This list of ancient Iranian peoples includes the names of Indo-European peoples speaking Iranian languages or otherwise considered Iranian ethnically or linguistically in sources from the late 1st millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium AD.
Ancient Iranian peoples spoke languages that were the ancestors of modern Iranian languages, these languages form a sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-family, which is a branch of the family of the wider Indo-European languages.[1]
Alans (a closely related people or tribe with the AorsiSarmatians or the same people known by two different names) (Aryan > *Alyan > Alan)[12][13][14] (Ossetians / Irættæ are a modern branch) (also called "Melanchlaeni" - "Black-Cloaks", not to be confused with other two peoples called by that same name that were: the "Melanchlaeni" - "Black-Cloaks" of Pontus, and the "Melanchlaeni" - "Black-Cloaks" of the far north)
Iasi[15][16] (Iasi / Jassi / Jasz are descendants from a group of Alans that migrated westward, they are related but not identical to the oldest Iazyges)
Roxolani (an offshoot and eastern branch of the Alans)
Rhymnici, they dwelt along Rha river banks (today's Volga) in the steppe area (the adjective seems to derive from the name "Rha" or "Rā", the Scythian name for the Volga river) (Oares was the Greek name for this river)
Pasargadae (one of the three main and leading ancient Persian tribes, this was the tribe that contained the clan of the Achaemenids, House of Achaemenes, from which Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, was a member)[27] ("House" was synonym of "Clan") (Pasargadae, the first capital of the PersianAchaemenid Empire, was in the land of this tribe and took its name from them)[28]
Alazones,[41] a semi-nomadic Scythian-Thracian tribe living between the Ingul and Dniester rivers.
Callipidae,[39] a hellenized Scythian-Thracian tribe living from the Dniester estuary to the Southern Bug.
Georgoi,[39] Scythian-Thracian tribe living in the country of Gilea around the lower Dnieper and led a sedentary lifestyle.
Mixed peoples that had some Iranian component
Celtic-Germanic-Iranian
Bastarnae, an ancient people who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited the region between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dnieper, to the north and east of ancient Dacia - one possible origin of the name is from Avestan and Old Persiancognatebast- "bound, tied; slave" (cf. Osseticbættən "bind", bast "bound"), and Proto-Iranian *arna - "offspring"
Ashvakas / Assacenii / Assacani / Aspasii (Aspasians): A few scholars have linked the historical Afghans (modern Pakhtuns/Pashtuns) to the Ashvakas (the Ashvakayanas and Ashvayanas of Pāṇini or the Assakenoi and Aspasio of Arrian). The name Afghan is said to have derived from the Ashvakan of Sanskrit texts.[52][53][54] Ashvakas are identified as a branch of the Kambojas. This people was known, by Greek and Roman authors, as Assakanoi and Assacani. The similarity of the name Assacani with the name Sacae/Sacans/Sakas made that the two peoples were confused by Greeks and Romans (as is shown in map 11 regarding the Pamir mountains on the upper right edge). However the Pamir mountains were dwelt by the AsvakaKambojas and not by the Sacans although they were related peoples (they were both East Iranians, however the AsvakaKambojas were or Southeast Iranians or ancestors of the Nuristani while the Sacans/Sakas, Scythians or Sarmatians, were Northeast Iranians).
Rishikas, some historians believe the Rishikas were a part of, or synonymous with, the Kambojas. However, there are other theories regarding their origins.
There are different or conflicting views among scholars regarding the ethnic and linguistic kinship of the peoples known by the Han Chinese as Wusun and Yuezhi and also other less known peoples (a minority of scholars argue that they were Tocharians, based, among other things, on the similarity of names like "Kushan" and the native name of "Kucha" (Kuśi) and the native name "Kuśi" and Chinese name "Gushi" or the name "Arsi" and "Asii",[58] however most scholars argue that they were possibly NortheasternIranian peoples)[59][60]
Asii / Issedones / Wusun (may have been the same people called by different exonym names)
Asii / Asioi / Osii, an ancient Indo-European people of Central Asia, during the 2nd and 1st Centuries BCE, known only from Classical Greek and Roman sources.
Gushi or Jushi or Gushineans (an obscure ancient people that lived in two regions: in the Turpan Basin, i.e. Chinese Jushi or Gushi, including Khocho or Qočo, known in Chinese as Gaochang; and also in a large northern region, roughly in many parts of the region later known as Dzungaria, south of the Altay Mountains; they were the basis of the Gushi or Jushi Kingdom. They spoke a language that eventually diverged into two dialects, as noted by diplomats from the Han empire) (they may have been one of the peoples misnamed "Tocharians", speakers of Tocharian A?) (there are different views among scholars about their ethnic and linguistic kinship)
Yuezhi / Gara?[63][64][65] (an ancient Indo-European speaking people, in the western areas of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC, or in Dunhong, in the Tian Shan, later they migrated westward and southward into south Central Asia, in contact and conflict with the Sogdians and Bactrians, and they possibly were the people called by the name Tocharians or Tukhara, which was possibly an Iranian speaking people not to be confused with another people misnamed or not as "Tocharians") (according to the Iranian historian Jahanshah Derakhshani the Kochi or Kuchi people, a group of nomadic Ghilji or GhilzaiPakhtun, are descendants from the Yuezhi that were assimilated into the Pakhtun, the name derives from Guci, formerly Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī)
Greater-Yuezhi (Tu Gara?) (Dà Yuèzhī – 大月氏) (Tu Gara > Tu Kara? > Tu Khara?) Possibly the Iranian Tocharians (not to be confused with the peoples called "Tocharians" in a misnomer) (possibly they were the ancestors of the Kushans)
Tusharas (Tukharas?), could have been identical with the Greater-Yuezhi, the greater part of Yuezhi, are the people that migrated from western Gansu and after from the Ili Valley, migrated southward and settled in Tukhara, another name for Bactria after the invasion of the Iranian Tocharians that came from the north and northeast (not to be confused with the peoples mistakenly called "Tocharians" which were of another Indo-European branch of peoples)
Xiongnu (ruling class)[72] The Xiongnu could also be synonymous with the Huns, that are assumed to be a Turkic people, although there is not certainty or consensus about this matter.
Iranian or Ugric
Iyrcae / Iyrkai, people that lived northeast of the Thyssagetae, they dwelt in far southwestern Siberia, in the upper basins of the Tobol and the Irtysh rivers, possibly they are the ancestors of the Ugrian peoples, Khanty and Mansi and the more distantly related Magyars (Hungarians), they are speakers of Uralic languages and not Iranian. These peoples were collectively called Yugra, where the adjective "Ugric" comes from (possible phonetic change: *Iurka > *Iukra > *Iugra > Jugra or Yugra; J = English Y; u or ü, Ancient Greek y = ü). They were culturally influenced by ancient Iranian peoples (including language borrowings). The name "Iyrcae" sometimes was wrongly spelt as "Tyrcae" "(Türkai)" by ancient authors (like Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela) but there is no connection to the Turkic peoples (Turks).
Semi-legendary peoples (inspired by real Iranian peoples)
Amazons, a semi-legendary people or tribe of women warriors (an all-female tribe) that Greek authors such as Herodotus and Strabo said to be related to the Scythians and the Sarmatians, however, there could be some historical background for a real people with Iranian etymology (*ha-mazan- "warriors") that lived in Scythia and Sarmatia, but later became the subject of wild exaggerations and myths. Ancient authors said that they guaranteed their continuity through reproduction with the Gargareans (an all-male tribe).
Gargareans, a semi-legendary people or tribe only formed by men (an all-male tribe), however, there could be some historical background for a real people, but later became the subject of wild exaggerations and myths. Ancient authors said that they guaranteed their continuity through reproduction with the Amazons (an all-female tribe).
Arimaspae / Arimaspi / Arimphaei / Riphaeans, they lived north of the Scythians in the southeast foothills of the Riphean Mountains (Ural Mountains?), although a semi-legendary people or tribe there could be some historical background for a real people with Iranian etymology (Ariama: love, and Aspa: horses) that lived in that region but they were later turned as base for a myth, especially for the one-eyed beings that fought with the griffins.
^ abcdefghMallory, J.P.; Douglas Q. Adams (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. ISBN978-1-884964-98-5.
^Harmatta, János (1992). "The Emergence of the Indo-Iranians: The Indo-Iranian Languages"(PDF). In Dani, A. H.; Masson, V. M. (eds.). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The Dawn of Civilization: Earliest Times to 700 B. C. UNESCO. pp. 346–370. ISBN978-92-3-102719-2. Retrieved 29 May 2015. From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the steppes and the wooded steppes and even the semi-deserts from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Ordos region in northern China.
^Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0-691-05887-0
^Gnoli, Gherardo (1980). Zoroaster's Time and Homeland. Naples: Instituto Univ. Orientale. OCLC 07307436. Iranian tribes that also keep on recurring in the Yasht, Airyas, Tuiryas, Sairimas, Sainus and Dahis
^Allworth, Edward A. (1994). Central Asia: A Historical Overview. Duke University Press. p. 86. ISBN978-0-8223-1521-6.
^Diakonoff, I. M. (1999). The Paths of History. Cambridge University Press. p. 100. ISBN978-0-521-64348-1. Turan was one of the nomadic Iranian tribes mentioned in the Avesta. However, in Firdousi's poem, and in the later Iranian tradition generally, the term Turan is perceived as denoting 'lands inhabited by Turkic speaking tribes.
^Gnoli, Gherardo (1980). Zoroaster's Time and Homeland. Naples: Instituto Univ. Orientale. OCLC 07307436. Iranian tribes that also keep on recurring in the Yasht, Airyas, Tuiryas, Sairimas, Sainus and Dahis
^Diakonoff, I. M. (1999). The Paths of History. Cambridge University Press. p. 100. ISBN978-0-521-64348-1. Turan was one of the nomadic Iranian tribes mentioned in the Avesta. However, in Firdousi's poem, and in the later Iranian tradition generally, the term Turan is perceived as denoting 'lands inhabited by Turkic speaking tribes.
^Simpson, St John (2017). "The Scythians. Discovering the Nomad-Warriors of Siberia". Current World Archaeology. 84: 16–21. "nomadic people made up of many different tribes thrived across a vast region that stretched from the borders of northern China and Mongolia, through southern Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, as far as the northern reaches of the Black Sea. Collectively they were known by their Greek name: the Scythians. They spoke Iranian languages..."
^Royal Museums of Art and History (2000). Ancient Nomads of the Altai Mountains: Belgian-Russian Multidisciplinary Archaeological Research on the Scytho-Siberian Culture. "The Achaemenids called the Scythians " Saka " which sometimes leads to confusion in the literature. The term " Scythians " is particularly used for the representatives of this culture who lived in the European part of the steppe zone. Those who lived in Central Asia are often called Sauromates or Saka and in the Altai area, they are generally known as Scytho-Siberians."
^Dandamayev 1994, p. 37 "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism."
^Turko-Persia in Historical Perspective, Robert L. Canfield, Cambridge University Press, 2002 p.49
^Macartney, C. A. (1944). "On the Greek Sources for the History of the Turks in the Sixth Century". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies. 11 (2): 266–75. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00072451. ISSN 1474-0699. JSTOR 609313. "the name "Chyon", originally that of an unrelated people, was "transferred later to the Huns owing to the similarity of sound".
^Richard Nelson Frye, "Pre-Islamic and early Islamic cultures in Central Asia" in "Turko-Persia in historical perspective", edited by Robert L. Canfield, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 49. "Just as later nomadic empires were confederations of many peoples, we may tentatively propose that the ruling groups of these invaders were, or at least included, Turkic-speaking tribesmen from the east and north, although most probably the bulk of the people in the confederation of Chionites... spoke an Iranian language.... This was the last time in the history of Central Asia that Iranian-speaking nomads played any role; hereafter all nomads would speak Turkic languages".
^Felix, Wolfgang. "CHIONITES". Encyclopædia Iranica. Bibliotheca Persica Press. Retrieved 29 May 2015. CHIONITES... a tribe of probable Iranian origin that was prominent in Bactria and Transoxania in late antiquity.
^Macartney, C. A. (1944). "On the Greek Sources for the History of the Turks in the Sixth Century". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies. 11 (2): 266–75. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00072451. ISSN 1474-0699. JSTOR 609313. "the name "Chyon", originally that of an unrelated people, was "transferred later to the Huns owing to the similarity of sound".
^Richard Nelson Frye, "Pre-Islamic and early Islamic cultures in Central Asia" in "Turko-Persia in historical perspective", edited by Robert L. Canfield, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 49. "Just as later nomadic empires were confederations of many peoples, we may tentatively propose that the ruling groups of these invaders were, or at least included, Turkic-speaking tribesmen from the east and north, although most probably the bulk of the people in the confederation of Chionites... spoke an Iranian language.... This was the last time in the history of Central Asia that Iranian-speaking nomads played any role; hereafter all nomads would speak Turkic languages".
^Jayarava Attwood, Possible Iranian Origins for the Śākyas and Aspects of Buddhism. Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 2012 (3): 47-69
^Christopher I. Beckwith, "Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia", 2016, pp 1-21
^See also: Indian Antiquaries, 52, part 2, 1923; Indian Antiquaries, 203, 1923, p 54.
^Prācīna Kamboja, Jana aura Janapada Ancient Kamboja, people and country, 1981, pp 44, Dr Jiyālāla Kāmboja, Dr Satyavrat Śāstrī; cf also: Dr J. W. McCrindle, Ptolemy, p 268.
^Scholars like V. S. Aggarwala etc locate the Kamboja country in Pamirs and Badakshan (Ref: A Grammatical Dictionary of Sanskrit (Vedic): 700 Complete Reviews.., 1953, p 48, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala, Surya Kanta, Jacob Wackernagel, Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Peggy Melcher – India; India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī, 1963, p 38, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala – India; The North-west India of the Second Century B.C., 1974, p 40, Mehta Vasishtha Dev Mohan – Greeks in India; The Greco-Shunga period of Indian history, or, the North-West India of the second century B.C, 1973, p 40, India) and the Parama Kamboja further north, in the Trans-Pamirian territories (See: The Deeds of Harsha: Being a Cultural Study of Bāṇa's Harshacharita, 1969, p 199, Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala).
^Dr Michael Witzel also extends Kamboja including Kapisa/Kabul valleys to Arachosia/Kandahar (See: Persica-9, p 92, fn 81. Michael Witzel).
^Cf: "Zoroastrian religion had probably originated in Kamboja-land (Bacteria-Badakshan)....and the Kambojas spoke Avestan language" (Ref: Bharatiya Itihaas Ki Rup Rekha, p 229-231, Jaychandra Vidyalankar; Bhartrya Itihaas ki Mimansa, p 229-301, J. C. Vidyalankar; Ancient Kamboja, People and the Country, 1981, p 217, 221, J. L. Kamboj)
^The Greeks in Bactria and India 1966 p 170, 461, Dr William Woodthorpe Tarn.
^The Indian Historical Quarterly, 1963, p 291; Indian historical quarterly, Vol XXV-3, 1949, pp 190-92.
^Prācīna Kamboja, Jana aura Janapada Ancient Kamboja, people and country, 1981, p 44, 147, 155, Dr Jiyālāla Kāmboja, Dr Satyavrat Śāstrī.
^"The name Afghan has evidently been derived from Asvakan, the Assakenoi of Arrian..." (Megasthenes and Arrian, p 180. See also: Alexander's Invasion of India, p 38; J. W. McCrindle)
^"Even the name Afghan is Aryan being derived from Asvakayana, an important clan of the Asvakas or horsemen who must have derived this title from their handling of celebrated breeds of horses" (See: Imprints of Indian Thought and Culture abroad, p 124, Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan)
^"Afghans are Assakani of the Greeks; this word being the Sanskrit Ashvaka meaning 'horsemen" (Ref: Sva, 1915, p 113, Christopher Molesworth Birdwood)
^Žhivko Voynikov (Bulgaria). SOME ANCIENT CHINESE NAMES IN EAST TURKESTAN AND CENTRAL ASIA AND THE TOCHARIAN QUESTION [1]
^Wei Lan-Hai; Li Hui; Xu Wenkan (2013). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi: Results from recent advances in archaeology and genetics" in Research Gate
^A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999. [2]
^Fan Ye, Chronicle on the 'Western Regions' from the Hou Hanshu. (transl. John E. Hill), 2011] "Based on a report by General Ban Yong to Emperor An (107–125 CE) near the end of his reign, with a few later additions." (20 December 2015)
^"Ancient Iran: The movement of Iranian peoples". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 29 May 2015. At the end of the 3rd century, there began in Chinese Turkistan a long migration of the Yuezhi, an Iranian people who invaded Bactria about 130 bc, putting an end to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom there. (In the 1st century bc they created the Kushān dynasty, whose rule extended from Afghanistan to the Ganges River and from Russian Turkistan to the estuary of the Indus.)
^Wei Lan-Hai; Li Hui; Xu Wenkan (2013). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi: Results from recent advances in archaeology and genetics" in Research Gate [3]
^Macmillan Education (2016). Macmillan Dictionary of Archaeology. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 369. ISBN978-1349075898.[permanent dead link] "From that time until the HAN dynasty the Ordos steppe was the home of semi-nomadic Indo-European peoples whose culture can be regarded as an eastern province of a vast Eurasian continuum of Scytho-Siberian cultures."
^Harmatta 1992, p. 348: "From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the steppes and the wooded steppes and even the semi-deserts from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Ordos in northern China."
Jahanshah Derakhshani, "Die Arier in den nahöstlichen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr.", 2nd edition, 1999, ISBN964-90368-6-5 ("The Arians in the Middle Eastern sources of the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC")
Wei Lan-Hai; Li Hui; Xu Wenkan (2013). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi: Results from recent advances in archaeology and genetics" in Research Gate [4]
External links
[5] - Source texts of ancient Greek and Roman authors
[6] - Strabo's work The Geography (Geographica). Book 11, Chapters 6 to 13, and Book 15, Chapters 2 and 3, are about regions dwelt by ancient Iranian peoples and tribes (each region has a chapter).
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