Dugdammî

Akkadian Dugdammî/Tugdammî (𒁹𒌇𒁮𒈨𒄿)[1] and Ancient Greek Lugdamis (Λυγδαμις) and Dugdamis (Δυγδαμις) are derived from a name in a Cimmerian dialect of the Old Iranian Scythian language.

[2] The Iranologist Ľubomír Novák has however noted that the attestation of the name in the forms Dugdammê and Tugdammê in Akkadian and the forms Lugdamis and Dugdamis in Greek shows that its first consonant had experienced the change of the sound /d/ to /l/, which is consistent with the phonetic changes attested in the Scythian languages,[3] in which the Iranic sound /d/ had evolved into Proto-Scythian /δ/ (ð) and finally into Scythian /l/.

According to Herodotus, this movement started when the Massagetae[5] or the Issedones[6] migrated westwards, forcing the Scythians to the west across the Araxes[7] and into the Caspian Steppe,[6][5] from where they displaced the Cimmerians.

[7] Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south through the Klukhor [ru], Alagir and Darial passes in the Greater Caucasus mountains and reached Western Asia, where they would remain active for much of the 7th century BCE.

[17] Assyrian records in 657 BCE of a "bad omen" for the "Westland" might have referred to either another Cimmerian attack on Lydia,[18] or a conquest by Dugdammî of the western possessions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, possibly Quwê or somewhere in Syria,[19] following their defeat by Gyges.

[18][11][13] After sacking Sardis, Lygdamis led the Cimmerians into invading the Greek city-states of Ionia and Aeolis on the western coast of Anatolia, which caused the inhabitants of the Batinētis region to flee to the islands of the Aegean Sea, and later Greek writings by Callimachus and Hesychius of Alexandria preserve the record that Lygdamis had destroyed the Artemision of Ephesus during these invasions.