Sindi people

The Sindi (Ancient Greek: Σινδοι, romanized: Sindoi; Adyghe: Щынджыхэр; Ubykh: Шинджишвё; Latin: Sindi) were an ancient tribe that primarily lived in western Ciscaucasia. A portion of the Sindi also lived in Central Europe. Their name is variously written, and Pomponius Mela calls them Sindones, Lucian, Sindianoi.

Sindica
c. 7th century BC–c. 36 BC
Pontus Euxinus by Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598)
Common languages	Scythian Maeotian Ancient Greek
Religion	Circassian Paganism Maeotian religion Ancient Greek religion
Government	Monarchy
Historical era	Iron Age Scythian culture
• Scythian retreat from Ciscaucasia	c. 7th century BC
• Conquest by the Bosporan Kingdom After the Battle of Labrytai	c. 36 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Maeotians Bosporan Kingdom
Today part of	Southern Russia

The Sindi were a tribe of the North Caucasus who established themselves on the Taman peninsula,^[3] where they formed a ruling class over the indigenous North Caucasian Maeotians. Some scholars still debate their ethnicity and the origins of sindic language are unclear. Some soviet scholars, like Nikita Anfimov, believed they were of a caucasian origins and were a proto-circassian (Adyghe) tribe. Others, like Oleg Trubachyov were talking about the indo-arian origins of sinds, but today this opinion is rejected by the majority of scholars. Modern historians and archeologists like Andrei Michailovich Novichihin believe Sindi were of a mixed origins, some of them were indo-iranian, others caucasian (proto-circassian).

Archaeologically, the Sindi belonged to the Scythian culture or Maeotian culture and they progressively became Hellenised due to contact with the Bosporan Kingdom.^[4]

Sindi were present in the area called Sindica (Ancient Greek: Σινδικη, romanized: Sindikē; Latin: Sindica) by the Greeks and which corresponded to the area west of present-day Krasnodar, in the Taman peninsula.^[4]

The kingdom of Sindica existed for only a brief time, and it was soon annexed by the Bosporan Kingdom.^[4]

Unlike the majority of the Sindi, who remained in the northern Caucasus, a smaller section of the Sindi migrated westwards and settled into the Hungarian Plain as part of the expansion of the Scythian into Central Europe during the 7th to 6th centuries BC, and they soon lost contact with the Scythians who remained in the Pontic Steppe. The 3rd century BC Greek author Apollonius of Rhodes located a population of the Sindi living alongside the Sigynnae and the otherwise unknown Grauci in the "plain of Laurion", which is likely the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin.^[5][6][3]

The Scythian ruling class in the Maeotian country initially buried their dead in kurgans while the native Maeotian populace were buried in flat cemeteries. Burials in Sindica continued this tradition, and members of the Sindi ruling class continued being buried in kurgans while the Maeotians continued to be buried in flat graves.^[4]

After earlier Scythian earthworks built in the 6th century BC along the right bank of the Kuban river were abandoned in the 4th century BC, when the Sauromatians took over most of Ciscaucasia, the Sindi built a new series of earthworks on their eastern borders. One of the Sindi earthworks was located at Yelizavetinskaya [ru], where was located a c. 400 BC kurgan in which several humans were buried and which contained the skeletons of 200 horses.^[4]

The Hungarian Sindi had almost equal proportions of Neolithic origin and steppe, associated with the Yamnaya culture, there is also a minor contribution of WHG.^[7][8]