Tauri

With Taurians ( ancient Greek Ταῦροι Tauroi ), as well Scythotaurer or Tauroscythen ( Pliny HN 4.85 ), the Greek authors of antiquity described the vorskythische population on the Crimean peninsula, which they Chersonesos Taurike, Taurica or Taurida named after them ( see main article Taurien ).

The Taurians were therefore an ancient pastoral people that settled mainly in the southern Crimea. By Pontic Greeks, BC founded colonies on the coasts of the Crimea since the 7th century, the Greek world came into contact with the Tauris and Scythians.

Scientific tangible ethnicity is, however, only from the reports of ancient authors. Archaeologically they are difficult to distinguish from the Scythians and Sarmatians. Although credited to the Bronze Age pottery mostly to the Tauris, but it had this pastoral people no written or tradition of its own. So we have to rely on the ancient sources.

Mythology

The people of the Tauri under their king Thoas plays a significant role in the legendary tales of the Greeks to Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who, as well as her brother Orestes (see Atreus, Tantaliden ).

Homer in the Iliad leaves at the beginning of the exodus of the Greeks in the Trojan War play a prominent role. Behind the Myths circle hides probably the memory of an early cult associated with human sacrifice Iphigenia to the goddess, which was merged with the Greeks with the cult of Artemis. Such a major cult center of a virgin goddess, Artemis, or possibly Iphigeneia, called by the Greeks simply Artemis Tauropolos must have given at the Tauris it. Another seems attested from Asia Minor in the area of Tabriz.

Some authors assume that the Iphigenia story was taken late in the sagas of the House of Atreus, after the tale of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon was formed finished.

Swell

Herodotus reported in the 5th century BC by the barbarous nations on the edge of the world at that time. Among them of the Tauris. In particular, in the myth of Iphigenia in Tauris land of these are described as rough, wild, plundering and kriegswütiges people, where Iphigenia had to help in the temple service of Artemis, the prisoners cut off the heads ( Herodotus 4, 99, 1, 102-103 ).

The other authors mention above all their cruelty and human sacrifice ( Euripides IT, especially 28-41; Herodotus 4, 103; Pomponius Mela 2, 11, DS 3,43,5; Tacitus, Annals 2.17; Leskov 1980, 39 f. ). In the myth of Orestes turn of Artemis temple is mentioned in the Crimea. Orestes was sent to the land of Tauris to steal the portrait of Artemnis from that temple.

Often the Tauri as the southern mountains in Crimea inhabiting be written ( Herodotus 4,99,3; Strabo 7,4,3; Pliny: Naturalis 4.85 ). Skymnos ( frag. 12.823 ) they characterized as sedentary herders, which was probably interpreted by the later authors incorrectly classified as nomadic mountain people. However Skymnos characterizes the Scythians quite as " rentals supporting migratory populations ," so that he would have mentioned this property even at the Tauris. Even after Leskov the shepherds were mostly ranchers drove the Serviced in the southern mountains. The philologist Martin Korenjak has therefore proposed Skymnos to read or translate as: " They lead a pastoral life in the mountains ."

Ammianus Marcellinus describes it in the 4th century similar to Herodotus as an extremely wild and identifies three tauren tribes, namely the Arichi that Sinchi and Napaei.

Descent and kinship

• Herodotus mentions the Tauri in the fourth book of his history as an ally of the Scythians against the Persians.
• Strabo refers to the Tauri as a Scythian people (Str. VII 4.5; cf. Plin nat IV 26. . ).

• Various authors have placed the Tauri with the Cimmerians - related issue, such as Hall ( Hall, 1989, 111). He assumes that the Tauri were remnants of migrated to the Crimea and sold by the Scythians Cimmerians; this view is not shared by other authors. Others have suggested that the Tauri were a vorkimmerische autochthonous population.

About the language of the Taurians nothing is known.