From: tgpedersen
Message: 64709
Date: 2009-08-12
>It was a little more than abstract.
> Wouldn't it have been easier to provide this earlier instead of
> uselessly getting involved in abstract polemics?
> At any rate, thank you for the info below. I appreciate it. See myI wonder how much further to the west?
> remarks at the usual ****GK
>
> --- 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 valley 35, 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 recentlyNo. But since Pes^ka and Tejral compares Mus^ov with Vize and C^atalka, does the description of that in Mus^ov help?
> 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?****
> ...That means the implicit assignation to Thracians by Pes^ka and Tejral
> 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.