Talk:Scythians

Add Armenian, Greek, and New Persian transliterations

(Old Persian: Sakā; New Persian: ساکا Saka; Greek: Σάκαι Sakai; Armenian: սկյութները Skyout'nerə; Latin: Sacae, Sanskrit: शक Śaka), and Sai (Chinese: 塞; Old Chinese: *sˤək), respectively.[8]

Loss of information

The recent condensation of the page by @AirshipJungleman29 has removed too much information from the page. I have managed to salvage the history section by moving it to a separate page, but the rest of the article has still lost significant amounts of information during the condensation process and it keeps getting reverted by @Nikkimaria when I try restoring it. I know I am biased, since I am the one who wrote much of the pre-condensation article in the first place, but isn't it possible to condense the information without losing it? Antiquistik (talk) 22:18, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Having more detailed subpages is how it should be done, per WP:DETAIL. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:24, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I have managed to salvage the history section by moving it to a separate page. False. You have merged three separate pages, of appropriate length, that I created to salvage the utter mess this page was, and created another page that flagrantly violates a simple Wikipedia guideline that young children should be able to understand. Your ownership of this and related pages is rapidly becoming disruptive Antiquistik, along with your tiresome misconception that "more equals better!!!!", fundamentally at odds with basic policy. You are not helping readers, and thus you are not helping Wikipedia; you are only helping yourself. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:27, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: The information removed belongs on this page because it is essential to understand the society of the Scythians. What has been moved into subpages has already been, spinning the rest of the information off into subpages doesn't work.

@AirshipJungleman29: What I did was to copy the content of the history section from before you went through it and turn it into a new page, and then I redirected the pages you created to it. I agree that it is also long and also needs condensation.

However I am not trying to own this page. I have issues with how you condensed it because you merely removed paragraphs without editing the remnant so that the text now mentions information that is no longer within it. And you have also removed important information such as the list of tribes and of related cultures. This is not me being "more equals better," because as can been seen from my overhauling of the related pages Agathyrsi and Cimmerians, I have neither written huge pages nor tried to "own" these pages.

I am objecting to your removals simply because this information is necessary for this page. Otherwise, the source material I used would not have devoted so much to explaining these. Antiquistik (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Your definition of "essential" and "necessary" is nowhere near the definition of the rest of Wikipedia. Similar to how you believe the 13,000-word Cimmerians article is not a "huge page"!—well, I suppose nothing else compares to the mess this previously was. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29: There is a limit on page size, but otherwise the rest of Wikipedia hasn't decided that the list of tribes or of related cultures or the explanation for what the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex is are non-essential or unnecessary on this page.

Additionally, many of the sources still in the page no longer support the statements they're meant to be supporting after your purge. This is shoddy work.

As for Cimmerians, the limit for what constitutes a huge page is 15K words; 13K is well within the limits making it not huge.

To reiterate myself: I am not against condensing the excessively long article I wrote, I am for doing so with minimal loss of information. Antiquistik (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I am not satisfied with the specifics of AirshipJungleman29's condensation of this article and I think their edits should be reverted altogether so someone can better condense and trim it. Could you abstain from reverting my reversal of their edits should I do this? Antiquistik (talk) 06:23, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

No. I think a wholesale revert would be a big step backwards. If you think you can do a better version, suggest you set that up in a sandbox. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:18, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Seems like a stalling move; we've done that, and the result was a still excessively long article. At 209,412 bytes, I wouldn't be complaining. Carlstak (talk) 00:47, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I can't do a better version because condensing articles isn't within my competences. However the present state of the article post AirshipJungleman29's edits isn't good either. Among other problems, many statements no longer have the citations that back them or are fragmentary or are now lacking context. The page needs to be re-condensed from the beginning.

@Carlstak: surely waiting with a longer article for a few days or weeks until it's re-condensed doesn't hurt, no? It's only temporary after all. Antiquistik (talk) 11:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I believe that's effectively what you did last time. Carlstak (talk) 16:23, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

You agree that condensing should be done, but you want to revert the condensing that has been done, and you will not do any condensing yourself. So who do you believe will do it? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:52, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

@Carlstak: Indeed. And I still don't see what's the issue with that. After all, it's temporary.

@Nikkimaria: Surely there are other editors on Wikipedia who can properly re-condense the article, no? Antiquistik (talk) 18:52, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

You're welcome to see if you can find one. It might be better if they can somehow be assured you won't want to mass-revert all their work also, though. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I meant to say, Antiquistik, that's what you requested last time, and neither you nor anyone else ever followed through with a rewrite, and the lack of action appeared to be your desired result. That's what I meant by stalling tactic, and we won't do that again. Carlstak (talk) 22:31, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I won't be reversing anything if it's well done.

@Carlstak: I did try to trim the page, even if I ended giving up because it turned out I wasn't capable of doing so. That's why I am proposing letting another editor properly re-condense this page.

Antiquistik (talk) 07:17, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Pagyritai mentioned by Ptolemy

The Pagyritai are a tribe mentioned by Ptolemy in his Geography book. The name sounds rather similar to the Paralatai mentioned by Herodotus. So is it likely that the name Pagyritai was a corrupted version of Paralatai? Average Etruscan (talk) 10:50, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

@Average Etruscan: Per WP:FORUM, this is not the venue for discussing such topics. This question is beyond the competences of Wikipedia editors.

You should try asking this on Reddit's r/AskHistorians instead. Antiquistik (talk) 11:48, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Battle of Nineveh 612 BC

Alliance with Medes and Babylonians to destroy the Great City 2600:1011:B15A:4246:945E:1D08:100D:BF03 (talk) 01:29, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Unable to edit this article

I was going to add a Wikilink to this article, but I was unable to do so because it appears to be locked from editing. Please fix this ridiculous situation! 96.28.65.49 (talk) 21:24, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

To add to article

Shouldn't we add this information to this article (in order to help make it more properly encyclopedic)? Apparently there are just 7 specimens of human skin preserved from the Scythian period, and all of them (100% of the specimens) are tattooed, with each tattoo being unique. (The current version of this article does not mention the word "tattoo.") Source: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ancient-tattoo-archaeology/ 96.28.65.49 (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

A. This concerns the Sakas, not the (Pontic) Scythians.

B. If you want to add information to protected articles, make an account and become a Wikipedia editor.

Antiquistik (talk) 05:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)