Ashkenaz
Ashkenaz is a region mentioned in the Old Testament. Known today as Scythian Neapolis. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
Ashkenaz appears in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10:3) as a son of Gomer, who was himself a son of Japheth. Through this genealogy, Ashkenaz is presented as the eponymous ancestor of a northern people group associated with the Indo-European migrations into the regions north and northwest of the ancient Near East. In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz appears alongside Ararat and Minni as kingdoms summoned to war against Babylon: "Appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like a swarm of locusts. Appoint against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz." This grouping places Ashkenaz firmly within the context of the ancient Near Eastern world north of Mesopotamia. Ancient Assyrian records link Ashkenaz with the Ashkuza or Scythians, a nomadic warrior people who surged into the Near East from the Eurasian steppes in the 7th century BC and played a significant role in the campaigns that ultimately led to Assyria's fall. Jeremiah's oracle thus invokes Ashkenaz as one instrument of God's judgment against Babylon. In later Jewish tradition, Ashkenaz came to refer to Germanic and then Central and Eastern European lands.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Ashkenaz is associated with the Scythian (Ashkuza) peoples known from Assyrian sources, whose sphere extended across the northern Black Sea region and into the Caucasus and Anatolia. The modern identification with Scythian Neapolis in the Crimea reflects this northern Scythian association. Scythian material culture, distinctive arrowheads, animal-style art, kurgan burial mounds, has been extensively documented through excavations across the Eurasian steppe zone and into the Near East. In the southern Levant, Scythian arrowheads found at several Iron Age destruction sites attest to Scythian military activity in the region during the late 7th century BC. The Scythian presence in the Near East, though brief, left archaeological traces that corroborate the biblical and Assyrian textual evidence.
Verse Appearances (1)
Jer
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]