Sindi people

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.