lived to the east of the middle Dnipro river, in the forest steppe bordering the territory of the Royal Scythians to the north. These populations were either of Scythic or of mixed Scythic and native origin. the Sauromatians, who lived to the east of the Scythians, in the steppe between the Don and the Volga, were another Scythic people. They were the immediate neighbours of the Royal Scythians to the east, across the Volga. the Neuri, who were a Baltic population of the region of the forest steppe corresponding to modern-day Belarus. the Budini, to the east of the Neuroi, were one of the many Finno-Ugric populations living in the eastern forest steppe until the Ural Mountains. the Maeotians lived on the eastern coast of Lake Maeotis. the Tauri lived in the Crimean Mountains. Scythian kings The Scythians were monarchical and were ruled by tribal kings who held absolute power over their respective tribes, and in turn owed allegiance to the king of the Royal Scythians. Royal power among the Scythians was considered as having been divinely ordained; this conception of royal power, which is well documented in the ritual symbols depicted on Mid-Scythian toreutics, was initially foreign to Scythian culture and originated in West Asia during the period of Scythian presence there in the 7th century BC. According to the Scythologists Askold Ivantchik and Mikhail Bukharin, the Scythians had been ruled by at least three dynasties, including that of Bartatua, that of Spargapeithes, and that of Ariapeithes. The historian and anthropologist Anatoly Khazanov instead suggested that the Scythians had been ruled by the same dynasty from the time of their stay in West Asia until the end of their kingdom in the Pontic steppe. Crafts The centre of early Scythian industry was located in the region of the Tiasmyn group of the Scythian culture, which corresponded the country of the Aroteres, where an Iranic Scythian elite ruled over a sedentary Thracian population; the Scythians also obtained simple tools and ornamentations and some weapon types from the sedentary Thracians who lived in their kingdom, and who manufactured products such as pottery, woodwork, and weaving, as well as bronze metal-working made out of raw materials imported from Transylvania. By the Mid-Scythian period, its principal centre was at a site corresponding to present-day Kamianka-Dniprovska, where bog iron ores were smelted to produce iron, and various tools, ornaments, and weapons were made. Trade