Skunkha (

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...

: ), was king of the ("Saka who wear pointed caps"), a group of the

Saka The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...

, in the 6th century BC.

Name

The name might be related to the Ossetian term meaning "distinguishing oneself," and attested as () in the Digor dialect, and as ) in the

Iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

dialect.

Capture

In 519 BC,

Darius I Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...

Achaemenids The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

attacked the Saka tribe and captured their king. His capture is depicted in the relief sculpture of Behistun Inscription, last in a row of defeated "lying kings". After his defeat, Darius replaced him with the chief of another tribe.

References

6th-century BC rulers Saka people Iranian rulers Massagetae 6th-century BC Iranian people {{Iran-royal-stub