: "Thracians" may refer to any modern inhabitants of the geographic region of Thrace, regardless of ethnicity; see Thrace.

Picture of Thracian peltast, fifth to fourth century BC.

(Picture) Thracian Roman era "heros" (Sabazius) stele. The rider god was holding a lance and rides towards an altar with a snake wound around a tree. The flowing mantle is a permanent attribute of the Thracian rider god over several centuries.

The ancient Thracians were a group of ancient Indo-European tribes who spoke the Thracian language - a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. Those peoples inhabited the Eastern, Central and Southern part of the Balkan peninsula, as well as the adjacent parts of Eastern Europe.

Thracians inhabited the ancient provinces of: Thrace, Moesia, Dacia, Scythia Minor, Sarmatia, Bithynia, Mysia, Macedonia, Pannonia, and other regions on the Balkans and Anatolia. This area extends over most of the Balkans region, and the Getae north of the Danube as far as beyond the Bug. ^{The catalogue of Kimbell Art Museum's 1998 exhibition _Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians indicates a historical extent of Thracian settlement including most of the Ukraine_} . The Thracian ethnicity and language have been extinct. The branch of science that studies the ancient Thracians and Thrace is called Thracology.

• thracians - Origins
  • The prehistoric origins of the Thracians remain obscure, in absence of written historical records. Evidence of Proto-Thracians in the prehistoric period depends on remains of material culture. It is generally proposed that a Proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze Age. ^{Hoddinott (1981)} .
• thracians - Classical period
  • By the 5th century BC, the Thracian presence was pervasive enough to have made Herodotus (book 5) call them the second-most numerous people in the part of the world known by him (after the Indians), and potentially the most powerful, if not for their disunity. The Thracians in classical times were broken up into a large number of groups and tribes, though a number of powerful Thracian states were organized, such as the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace and the Dacia of Burebista. A type of soldier of this period called the Peltast probably originated in Thrace.
• thracians - Extinction of the ethnicity and language
  • See also Dacian language, Thracian language.
• thracians - Archaeology
  • Main article: Thracian culture
• thracians - Sources
  • The Iliad records that the Thracians from around the Hellespont and also the Thracian Cicones fought on the side of the Trojans (Iliad, book II). The Odyssey records that Odysseus and his men raided Thrace on their way back home from war. Many mythical figures, such as the god Dionysus, princess Europa and the hero Orpheus were borrowed by the Greeks from their Thracian neighbours.
• thracians - Famous Thracians and Dacians
  • • Amadocus, a king after whom Amadok Point was named.
• thracians - Notes
• thracians - References
  • • Hoddinott, Ralph F. The Thracians. Thames & Hudson (1981), ISBN 0-500-02099-X.
• thracians - See also
  • • Thrace
• thracians - External links
  • • Bulgaria's Thracian heritage
• thracians - References
  • • Hoddinott, Ralph F. The Thracians. Thames & Hudson (1981), ISBN 0-500-02099-X.
• thracians - Related topics