Scythians 700-300 B.C. (Men at Arms Series, 137)

This is a small, but comprehensive book with great quality drawings if you consider the scarcity of the information about these distant mysterious people: the Scythians. There is the part of us that keeps asking questions, such as the origin of the Scythians, what their art meant to themselves, as well as the sources of their military success that lasted historically for as long as 1/2 of millenium or so.Although there is hardly any information on them, there are some acient texts that mention Scythians quite often in semi-mythological context. As far as the Ancient Greeks were concerned they lived on the periphery of the known world - the Oikumena.Another substantial source is wonderful Scythian art. Although a substantial source of knowledge, most of it was disrespectfully dug out from the burial mounds of the otherwise meant to be undistrurbed quiet of the other side homes. Approaching the ancient burials in that way should we be surprised why there is so much bad luck in our age?May we choose to skip this otherwise judgmental position, we may conclude that the Scythians have had a penchant for gold and its lavish uses in their everyday life. We are encountering a faboulously rich upperclass burials, but the lower class ones have objects that are in their quality equals to the ones of the chieftains. The reason for that is that the Scythian society consisted of free men and women, and therefore equals. Scythians were very good at working with metals and adopting the strokes from other folks. They were also greast at leather and fur work. Out of all weapons Scythians revered the bow and its companion - arrow, and the sword-acynax and knew a lot of about the horses - their taiming, cultivation and harnessing.So if this is a more or less known information, then what is there to know? Something draws a modern man confined within the city limits to the free roaming nomad, and I think we could draw a great deal of knowledge and wisdom from this seemingly little reading.

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Most are under the impression that the Scythian army consisted exclusively of lightly clad horsemen (or women) shooting arrows in the typical 'Parthian Shot', but this book reveals their true versitality in war-they used all weapons, swords, axes, spears, daggers, shields, and so on in addition to the bows that would later be characteristic of the Parthians, Turks, and Mongols. The plates are good, and depict the Scytho-Sarmatian warrior-women, the inspiration for the myth of the 'Amazons', in addition to Scythian warriors triumphing over Thracian and Macedonian foes. As always, this men-at-arms book is an excellent introduction to the weapons, tactics, and general history of its subject.

Good subject focus, reminds me of "The First Men" in Song of Ice and Fire.

took a long time for package to get here and it was a cheap envelope with rips , but the book was great and here before the deadline but just took a little longer then others packages sent. great price. so I happy

For the price it lacked value. It was too general I was expecting the booklet to have depth in the Synthians beginning and more specifics as to their demise.

a good book, good illustrations

GREAT.

Overall a decent light look into the weapon's and style of the Scythian Warriors. A rather decent introduction for a very important people in our western History.

Very fast delivery. Having visited the Scythian Exhibition at the British Museum, this little book gave detailed information on this half forgotten period in history. The drawings of the Scythian warriors, their attire and weapons was clear and illuminating. A lot of interesting detail in a small book. Excellent.

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Good book

It's a booklet, while I was expecting a book. My fault: didn't check number of pages.