Religion

Scythian religion took shape among related but regionally distinct peoples of the Eurasian steppe. The term Scythian is commonly applied to communities of the northern Black Sea region during the first millennium BCE; related eastern populations are often called Saka. Their religious practices were not uniform, and neither group belonged to a single empire that endured across the steppe. Greek accounts provide much of the written evidence for Pontic Scythians, while archaeology offers separate evidence from Central Asia and the Altai. Later practices around the Black Sea and evidence associated with Saka movements into South Asia belong to their own regional settings.

Scythian religion had Iranian roots and developed through contact with neighbouring peoples, including Thracian communities, Greek settlers, and societies of West Asia. Greek writers also rendered foreign gods through Greek equivalents, a practice known as interpretatio graeca . Such comparisons help identify how Greeks understood Scythian religion, but do not mean that the deities were identical.

On this page5 sections

Gods, names, and ideas about the world

Herodotus describes seven principal Scythian deities through Greek comparisons. He identifies Tabiti with Hestia, Api with Earth, Papaios with Zeus, Goitosyros with Apollo and Artimpasa with Aphrodite Urania. He also includes gods he calls Heracles and Ares. An eighth deity, Thagimasadas, compared with Poseidon, was associated specifically with the Royal Scythians. These comparisons translate unfamiliar powers into a Greek religious vocabulary.

Tabiti, whose name is associated with burning or flame, was connected with fire and the hearth. The hearth could serve as the sacred centre of a household or wider community, making it a fitting focus for protection and collective identity. The king’s hearth had a particular political and religious role. Herodotus also recounts a story of sacred golden objects that fell from the sky and were guarded by Scythian kings. Their identification with Tabiti’s sacred hearth objects is an interpretation, rather than something established by the story itself.

Api and Papaios connect divine power with earth and sky in the Greek account. Tabiti’s hearth cult brought sacred protection into the household and the ruler’s court. Fire, land and ancestry thus supplied several ways to link a community to its gods.

Artimpasa had associations with fertility and material well-being, but also with sovereignty and religious authority. Her identification with Aphrodite Urania reflects one Greek interpretation of her role. A related figure known today as the Snake-Legged Goddess appears in Scythian origin traditions and images. The modern label describes representations in which snakes or tendrils take the place of legs. Greek communities around the Black Sea associated her with goddesses including Cybele, Demeter, and Hecate.

Herodotus records more than one origin story. In the version he attributes to Scythians, Targitaos is the son of Zeus and a daughter of the Borysthenes river. His youngest son receives heavenly gold objects: a plough, yoke, battle-axe and cup. Possession of the gold establishes the ruling line. A separate Greek story gives Heracles and a snake-legged woman three sons, again linking kingship to divine ancestry.

Rituals, hearths, and oaths

Herodotus describes animal sacrifice to Scythian gods, with a different ritual for the war god. For sacrifices to other deities, he says, an animal was thrown down and strangled, then butchered and cooked. Some of the cooked meat and entrails were set aside as an offering. He presents this form of sacrifice as characteristic of more mobile Scythian groups, a reminder that religious practice could vary with ways of life.

The war god had a distinctive sacred representation: an iron sword planted upright on a high platform built from brushwood. Herodotus reports that the platform was renewed each year by adding more brushwood. He also describes an annual ceremony involving offerings of cattle and horses, and the sacrifice of prisoners. In his account, the blood of the human victims was poured over the sword. The sword gave the ceremony a visible focus associated with warfare.

The hearth also mattered in the administration of royal authority. Herodotus reports that the Scythians believed a false oath sworn on the king’s hearth could cause the king to become ill. In that situation, diviners were consulted to identify the person suspected of swearing falsely. If the accusation was disputed, further diviners were asked to judge the case; the outcome could bring severe penalties for the accused or, if the accusation was rejected, for the original accusers. The account shows how a sacred place could connect personal conduct, religious belief, and royal power.

Religious specialists and divination

Scythian communities had professional religious specialists as well as diviners. One group known to Greek writers as the Enarees was associated with the reported Scythian term Anarya, often translated as “not manly.” Ancient accounts describe these specialists as people assigned male at birth who wore women’s clothing, did women’s work, and spoke in a feminine manner. They served Artimpasa and the Snake-Legged Goddess and held a recognized religious role. Their position combined distinctive social roles with recognised powers of divination.

The Enarees were known for a form of divination using the inner bark of a linden tree. They cut it into strips and twisted or untwisted the strips around their fingers to obtain an answer. Other Scythian diviners used willow sticks. The distinction between these methods suggests that divination was not a single standardized practice and that particular specialists could be associated with their own techniques.

Greek writers also preserved an account that connected the Enarees’ role with a divine transformation or a curse associated with the sack of a temple of Astarte at Ascalon. This is an ancient explanation of their status, not independent evidence for the story’s events. Other Greek interpretations, including an explanation that blamed riding horses and wearing trousers, reveal more about Greek ideas than about the specialists’ own beliefs.

Some archaeological objects have been connected with ritual specialists, though their use cannot always be established. Steppe finds include elaborate pole-tops, some with figures of animals or goddesses and others with hanging bells. Their designs and sounds may have helped mark ritual authority or announce a ceremony.

Shrines and sacred objects in the Pontic region

Much Scythian worship appears to have used sacred places and objects rather than statues of the gods. The upright sword on the war god’s brushwood platform is the clearest example in Herodotus’s account. Smaller images of deities also occur in Scythian art.

A Greek-language inscription from the late sixth century BCE records altars in the wooded region of Hylaea. It names the river god Borysthenes, Targitaos under the Greek name Heracles, and the Snake-Legged Goddess under a Greek title meaning “Mother of the Gods.” The inscription points to an open-air place of worship associated with figures from the Scythian origin traditions. It also shows how Greek and Scythian religious language could meet at a shared sanctuary.

Herodotus describes another sacred place, Exampaeus, between the Borysthenes and Hypanis rivers. He reports that a large bronze cauldron stood there and recounts a story that King Ariantas had it made from arrowheads gathered from his subjects. The story presents the object as a shared possession of the Scythians and gives it a place in their collective identity. It is an account of a remembered tradition, not evidence that the arrowheads were actually gathered through a formal count.

Eastern Saka evidence and local differences

Eastern Saka finds provide another regional view of ritual equipment. In the Altai, Pazyryk burials contained equipment associated with burning cannabis, including braziers and a copper censer; one vessel contained cannabis fruits. These remains indicate that cannabis was used in some ritual contexts.

At Baykara in Kazakhstan, a large mound in a burial area has been interpreted as a Saka cult structure rather than a human grave. Its features included a ceremonial passage and central open space, followed by a platform on which a clay-and-sand cone had been placed. A proposed connection between this structure and the Scythian war god remains uncertain. The site nevertheless provides evidence of a form of ritual architecture distinct from the Pontic brushwood platform described by Herodotus.

For the wider setting, see Scythian historical context.