The documents that first mention the Scythians belong to a series of cuneiform tablets classified as politico-religious texts. They include enquiries made by Esarhaddon of Shamash, the sungod, through his priests, concerning the movement of troops, in particular those sent into Media to collect tribute. From these enquiries we learn that the people with whom they had to contend were not only the indigenous Medes but also the Gimiri and the Iskuzi or Scythians.

 

In one of these enquiries King Esarhaddon asks, 'Regarding Partatua, King of the Iskuza who has just sent his ambassador to Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, about a princess I ask you Shamash, great lord, if Esarhaddon gives a princess to Partatua King of the Iskuza for a wife, whether Partatua will observe and keep his oath to Esarhaddon, King of Assyria?' (translated from Politische-religiose Texte, p.30, by E.G. Klaube). As we shall see, there are grounds for believing not only that the marriage took place, but also that a military alliance between the Scythians and Assyrians was made, for Herodotus relates that on one occasion a Scythian army under the command of 'Madyes son of Protothyes' (Partatua) came to the relief of Nineveh. 'A battle was fought' he says, 'in which the Medes were defeated, and lost their power in Asia, which was taken over in its entirety by the Scythians' (1, 103, 104).