A Sarmatian golden dagger and scabbard studded with turquoise and carnelian, 1st century CE, from Datschi Kurgan, near Rostov. Azov Museum. Image released to the press in 2009. The Scythians were an ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scythians in the west.