page_title: Ten Lost Tribes
section_title: Scythian/Cimmerian theories and British Israelism
hierarchical_section_title: Ten Lost Tribes / Speculation regarding other ethnic groups / Scythian/Cimmerian theories and British Israelism
caption_attribution_description: English: Depiction of Jehu King of Israel giving tribute to King Shalmaneser III of Assyria, on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud (circa 827 BC) in the British Museum (London).
context_page_description: The ten lost tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been deported from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh, and Ephraim; all but Judah and Benjamin. Claims of descent from the "lost tribes" have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some religions espouse a messianic view that the tribes will return.
  In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the lost tribes was associated with the concept of the coming of the messiah.
  The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that "the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers".
  Historian Tudor Parfitt has declared that "the Lost Tribes are indeed nothing but a myth", and he writes that "this myth is a vital feature of colonial discourse throughout the long period of European overseas empires, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, until the later half of the twentieth".
context_section_description: Adherents of British Israelism and Christian Identity both believe that the lost tribes migrated northward, over the Caucasus, and became the Scythians, Cimmerians and Goths, as well as the progenitors of the later Germanic invaders of Britain.
  The theory first arose in England, from whence it spread to the United States. During the 20th century, British Israelism was promoted by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God.
  Tudor Parfitt, author of The Lost Tribes: The History of a Myth, states that the proof cited by adherents of British Israelism is "of a feeble composition even by the low standards of the genre", and these notions are widely rejected by historians.
caption: A depiction of either King Jehu, or Jehu's ambassador, kneeling at the feet of Shalmaneser III on the Black Obelisk.
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