Editing Cimmerians (section)

===Legacy===
====Ancient====
=====In Europe=====
The peoples of the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex of which the Cimmerians were part of introduced the use of [[trousers]] into Central Europe, whose local native populations did not wear trousers before the arrival of the first wave of steppe nomads of Central Asian origin into Europe.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000b|p=105}}

=====In West Asia=====
The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 7th centuries BC, which were early precursors of the later invasions of West Asia by steppe nomads such as the [[Huns]], various [[Turkic peoples]], and the [[Mongol Empire|Mongols]], in [[Late Antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages|Mediaeval Period]],{{sfn|Fuchs|2023|p=761}} had destabilised the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the dominant great powers of Assyria, Urartu, and Phrygia,{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75}} and also caused the decline and destruction of several of these states' power, consequently to the rise of multiple new powers such as the empires of the [[Medes]] and [[Lydians]],{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=73}} thus irreversibly changing the geopolitical situation of West Asia.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75-76}}

These Cimmerians and Scythians also influenced the developments in West Asia through the spread of the steppe nomad military technology brought by them into this region, and which were disseminated during the periods of their respective hegemonies in West Asia.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75}}

After the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and following the conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire which had succeeded it by the Persian Achaemenids, the Babylonian scribes of the Achaemenid Persian Empire used the name of the Cimmerians ({{Transliteration|akk-x-latbabyl|Gimirri}}: {{lang|akk-x-latbabyl|{{cuneiform|12|𒆳𒄀𒈪𒅕}}}}<ref name="ORACCBabylonian1">{{cite web |title=Xerxes I 12 |url=https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ario/Q007216 |website=Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions online |series=[[Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus]] |publisher=[[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich]] }}</ref> and {{lang|akk-x-latbabyl|{{cuneiform|12|𒆳𒄀𒂆𒊑}}}}<ref name="ORACCBabylonian2">{{cite web |title=Darius I 31 |url=https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ario/Q007164 |website=Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions online |series=[[Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus]] |publisher=[[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich]] }}</ref>) in [[Neo-Babylonian Akkadian language|Neo-Babylonian Akkadian]] to indiscriminately and anachronistically refer to all of the nomads of the steppes, including both the Pontic [[Scythians]] and the Central Asian [[Saka]], because of their similar nomadic lifestyles.<ref name="Babylonian">{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2001|pp=319–320}}|{{harvnb|Parzinger|2004|p=23}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000a|p=93}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|p=62}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2023|p=211}}}}</ref> The Achaemenid Babylonian scribes therefore designated the bows used by Saka mounted archers as {{lit|Cimmerian bows}} ({{lang|akk-x-latbabyl|{{cuneiform|12|𒄑𒉼 𒄀𒂆𒊒𒄿𒋾}}}}, {{Transliteration|akk-x-latbabyl|qaštu Gimirrîti}} and {{lang|akk-x-latbabyl|{{cuneiform|12|𒄑𒉼𒈨 𒄀𒂆𒊒𒀪}}}}, {{Transliteration|akk-x-latbabyl|qašātu Gimirruʾ}}).{{sfn|Adalı|2023|p=211}} The Greeks similarly used the name of the Scythians as a generalising term for all stepp nomads, and the Byzantines later also similarly used it as an archaising term to designate the [[Huns]], Slavs and other eastern peoples centuries after the actual Scythians had disappeared.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2001|p=320}}{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=62}}

The Cimmerians appear in the [[Hebrew Bible]] under the name of [[Gomer|{{Transliteration|he|Gōmer}}]] ({{langx|he|גֹּמֶר}}; {{langx|grc|Γαμερ|translit=Gamer}}), where {{Transliteration|he|Gōmer|italics=no}} is closely linked to [[Ashkenaz|{{Transliteration|he|ʾAškənāz|italics=no}}]] ({{lang|he|אשכנז}}), that is to the Scythians.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Phillips|1972|p=133}}|{{harvnb|Diakonoff|1985|p=96}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|p=62}}|{{harvnb|Cunliffe|2019|p=34}}}}</ref>

Due to the fear that the Cimmerian invasions caused among the Greeks of Ionia, they were remembered in Greek tradition, and an inscription from 283 BC mentioned that the Greek city-states of [[Samos]] and Priene were still engaging in a lawsuit disputing the territory of Batinetis which had been abandoned during the Cimmerian invasion of Ionia and Aeolia.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2006|p=148}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2010|p=70}}|{{harvnb|Cunliffe|2019|p=35}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2023|p=218}}}}</ref>

In the mediaeval period, Armenian tradition assigned the name of the Biblical Gōmer to the [[Konya Plain]] and to [[Cappadocia]], which was therefore called {{Transliteration|hy|Gamirkʿ}} ({{lang|hy|[[wikt:Գամիրք|Գամիրք]]}}) in the [[Armenian language]].{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=63}}

=====In Graeco-Roman literature=====
======In Homer's {{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}}======
The first mention of the Cimmerians in [[Ancient Greek literature|Graeco-Roman literature]] dates from the 8th century BC in [[Homer]]'s [[Odyssey|{{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}}]],{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=555}} which describes them as a people living in a city located at the entrance of [[Greek underworld|Hades]] beyond the western shore of the [[Oceanus]] river which encircles the world, in a land towards which Odysseus sailed to obtain an oracle from the soul of the seer [[Tiresias]], and which was covered with mists and clouds and therefore remained permanently deprived of sunlight although the Sun-god [[Helios]] sets there.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Diakonoff|1985|p=92}}|{{harvnb|Tokhtas’ev|1991}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000a|pp=72–73}}|{{harvnb|Bouzek|2001|p=38}}|{{harvnb|Xydopoulos|2015|p=119}}}}</ref>

This mention of the Cimmerians in the {{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}} was purely poetic and combined [[fantasy]] with records of real events, and naturalism with supernatural elements, and therefore contained no reliable information about the real Cimmerian people.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=73-74}} This image was created as a poetic opposite of the [[Laestrygonians]] and [[Aethiopia]]ns who, in ancient Greek mythology, lived in a permanently sunlit land on the eastern borders of the world.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=74}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=119}} Due to this location, the Ancient Greek name of the Cimmerians was identified with the word for mist, {{Transliteration|grc|kemmeros}} ({{lang|grc|κεμμερος}}).{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=119}}

Homer's passage relating to the Cimmerians had however used as its source the [[Argonauts|Argonautic myth]], which dealt with the region of the Black Sea and the country of [[Colchis]], on whose eastern borders the Cimmerians were still living in the 8th century BC.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=74-75}} Thus, Homer's source on the Cimmerians was the Argonautic myth, which itself recorded of their existence when they were still living in northern Transcaucasia:{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=75}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=94}} the location of the Cimmerians as recorded by the Argonautic myth corresponds to the same one recorded by the late 7th century BC poem {{Transliteration|grc|Arimaspeia}} by [[Aristeas|Aristeas of Proconessus]] and the later writings of [[Herodotus|Herodotus of Halicarnassus]],{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=75-76}} who both described the Cimmerians as having once dwelt in the steppe to the immediate north of the Caspian Sea,{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=75-76}} with the Araxes river (the [[Volga]]) forming their eastern border separating them from the Scythians.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000b|p=108}}

======In the 6th century BC======
The Greeks living in Anatolia in the 6th century BC still evoked the memory of the Cimmerians with fear a century after their disappearance.{{sfn|Barnett|1982|p=355}}

The Greek historian [[Hecataeus of Miletus]], drawing from information acquired by the Persian army during its [[Scythian campaign of Darius I|invasion of Scythia]] in 513 BC, later started the tradition of locating Homer's Cimmerians and "Cimmerian" places (such as a "Cimmerian city") in the Scythian-dominated Pontic Steppe{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=77}} between the Araxes and the Bosporus.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=95}}

======According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus======
Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote a legendary account, partly based on Hecataeus's narrative,{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=95}} of the arrival of the Scythians into the lands of the Cimmerians:<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Tokhtas’ev|1991}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000a|pp=78–79}}|{{harvnb|Cunliffe|2019|p=30}}|{{harvnb|Cunliffe|2019|p=106}}|{{harvnb|Cunliffe|2019|pp=111–112}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|p=60}}|{{harvnb|Kõiv|2022|p=266}}}}</ref>
#after the Scythians were expelled from Central Asia by the Massagetae, they moved to the west across the Araxes, and took possession of the Cimmerians' lands after chasing them away;
#the approach of the Scythians led to a civil war among the Cimmerians because the "royal tribe" wanted to remain in their lands and defend themselves from the invaders, while the rest of the people saw no use in fighting and preferred to flee;
#since neither side could be persuaded by the other, the "royal tribe" divided themselves into two equally numerous sides that fought each other till death, after which the commoners buried them by the [[Dniester|Tyras river]].

Basing himself on Greek folk tales from the [[Tyras|city of Tyras]], Herodotus claimed the tombs of the Cimmerian princes could still be seen in his days near the Tyras river.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=79}}

Herodotus also referred to the presence of several "Cimmerian" toponyms as existing in the Bosporan region, such as:{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=93}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=81}}{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=30}}
*"Cimmerian walls" ({{langx|grc|Κιμμερια τειχεα|translit=Kimmeria teikhea}}),
*a "Cimmerian ferry" ({{langx|grc|πορθμηια Κιμμερια|translit=porthmēia Kimmeria}}),
*a "country of Cimmeria" ({{langx|grc|χωρη Κιμμερια|translit=khōrē Kimmeria}}),
*and a "Cimmerian Bosporus" ({{langx|grc|Βοσπορος Κιμμεριος|translit=Bosporos Kimmerios}}).

Herodotus likely used Bosporan Greek folk tales as source for these claims, although some of the "Cimmerian" toponyms in the Bosporan region might have originated from a genuine Cimmerian presence in this area.{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=557-558}}{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=93}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=86}}

The story of the fratricidal war of the Cimmerian "royal tribe," that is of the defeat and destruction of its ruling class, is contradicted by how powerful the Cimmerians were according to the Assyrian records contemporaneous with their presence in West Asia. Another inconsistency in Herodotus's description of the flight of the Cimmerians is the direction through which they retreated: according to this narrative, the Cimmerians moved from the Pontic Steppe to the east into Caucasia to flee from the Scythians, who were themselves moving from the east into the Pontic Steppe.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=80}}

These inconsistencies suggest that Herodotus's narrative of an eastern flight of the Cimmerians was a later folk tale invented by Greek colonists on the north shore of the Black Sea to explain the existence of ancient tombs, reflecting the motif of assigning old tombs and buildings with mythical heroes or with lost ancient valiant peoples, similarly to how the Greeks within Greece proper claimed similar remains had been built by the [[Pelasgians|Pelasgi]] and the [[Cyclopes|Cyclops]],{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=93}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=80}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=82}} or how later Ossetian tradition [[Nart saga|recounted the death of the Narts]].{{sfn|Ivantchik|2001|p=322}}

Herodotus's account of the Cimmerians' flight contracted the actual events into a more condensed story where they moved south by following the shore of the Black Sea under the leadership of Lygdamis, while their Scythian pursuers followed the Caspian Sea's coast, thus leading the Cimmerians into Anatolia and the Scythians into [[Media (region)|Media]].{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=31}}{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=106}}{{sfn|Kõiv|2022|p=270-271}} While Cimmerian activities in Anatolia and Scythian activities in Media are attested, the claim that the Scythians arrived in Media while pursuing the Cimmerians is unsupported by evidence,{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=31}} and 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}}

Moreover, Herodotus's account also ignored the earlier Cimmerian activities in West Asia during the reigns of Sargon II to the ascension of Ashurbanipal, including the two separate invasions of Lydia, and instead contracted them into a single event during which Lydgamis led the Cimmerians from the steppes into Anatolia to sack Sardis under the reign of Ardys.{{sfn|Kõiv|2022|p=270-271}}{{sfn|Kõiv|2022|p=289}}

======In later Graeco-Roman literature======
Drawing on similar older Graeco-Roman sources, [[Strabo|Strabo of Amasia]] claimed that the Cimmerian Bosporus had been named after the Cimmerians,{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=84-85}} who were once powerful in that region, and that the city of "{{Transliteration|grc|Kimmerikon}}" ({{langx|grc|Κιμμερικον}}; {{langx|la|Cimmericum}}) used a trench and a mount to close the isthmus.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=84}} According to Strabo, there was in Crimea a mountain called {{Transliteration|grc|Kimmerios}} ({{langx|grc|Κιμμεριος}}; {{langx|la|Cimmerius}}), which had also been named because the Cimmerians had once ruled the region of the Bosporus.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=85}}

In the 4th century BC, a town called Cimmeris was established in the [[Taman Peninsula|Sindic Chersonese]].{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=85}}

Homer's description of the Cimmerians as living deprived from sunlight and close to the entrance of Hades influenced later Graeco-Roman authors who, writing centuries after the disappearance of the historical Cimmerians, conceptualised of this people as the one described by Homer,{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=87}} and therefore assigned to them various fantastical locations and histories:{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=94}}
*some Classical writers considered the western Mediterranean Sea as having been the setting of the {{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}}, and therefore located the Cimmerians in this region:{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=87}}
**[[Ephorus|Ephorus of Cyme]] in the 4th century BC located the Cimmerians near the Campanian city of [[Cumae]] in [[Magna Graecia]] in southern Italy, where 
***following Ephorus's narrative, Strabo and Pliny claimed that a "Cimmerian city" ({{langx|la|Cimmerium oppidum}}) was located near the [[Lake Avernus]] in Italy:{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=86}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=121}}
****Strabo, himself citing Ephorus, claimed that, because the inhabitants of Magna Graecia placed the setting of the Odyssey's Nekyia around Lake Arvernus, they also depicted the Cimmerians as a people living in this area in underground houses tunnels around the nearby Ploutonion (oracle of the dead) where was believed to be the entrance to Hades; these "underground Cimmerians" visited each other using tunnels through which they would also admit strangers to the also underground oracle: according to this legend, these "underground Cimmerians" had an ancestral custom according to which they should never see the sun and were allowed to go out only at night;{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=87}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=122}}
*[[Hecataeus of Abdera]] claimed that the Cimmerians lived in a "Cimmerian city" ({{langx|grc|Κιμμερις πολις|translit=Kimmeris polis}}) located in [[Hyperborea]] in the north;{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=84}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=87}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=122}}
*[[Aeschylus]] mentioned a "Cimmerian isthmus"{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=84}} and a "Cimmerian land" in his work, [[Prometheus Bound|{{Transliteration|en|Prometheus Bound}}]];{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=120}}
*[[Posidonius|Posidonius of Apamea]], while trying to explain where the [[Cimbri]] came from, elaborated some speculative interpretations of their origins:{{sfn|Tokhtas’ev|1991}}{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=88-89}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=122}}
**drawing on the similarity of the names of the Cimmerians and Cimbri, Posidonius equated these two peoples with each other, and then claimed that the Cimmerians who passed into West Asia were merely a small body of exiles, while the bulk of the Cimmerians lived in the thickly wooded and sun-less far north, between the shores of the Oceanus and the [[Hercynian Forest]], and were the same people known as the Cimbri;{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=88}}
***Since the Cimmerians and Cimbri had similar names, and they were also both perceived by the Graeco-Romans as ferocious and barbarian peoples who caused death and destruction, the ancient Greek literary traditions progressively equated and identified them with each other.{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=122}}
**Posidonius then, in turn, argued that the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait) had been named after the Cimbri, whom he claimed the Greeks called "Cimmerians."{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=83}}
***[[Plutarch]] criticised Posidonius's theories as being based on conjecture rather than on concrete historical evidence.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=89}}
***Strabo and [[Diodorus Siculus|Diodorus of Sicily]], using Posidonius as their sources, also equated the Cimmerians and the Cimbri.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=89}}
*[[Crates of Mallus|Crates of Mallos]], in the 2nd century BC, wrote a commentary on the [[Iliad|{{Transliteration|en|Iliad}}]] and the {{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}} in which he assumed that Homer did not know of the Cimmerians and therefore renamed them in his text as the "Cerberians" ({{langx|grc|Κερβεριοι|translit=Kerberioi}}) because of the Homeric location of this people at the entrance of Hades where dwelt [[Cerberus]].{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=90}}
*Proteus of Zeugma renamed the Cimmerians as the {{Transliteration|grc|Kheimerioi}} ({{langx|grc|Χειμεριοι}}), {{lit|winter people}}.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=90}}
The eastern Greeks living on the north shore of the Black Sea, who were familiar with the Cimmerian activities in Asia, nevertheless criticised these western locations assigned to the Cimmerians.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=86}}

====Modern====
Basing themselves on the location of the Cimmerians in the {{Transliteration|en|Odyssey}} as living on the western shore of the Oceanus, some earlier modern interpretations tried to locate them in the far north of Europe, such as in [[British Isles|Britain]] and [[Jutland]].{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=73}}

In the 18th to 20th centuries, the [[Scientific racism|racialist]] [[British Israelism|British Israelist]] movement developed a [[pseudohistory]] according to which, after population of the historical [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|kingdom of Israel]] had been deported by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 721 BC and became the [[Ten Lost Tribes]], they fled north to the region near Sinope, from where they migrated into East and Central Europe and became the Scythians and Cimmerians, who themselves moved to north-west Europe and became the supposed ancestors of the [[White people|white]] [[Protestantism|Protestant]] peoples of North Europe, with the {{Transliteration|cy|Cymry}} being the supposed descendants of those among them who maintained their Cimmerian identity. Being an [[Antisemitism in Christianity|antisemitic]] movement, British Israelists claim to be the most authentic heirs of the ancient Israelites while rejecting Jews as being "contaminated" through intermarriage with [[Edom]]ites; or, they adhere to the antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews [[Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry|descend from the Khazars]].{{sfn|Cottrell-Boyce|2021}}{{sfn|Parfitt|2003|p=54}} According to the scholar [[Tudor Parfitt]], the proof cited by adherents of British Israelism is "of a feeble composition even by the low standards of the genre."{{sfn|Parfitt|2003|p=61}}

Research in the late 20th century AD eventually concluded that the various "Cimmerian" toponymies from the Pontic Steppe were invented during the 6th century BC, that is when the Pontic Steppe was under Scythian rule, long after the historical Cimmerians had disappeared.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=85}}

=====In popular culture=====
The character of [[Conan the Barbarian]], created by [[Robert E. Howard]] in a series of fantasy stories published in [[Weird Tales|{{Transliteration|en|Weird Tales}}]] from 1932, is canonically a Cimmerian: in Howard's fictional [[Hyborian Age]], the Cimmerians are a pre-Celtic people who were the ancestors of the Irish and Scots ([[Gaels]]). Moreover, a miscegenation of Cimmerians and Turanians was given as the origin of the Scyths.

[[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay|{{Transliteration|en|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay}}]], a novel by [[Michael Chabon]], includes a chapter describing the (fictional) oldest book in the world, {{Transliteration|en|The Book of Lo}}, created by ancient Cimmerians.

[[Isaac Asimov]] attempted to trace various place names to Cimmerian origins. He suggested that {{Transliteration|la|Cimmerium}} gave rise to the [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] [[Toponymy|toponym]] [[Stary Krym|{{Transliteration|crh|Qırım}}]], which in turn gave rise to the [[name of Crimea|name {{Transliteration|en|Crimea}}]].{{sfn|Asimov|1991|p=50}} The derivation of the name of Crimea from that of the Cimmerians is however no longer accepted, and it is now thought to have originated from the [[Crimean Tatar language|Crimean Tatar]] word {{Transliteration|crh|qırım}}, which means "fortress."{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=558}}

[[Manau (band)|Manau]]'s song [[La Tribu de Dana|{{Transliteration|fr|La Tribu de Dana}}]] recounts an imaginary battle between Celts and enemies identified by the narrator as Cimmerians.