Sindi people

Not to be confused with the Sindhi people.

Sindi warrior statue. Limestone, I A.D. Kerch Archaeology Museum.

File:EtruscanPottery.jpg

Ancient terracotta vessels unearthed at the Sindian necropolis near Phanagoria. The photograph by Prokudin-Gorskii (ca. 1912).

The Sindi (Greek: Σινδοί, Herod. iv. 28) were an ancient people in the Taman Peninsula and the adjacent coast of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea), in the district called Sindica, which spread between the modern towns of Temryuk and Novorossiysk (Herod. l. c.; Hipponax. p. 71, ed. Welck.; Hellanic. p. 78; Dionys. Per. 681; Steph. B. p. 602; Amm. Marc. xxii. 8. § 41, &c.). Their name is variously written, and Mela calls them Sindones (ii. 19), Lucian (Tox. 55), Sindianoi.

Strabo describes them as living along the Palus Maeotis, and among the Maeotae, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. (Strab. xi. 2. 11). The Great Soviet Encyclopedia classes them as a tribe of the Maeotae. The Cambridge Ancient History refers to the Sindi as a Scythian people dominant among the Maeotians, whom it considers as either of Cimmerian ancestry or as Caucasian aboriginals under Iranian overlordship.

In the 5th century BC, the Sindi were subjugated by the Bosporan Kingdom. They left multiple tumuli which, when excavated by Soviet archaeologists, revealed that their culture was heavily Hellenized. The Sindi were assimilated by the Sarmatians in the first centuries AD.

Besides the seaport of Sinda, other towns belonging to the same people were Hermonassa, Gorgippia, and Aborace. (Strab. xi. 2, et. seq.) They had a monarchical form of government (Polyaen, viii. 55), and Gorgippia was the residence of their kings (Strab. l. c.).

Nicolaus Damascenus (p. 160, ed. Orell.) mentions a peculiar custom which they had of throwing upon the grave of a deceased person as many fish as the number of enemies whom he had overcome.

References

Sources

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
• Strabo's book 11 on-line
• (French) Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
• Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.

• Boardman & Edwards 1991, p. 572