huge fortresses had never been built, but when it hap-pened after all, they applied great effort, sometimes vain ones, to capture or destroy them. In those ancient times theirneighbors didn’t have a wide choice in the relations with nomads: either to be robbed and pay tribute or to protect them-selves. One day the residents of the forest-steppe decided not to pay the new rulers of the steppes and protected them-selves in a rather successful way.

1 That is a place where there was a town, remains of an ancient fortified settlement — ukrainian “Gorodysche”.2 The Belsk ancient settlement and its study till the 1980s of the 20th century are described in detail in the monograph of the scientist

who has been researching this outstanding monument for a few decades: Б. А. Шмарко Бельское городище скифской эпохи(город Гелон). — Киев, 1987. — 183 с. (B. A. Shmarko The Belsk ancient settlement of the Scythian Age (the city of Helonus)).

The Belsk ancient settlement, also calledthe city of Helonus, on the map of the

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the height of ramparts still equals from three to five metersand taking into account the deep (up to 3.5 m) ditch, eveneight. Excavations showed that there was also a wall ofwood along the rampart which was filled with ground and

clay inside and the initial depth of the ditch equaled 5.6 m.These fortifications were repaired and lengthened a fewtimes. Even a chariot could go on the fortress wall (its widthequaled three meters) just like on the walls of Nineveh.

The entrance to the fortification was guarded by awooden tower which leant on the edges of a ground mound.The width of the gate amounted to about eight meters andthe edges of the entrance were faced with masonry so thatthe passing carts didn’t catch on the walls. You could stopthe enemy who forced through in this long corridor of thegate. In the western fortification in front of the gate a ditchwas dug; it was possible to cross it over a wooden bridge.Excavations showed that the construction of a grandiosefortress started with these two citadels.

Then they began building the main rampart of “theGreat Belsk ancient settlement”. Its length amounted tomore than 25 km. And now its height equals from 5.4 to 7 m and in ancient times it was even higher. If you alsoadd the depth of the ditch which amounted to 9.5 m fromthe bottom of the rampart, then the total height amounts tomore than 16 meters.

Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

Reconstruction of fortifications of the Liubotynancient settlement according to the findings of the excavations by B.A. Shramko

Reconstruction of a wall which was built on a rampartof the ancient settlement according to the findings ofthe excavations by B.A. Shramko

Ramparts of the Belsk ancient settlement in the Poltavaregion (according to the findings of the excavations byB.A. Shramko)

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Even in those ancient settlements where rampartswere at first sight of a small height, at the bottom of arather wide ditch which was not noticeable from a dis-tance, an unpleasant surprise in the form of sharp stakesmight as well wait for invaders. To get over such an obsta-cle was difficult not only in a mounted formation, but alsoin a dismounted formation, moreover, under the fire ofarchers who hid on the fortress wall.

The builders of ancient fortresses took care of watersupply as well. In the northern-eastern part of the Belskancient settlement the rampart was blocked by a steepbank creating a weir on a small stream. Small rivers ranthrough some of the ancient settlements, for instance, thePastyrske one. So, in case of a siege, the defenders werenot supposed to have any problems with water.

At first archeologists couldn’t believe that all the ter-ritory of huge ancient settlements was once inhabited. Asfar back as forty years ago many scientists thought thatthis territory was surrounded with ramparts with the onlypurpose of constructing a winter shelter for cattle.However, long-term excavations (which still continue) notonly made it possible to determine the time of the con-struction of different parts of settlements, but also todetermine the building density, which gave an idea of thepossible number of their residents.

It turned out that the housing development of ancientsettlements was based on farmsteads. Each farmstead con-sisted of a few buildings both residential and utility oneswhich were surrounded by fences. The area of farmsteads,judging by the excavations of the Eastern fortification,was quite different from 169 to 1,480 square meters. Inthe Motronynske ancient settlement the average area offarmsteads amounted to seven hundred square meters,which corresponds to the modern standards for urban-typesettlements.

Dwellings were quite diverse. The remains of ordi-nary rectangular buildings with a framework structurewere found. Ancient builders gladly used wood for mak-ing blockhouses. Archeologists even found two-storiedbuildings with a dwelling on the second floor and utilityrooms on the lower level.

In many ancient settlements they found roundedbuildings the roof of which was supported by a post dugin the center of the room. But these are in no way theremains of nomad’s tents because they were dug in theground. A rectangular tambour through which peoplewent into a dwelling adjoined a room of the rounded formwith a diameter of 3 or 4 m. The construction of a roofwas also supported by walls which were situated at a cer-tain distance from the timbered walls of the foundationpit. This way they increased the useful area under the roof.In big farmsteads (with the area of more than 700 squaremeters) where archeologists found a few dwellings mostoften about 20 or 25 residents could live, according to theestimates of the researchers.

Between farmsteads there were lanes with the widthfrom two to three or four meters. Of course, they were notvery smooth and intersected not at a right angle. On theother hand, let’s not forget that as far back as the eigh-teenth century all Kyiv Podil had as many as three streetsand according to the opinion of modern scientists, theywere rather curved. The widest lanes led to the gate. Infront of the gate there might be large squares which weremore necessary not for trade, but for the formation of thearmy before setting out. Of course, there could be unde-veloped squares in the center of a settlement as well.

With the exception of lanes and undeveloped sitesnear fortifications, about 30% of the territory of ancientsettlements was left for building farmsteads. It means,that, for example, in Belsk the number of farmsteads

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

A farmstead in the Motronynske ancient settlement. Reconstruction on the basis of the findings of excavations(according to S.A. Skoryi)

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could amount to fifteen or twentythousand. So, according to the mostmodest estimates, from a few dozen toone hundred and more thousand peo-ple could stay on the territory of“Poltava Babylon” at the same time.Whether they lived there permanentlyor could hide in case of danger isanother question. In any case, the pro-tection of such immense fortificationsrequired thousands of warriors, other-wise the construction of multikilome-ter ramparts and walls would be awaste of time.

When were ramparts made andmultikilometer walls of the biggestfortress of Europe of the early IronAge built? The construction started asfar back as the 8th century and lasted inthe 7th century and repair work lasted

Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

Reconstruction of rounded dwellings of the early Iron Age, Britain. The remains of similar buildings were found inmany ancient settlements of the early Iron Age on the territory of the Land

The plan of the Nemyriv ancientsettlement and Scythian points ofarrows which were found on itsterritory. The 6th century BC

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in the 6th century as well. So, the construction ofthe Belsk ancient settlement was started in thoseancient times when Cimmerians had no plans tomove to “the country Gamirra” yet and unclearrumors about the invincible Scythians werebrought by trade caravans from the depth of Asia.The construction was accelerated (and extended)when the situation changed with the appearance ofScythian hordes in the steppes.

Similar ancient settlements are known near Kyiv(Khotiv, Khodosivka ancient settlements) and Pereiaslav,in Liubotyn and Trakhtemyrov, in many places on bothbanks of the Dnieper – the Borisfen. When the destroyersof Nineveh came back from Asian campaigns, “PoltavaBabylon” (and numerous smaller fortresses) seemed to bequite ready to meet the unexpected guests.

In these days in the outskirts of Nemyriv in theVinnytsia region you can see powerful, multimeter ram-parts which protected the territory with the area of twosquare kilometers two and a half thousand years ago.They are quite noticeable even on pictures which aretaken from a satellite! One thing is for sure, as far backas one and a half thousand years before the first Kyivknyazes, sovereigns (tsars, kings?), in other words,powerful rulers of residents from different tribes ofPodillya, the Cherkasy region, the Poltava region whosenames we don’t know had many more material andhuman resources than the rulers of Rus in the period ofits highest power.

Can an ancient settlement be considered a town?

Quite a legitimate question arises: are theregrounds to call these huge and probably densely popu-lated fortresses “towns”? At first sight dugouts and two-storied blockhouses even if they are surrounded by pow-erful ground ramparts and wooden walls don’t look likea town if compared with the towns of Hellas, to say noth-ing about the Far East. If you consider a town to be apopulated area where many people live (in Ukraine thislevel equals 10,000 residents now) which is an econom-

ic, administrative, military and religious center of a con-siderable territory, then the answer is positive: thus, for-tified ancient settlements of the early Iron Age are real-ly towns.

There are also monumental buildings here: these arefortifications themselves in which enormous material andhuman resources were invested. Dozens of thousands ofsquare meters of wood were used for the walls of each

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

The Nemyriv ancient settlement (the Vinnytsiaregion) in space pictures

Excavations of dugouts of the Scythian time in thePastyrske ancient settlement

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fortress and the scope of earthwork operations (diggingwithout the use of any machines, manually) boggles theimagination even now. The fact that there are no stonetemples, ziggurats, big palaces suggests only the differ-ence of the cultural tradition from the one of the East orHellas.

Eventually, the local community found it necessaryto invest their resources in the buildings which were themost essential for that moment. And a thirty kilometerfortress wall sometimes looks like a much more con-vincing symbol of power and wealth for too bellicoseneighbors than a beautiful temple made of marble and

decorated with gold and silver. It is more likely that sucha temple can only do harm if it strikes the eye of hungryneighbors.

It is thought that towns are the centers of craftsman'sindustry, which actually feeds their residents. However,even the resident of medieval Kyiv couldn’t do withoutvegetable gardens, hayfields, apiaries and other subsidiaryhusbandry. Even in the streets of a province city includingLipki as far back as the first half of the 19th century therewere domestic animals, and the local authorities tried invain (at least during the visit of the sovereign-emperor) totake away dirty pigs from pools. What can we say aboutthe residents of the Belsk ancient settlement who weremuch closer to the land in a literal meaning of this expres-sion. Their farmsteads were buried in verdure of fruittrees; stones of apples and pears were found. Trees notonly served as decoration and protection from the sun anddust, but also fed them; ovens for drying fruit were found.

And all the same residents brought food not onlyfrom fields, vegetable gardens and orchards near theirdwellings. Numerous traces of craftsman’s industry:different workshops connected with leather, bone andhorn working, weaving and pottery were found. Smithsincluding armorers also worked in the settlement. Allthe range of labor instruments and tools were forged ofiron – from sickles and tine points to wood cutters.Metal was made of brown iron ore and bloomery fur-naces were placed on the territory of the settlement.Skillful craftsmen knew all the techniques of iron work-ing – from hardening to carburization. Only in the Belskancient settlement they found more than 40 kinds ofproducts of iron including swords, battle axes, points ofspears and plates for armor.

Just like in ancient times bronze casting productionwas flourishing. Only now it was connected first of all

Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

Excavations of the remains of dwellings with ovens,the Basivka ancient settlement

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with the production of adornments, especially forhorse harnesses. Foundries also worked for thedefense industry making bronze points of arrows.Copper from the brought ore was smelted on-site;they didn’t reject ingots of metal and metal scrapeither which were accumulated in a workshop. Theyalso found the traces of jewelry production in whichgold was used.

Such production is impossible without thewidest trade relations. First you need to get raw mate-rials and then to sell products. Since the scales of theproduction of craftsman’s products was rather large andwere intended not only for the residents of the settlement.Of course, most buyers lived and worked in the outskirts.Local jewelers or smiths, to say nothing about potters orweavers, hardly had any chances to sell their productssomewhere in the South in a profitable way.

The following products came from Hellene townsto the Forest-steppe: wine, ceramic and metal vessels,glass beads, jewelry, in other words, a typicalrange of goods when trading with an underdevel-oped region. You can study the intensity of trade rela-tions and the condition of the economy of poleis on theshores of the Pontus and even in the distantMediterranean basing on the fragments ofamphorae and marks on them (to be more pre-cise, basing on the number of containers).

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

Fragments of amphorae, containers forimported strong drinks and oil which were

found in a forest-steppe settlement of theScythian time

Fragments of pottery of the Basivka ancientsettlement

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Sometimes the journey with another batch of goodsto the distant North ended in a tragic way and not becauseof perfidious robbers. In the high-water bed of the riverSupoy, in the layer of peat they found the remains of a sin-gle-tree boat loaded with a luxurious (and rather expen-sive even in those times) set for drinking wine which con-sisted of a dozen and a half gilded bronze vessels. Theskeleton of the unlucky trader was found nearby – the boatoverturned and went to the bottom together with its cargoof precious vessels. A few rings with seals were found inthe Belsk ancient settlement. They might as well belong toHellene merchants who came to the North with a batch ofgoods. And maybe they were ordered from Hellenes bylocal traders in order to attach a seal to agreements and tobales of goods? Trade was respected by residents ofancient settlements and the local authorities: many fortifi-cations were built in such a way so as to cover ancient(although some of them were used as far back as the17th–the 18th century) routes.

The outskirts of a town

It is widely thought that around a “real” town theremust be a lot of villages which in exchange for productsmade by craftsmen provide toilers-town residents withfoodstuff. Since the outskirts of the Belsk ancient settle-ment were studied rather thoroughly, using this example,we will try to show what the system of settlement couldlook like in ancient times.

When all the settlements of the appropriate timewere indicated on the map by archeologists, it turned outthat among them there were not only villages of graingrowers and cattle-breeders (there were hundreds ofthem), but also plenty of fortified ancient settlements. Inthe radius of up to 100 km around Belsk there were morethan fifty(!) ancient settlements. They were situated most-ly along the banks of rivers which fell into the Dnieper orthe Seversky Donets. Belsk itself is situated in a strategi-cally important place where the route from the upperreaches of the Donets to the Dnieper lay.

Among ancient settlements there are rather big oneswhich can also be called towns and small ones whichcould be fortresses. Around them there are open villages.All ancient settlements cover some routes which lie alongrivers or across watersheds. The distance between fortifi-cations doesn’t exceed, as a rule, 11 or 17 km. So, eventhe slowest caravan with well-loaded carts taking intoaccount the bad conditions of ancient roads could findprotection, shelter and lodging for the night within oneday. All this system looks as organized as the one of theGreat Silk Road the order and safety of which was assuredby big and civilized states of the past.

However, the rulers of Belsk didn’t limit them-selves to building ancient settlements of different sizes.

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Excavations of the remains of a porter’s furnace in asettlement of the early Iron Age

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They created a system of the defense of thecountry’s frontiers which forewentfor one thousand years thesystem of Serpent's Wallwith the help of whichKyiv knyazes tried tofence themselves offfrom the raids of steppehordes. It’s worth notingthat the rulers of theScythian Age were sometimesmuch better strategists thantheir distant descendants.

Where the Muravsky Trailwhich is sadly known for Tatar raids comes to theSouthern boundaries of the Forest-steppe, it crosses thewatershed between the rivers Mzha andKolomak. The crossing is rather narrow hereand is limited by swampy valleys of the rivers.Exactly in this place as far back as the early IronAge they made a ground rampart and dug a ditchwith the length of more than 3 km. This is how thisplace is described in a record made in the 17th century:

“…the ditch was about three meters wide andabout two meters deep or in some parts

even more… And you can’t go aroundit from both sides… except that placethere is no other way to go past theswaths of the Tatar passage along the

Muravsky Trail”. A sentry post was

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

Belsk-Helonus and its outskirts. The scheme of the location of ancient settlements and other fortifications. Legend: 1 — Helonus, 2 — other ancient settlements; 3 — fortifications on the Muravsky Trail

Fragments of pottery of the Scythian timefrom a settlement of the early Iron Age in theoutskirts of the town of Rzhyschiv. The 6th–the5th century BC

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founded there (or to be more exact, was renewed) in 1646.

In 1914 near the internal side of the rampart theyfound traces of a settlement, something like a “bogatyr’soutpost”, which belonged to the residents of the Forest-steppe. So, as far back as two thousand years before the

outpost against Tatars, warriors who took up a defensiveposition here protected the quiet of the country whichstretched out for a few days of walk around the Belskancient settlement.

Similar systems of fortifications were discovered inother regions of the Forest-steppe as well. They coveredtheir owners first of all from unexpected visits from theSouth, from the steppe. Thus, the whole fortified districtwas built in the area of crossings over the Dnieperbetween Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi on the left bank andBukryn and Zarubyntsi on the right bank of the Dnieper.

Who built the town?

There is an opinion that Scythians themselves start-ed building ancient settlements after they had seen flour-ishing cities of Asia. True, Belsk is not very similar toNineveh if we don’t take into account big dimensions. Itis also thought that such populated places became a reli-able rear and workshop of the military-industrial complexof Great Scythia from the Danube to the Don. However,there are no proofs that nomads in ancient times or inmore recent times had anything to do with building towns.Did Scythians become an exception to this rule? It is hard-ly so. Let’s try to examine this situation.

Since to the North of the nomads’ camps of “RoyalScythians” Herodotus put the territories of “Scythians-plowmen”, at first they counted most discovered ancientsettlements behind them. Although in fact, from the pointof view of nomads-Scythians, the prefix “plowmen” looksobscene and even somewhat humiliating. When excava-tions started, it turned out that the material culture of theresidents of ancient settlements, first of all pottery, wasquite different from the steppe, Scythian one. Moreover,in the course of the study of this pottery it was determinedthat sometimes within one ancient settlement a few arche-ological cultures were represented.

And not only pottery was different, but types ofdwellings were different as well: rectangular, frameworkand timberwork structures, rounded with a pyramidal roof –something like an ethno-graphic museum underthe open sky. Part ofpottery and building tradi-tions are traced to theChornoliska culture whichis sometimes called“Proto-Slavic”. And“pavilions” and pol-ished pottery whichwas sometimes deco-rated with an ornamentinlaid with white pastebelong to traditions con-

Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

Ramparts of the Khotiv ancient settlement near Kyiv

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nected with cultures further to the West. Such buildings inthe early Iron Age were spread all around Europe as far asItaly and even Britain. In “Scythian” ancient settlementsthey also find the traces of the bearers of cultures which arefurther to the North from the territories which are attributedto Finno-Ugric peoples and Balts. Surprising as it is, but allthis diversity is combined sometimes within the boundariesof one farmstead and even separate dwellings.

The study of burial grounds revealed a lot of interest-ing facts about the composition of the resi-

dents of ancient settlements. Now thereare still hundreds and maybe even

thousands of burial mounds in theoutskirts of ancient fortresses.

Some of them, as it turned out,contained burial places which weretraced to Cimmerian and Scythiansones basing on instruments (weapons,horse bridles, adornments).True, thefuneral rite by no means always for

100% corresponded to the steppe tra-ditions, but they credited it with dif-

ferent influences and the evolutionof ideological views.

In the center of the Forest-Steppe, on the river Rosthey excavated burial places of the Scythian military elitewho once ruled in these lands. On a high bank, undersmall burial mounds near the town of Steblevo they stud-ied burial places of warriors who were buried from the 8th

to the 4th century BC. In the most ancient graves theyfound weapons and armor of the times of coming “from

the depth of Asia” or the campaigns to the walls ofNineveh and in more recent ones besides blades

and spears already of the local production theyfound Greek amphorae which had beenbrought from the Mediterranean and Olvia.

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

A cup decorated with a carved ornament inlaid withwhite paste from a burial place of the Chornoliskaculture in the Cherkasy region. The 8th century BC

“The country of towns”, Scythians and Hellenes. Legend: 1 — ancient settlements of the Forest-steppe; 2 — Hellene poleis

Adornments of the Pidhirtsiculture. The Kyiv region.The 8th–the 7th

century BC

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In the same way the traditions of a few differenttribes, sometimes three or four and even more are tracedin the culture of the population of ancient settlements.Proto-Slavs, Thracians, Balts and Finno-Ugric peoples,Scythians and Cimmerians, a union of different peoples,just like in towns of Mesopotamia. Such a union is called“complex chiefdom”, because it includes representativesof different ethnoses each of whom had their own place ofresidence and their own chiefs from the earliest times. Itis significant that such a plural composition of the popu-lation is usually considered to be a true sign of theprocesses of political integration, the final summarywhich, as a rule, leads to the creation of a state.

There were a few similar unions-chiefdoms (someof them were not inferior to Old Russian princedoms interms of sizes) within the boundaries of the Forest-steppe.One of the most powerful ones was situated inLivoberezhya with its center in Helonus-Belsk, otherswere situated on the right bank of the Dnieper. Their “cap-itals” were Trakhtemyriv and Nemyriv ancient settle-ments-giants.

It only remains to answer the question who theleader of “Scythians-plowmen” of Herodotus was, to saynothing about Budini, Helonians and other residents ofthe Forest-steppe who are unknown to us. It’s is widelythought that all of them were “controlled by Scythians”.That’s why they found so many burial places of warriorshere including the elite. It is also thought that from time to

time the local population rebelled and Scythians came andburnt some of the fortresses with the purpose of the pre-vention of separatism.

However, now it becomes clear that all this systemof fortifications appeared before the coming of Scythiansto Pontic area in the first place and was built at a break-neck pace exactly at the time “the limited steppe contin-gent” was imposing order in distant Asia. It is quite possi-ble that that part of Scythians who refused to take part inthe Asian campaign greatly changed their way of life fora few decades. The steppe chiefs – Cimmerian andScythian – merged with the ruling Chornoliska-Hallstattelite of the tribes of the Forest-steppe. They were admit-ted just like Slavs admitted Varyags one millennium later.As a result of the union, a few rather powerful tribalunions-chiefdoms appeared; they controlled the Forest-steppe strip along both banks of the Dnieper – the Borisfen.

Economic flourishing of tribal unions of the Forest-steppe was promoted to a considerable extent by the tradewith Pontic area Hellene colonies. With the absence of anyquite powerful military force in the steppe, it was conduct-ed directly. The number of antique imports – ceramics,amphorae for wine, other products which were found notonly in burial places of rulers and warriors, but also inancient settlements is impressive. However, some of thesetrade channels were soon blocked by Scythian clans whohad come back from the Asian campaign. They settleddown in the steppes in a serious way and for a long time.

Ancient settlements of the Forest-steppe on the left bank of the Dnieper. Legend: 1 — centers of different groups of thepopulation; 2 — smaller ancient settlements; 3 — fortifications against raids

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An answer to this challenge was the building of addi-tional fortifications which covered strategic routes from theNorth to the South. Horse detachments of “their own”Scythians and Cimmerians could as well assure not only theprotection of the borders, but also the safe movement oftrade caravans to antique cities on the shore. The forest-steppe rulers could not only take under their protectionthose who didn’t fit into the new Scythian community, butalso hire Scythian detachments as the rulers of Assyria andBabylon did it quite successfully for a long time.

But what about “the Scythian control” over theForest-steppe? As long as the fortified districts of, forexample, Helonus which consisted of dozens of fortressesand frontier fortifications was in a good condition, whatcontrol are we speaking about? As long as theTrakhtemyriv and also the left bank fortifications coveredthe crossing over the Dnieper, you could only dream ofsuccessful raids to this country. Of course, Scythian chiefstested the strength of the nerves and fortresses of theirneighbors more than once or twice. Archeologists man-

Section 16. The Country of forgotten towns

A space picture and the planof the Trakhtemyrov ancientsettlement and the finds ofthe Scythian weapons:traces of an assault whichwas made by nomads in the6th century BC

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aged to find the traces of one of such attacks ofScythians on the Trakhtemyriv ancient settlement. Ittook place in the first half of the 6th century BC, i.e.almost after the return of nomads from Asian campaigns.The main blow was delivered in the area of the gatewhere the walls were intensively shot from bows (theyfound 67 points of arrows including the ones which hadbeen bent against the stonework). The attackers wereshot at from different types of bows if we judge from thediversity of points of arrows. Under “the covering fire” asuccessful assault was started. There were casualtiesamong Scythians, some of them fell in a ditch in heavyarmor; not only torn protective iron plates, but also dag-gers were found there. However, it didn’t stop theassault. On the territory of the fortification they foundtraces of devastation including the remains of local resi-dents which had been buried in a mass grave. It turns outthat the attackers had to go away in the end and the res-

idents of the Trakhtemyriv ancient settlement had torestore their settlement after burying the killed.

The fact that in the middle of the 6th century BCScythian detachments, after all, turned to the West and wentbehind the Carpathians2, can suggest that the first attempt toimpose their ruling on the Forest-steppe wasn’t very suc-cessful. However, any “control” in ancient times startedwith weakening the defense capability of the enemy – firstof all with destroying fortifications on their borders andaround major cities, the devastation of the rural area. Theweakened enemy could do only one thing in such a situa-tion: to pay tribute and to hold their tongue. The rulers ofthe steppes, bellicose “royal” Scythians approached thesolution of this problem only after repulsing the invasion ofDarius I. It was then that they became rightful (and only)rulers of the steppes for the 5th century BC and which ismore important, participants of the Pontic area trade, hav-ing undermined the monopoly of their northern neigh-bors. The traces of numerous fires, i.e. attacks on many

forest-steppe fortifications are dated to this time.And bronze points of arrows taken from ram-

parts and the remains of buildings in ancientsettlements were “the visiting cards” of

Scythian raids. A lot of details of the eventswhich occurred in those times are still to be found

out by archeologists. Only one factremains: less than two centuries laterthe once flourishing land turned into acountry of forgotten towns for long.

2 You can find more details about it in the final part of section 13 “From Cimmeria to Scythia”.

Bronze points ofarrows, areminder of theunexpectedguests-Scythianswho visited oneof the ancientsettlements ofthe Forest-steppein the 5th centuryBC

Bronze parts of a horse harness with the elements of“the Scythian animal style”. The 5th–the 4th century BC

A bowl with glossing,Dnister area. The6th–the 5th century BC

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Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes