From: george knysh
Message: 64704
Date: 2009-08-11
--- On Tue, 8/11/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
Shchukin:
http://tech. groups.yahoo. com/group/ cybalist/ message/64635
He has a further note on the 'Zolotoe kladbishche' , the "Golden Cemetery":
'*** It was possibly this wave of nomads which brought to Eastern Europe the fashion for gold objects in the animal style,
****GK: OK. So this explains the expression "Golden cemetery".*****
lavishly decorated with turquoise. In the east these objects are amply represented in the "Siberian Collection" of Peter I 31,
****GK: Artamonov is a good authority. And his book is about the Scythians of the East ("Sakas").****
and in the materials of the excavation of the necropolis at Tillya-tepe in northern Afghanistan 32.
****GK: Sarianidi is also a good authority. BTW Tillya-Tepe (early 1rst c. CE) is located at the western boundary of Bactria with Parthia. Its impressive burials have not yet been conclusively attributed to either the "Sakarauka" ("Royal Scythians") or "Asiani/Tokhari" components of the nomadic confederation (known as Yue-Chi to the Chinese) which took Bactria and Sogdiana from the Greeks (as Strabo stated). The "Asiani" would be cousins of the Aorsi/Alans, with very similar cultural habits (tamgas/gakks; cranial deformations; "niche" or catacomb burial rite)****
In Siberia the tradition of the turquoise-golden animal style is rooted in the very deep past. From the 1st century AD such objects started to appear in the barrows of "The Golden Cemetery" and in other burials of the Kuban region, as well as along the lower reaches of the Don, where the most luxurious samples come from the barrows "Khokhlatch" and "Sadoviy" 33. This style is also known in Transcaucasia 34, it penetrated into the Dnieper valley35, and further to the west.
*****GK: It looks as though we're talking about Aorsans ("West Alans") or Alans.****
Two rich burials - a male and a female one - were recently discovered near the village of Porogi in the middle Dniester valley, on the left bank of that river. The objects of the turquoise-golden style from these burials have parallels with the finds from "Khokhlatch" and Tillya-tepe; on some of them there is the tamga-sign of Inismei(?), the heir and successor of Farzoi.
****GK: Inismei ruled ca. 69/70-> ca. 85. Of Aorsan descent, though by that time they had fully fused with the Satarchi Scythians and were called either "Scythians" or "Tauroscythians". The ruling elite: "Spali". Still bore that name when the Goths invaded in the 240's Cf. Jordanes.****
The tamgas of both rulers are also present on the objects from the rich burial in the barrow "Kashava Drahana" in Bulgaria 36.
*****GK: Extremely interesting.****
Of especial interest in this complex is the long sword of distinctly oriental provenance. The suspension loops of its scabbard are made of nephrite in the style of the Chinese Han dynasty. As for the other decorative details of the scabbard, they are executed in the turquoise-golden Sarmatian animal style, though, instead of turquoise, green glass was used.
****GK: This sounds a lot like the polychrome art introduced to the West by the late Sarmatians (esp. the Alans), and later borrowed by the Goths and others.****
The buried man had worn a Roman bronze helmet-mask and armour, including trousers with metal plates of a Sarmatian armoured cavalry warrior. The burial was dated to the "mid-first century AD", but a more likely date is the second half of that century. It is hard to say whether this set of weapons got into Thracia during the Roxolanian raid of 69 AD, in the course of the raid of Platinus Silvanus against the Sarmatians of king Farzoi, or by some other means.
****GK: And there is nothing about the structure of the tomb?****
...
31. Artamonov M.I.
Sokrovishcha sakov.
Moskva, 1973.
32. Sarianidi V.
The Golden Hoard of Bactria.
From Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan. Leningrad, 1985.
33. Klein L.S.
Sarmatskij tarandr i vopros o proishozhdenii Sarmatov. In:
Skifo-sibirskij zverinyj stil v iskusstve narodov Evrazii.
Moskva, 1976, p. 228-235;
Raev B.A. Roman Imports in the Lower Don Basin. -
BAR. International Ser. 278, 1986.
Pl. 34, 35.
34. Lordkipanidze O.A., Mikeladze T.K., Khukhtaishvili D.D. Gonijskij klad.
Tbilisi. 1980.
35. Shilov V.P.
Zaporozhskij kurgan
(K voprosu o pogrebenijah aorskoj znati) -
Sovetskaja arheologija, 1983,
N 1, p. 178-193.
36. Buyukliyev Kh.
Trakijskijat mogilen nekropol pri Chatalka,
Starozagorskij okrug. -
Razkopki i pruchvanija.
1986, kn. 16.'
Apparently the "Kashava Drahana" barrow (note 36) is the C^atalka site mentioned in another post.