Editing Cimmerians (section)

======Scythian expansion into West Asia======
After having settled into Ciscaucasia, the Scythians became the second wave of steppe nomads to expand southwards from there, following the western shore of the [[Caspian Sea]]{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=93}} and bypassing the Caucasus Mountains to the east through the [[Derbent#History|Caspian Gates]],<ref>{{Unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Grousset|1970|p=8}}|{{harvnb|Phillips|1972|p=129}}|{{harvnb|Phillips|1972|p=131}}|{{harvnb|Diakonoff|1985|p=52}}|{{harvnb|Melyukova|1990|p=100}}|{{harvnb|Parzinger|2004|p=19}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000a|p=83}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|p=60}}}}</ref> with the Scythians first arriving in Transcaucasia around {{c.|700 BC}},{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=97}} after which they consequently became active in West Asia.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Diakonoff|1985|p=96}}|{{harvnb|Melyukova|1990|p=99}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000b|p=103}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000b|p=114}}}}</ref> This Scythian expansion into West Asia, nonetheless, never lost contact with the core Scythian kingdom located in the Ciscaucasian Steppe and was merely an extension of it, as was the concurrently occurring westward Scythian expansion into the Pontic Steppe.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2018}}

Once they had finally crossed into West Asia, the Scythians settled in eastern Transcaucasia and the northwest Iranian plateau,<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Sulimirski|1985|p=169}}|{{harvnb|Parzinger|2004|p=19}}|{{harvnb|Parzinger|2004|p=23}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|p=62}}}}</ref> between the middle course of the [[Kura (South Caucasus river)|Cyrus]] and [[Aras (river)|Araxes]] rivers before expanding into the regions corresponding to present-day [[Ganja, Azerbaijan|Gəncə]], [[Mingachevir|Mingəçevir]] and the [[Mughan plain|Muğan plain]]{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=100}} in the steppes of what is presently Azerbaijan, which became their centre operations until {{c.|600 BC}},{{sfn|Sulimirski|1954|p=282}}{{sfn|Sulimirski|1985|p=169}} and this part of Transcaucasia settled by the Scythians consequently became known in the Akkadian sources from Mesopotamia as {{Transliteration|akk-x-neoassyr|māt Iškuzaya}} ({{lang|akk-x-neoassyr|{{cuneiform|11|𒆳𒅖𒆪𒍝𒀀𒀀}}}}, {{lit|land of the Scythians}}) after them.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=62}}

The arrival of the Scythians in West Asia about 40 years after that of the Cimmerians suggests that there is no available evidence to the later Graeco-Roman account of the Cimmerians crossing the Caucasus and moving south into West Asia under pressure from the Scythians migrating into their territories.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=83}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=96}}{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=60}}