Iranians and Greeks in South Russia - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

FOURTH AND THIRD CENTURIES B.C. 95
their cattle, and for their military training : hunting, wild rides, and
warlike exercises. We have seen that their centre, from the sixth to
the fourth century, was somewhere in the steppes between Dnieper
and Don, probably near the coast of the Sea of Azov,
In the fourth century, the events which I have already mentioned
considerably modified the circumstances of the Scythian state, driving
it westward and northward. I have spoken of the Scythian advance
towards the west : we must now turn to the archaeological evidence
as to the organization of the principal part of the Scythian empire, the
part between Don and Dnieper, especially along the Dnieper and its
tributaries, after these events^ that is to say in the fourth and third
centuries B.C.
When archaeologists began to explore the tumuli, often of enormous
size, in the region east and west of the lower Dnieper, they were
dazzled by the magnificence of these truly regal sepulchres. So rich
were the tumuli of Chertomlyk, of Alexandropol, of the Tsymbalka
the Ogiiz, Deev and Chmyreva barrows ; the Serogozy and Znamenka
groups ; and, above all, the now famous tumulus of Solokha, and the
tumulus explored by myself in Count Mordvinov's estate, the Black
Valley, Chernay Dolina : that explorers were led to identify this
whole vast region with the half-mythical locality of Gerrhoi, mentioned
more than once by Herodotus. But quite apart from the question,
whether Gerrhoi was a real place at all, the chronology of these tumuli
was not taken into account. I maintain, and I have often essayed to
prove, that they form a chronological unit, that they all belong to the
same period, that none of them is earlier than the end of the fourth
century or later than the second half of the third, a period of a hundred
years more or less. I cannot repeat all my arguments : I will indicate
them briefly.
The unity of the group is proved by the following facts : first, the
type of sepulchral structure is the same ; secondly, the funerary ritual
is the same ;
thirdly, the composition of the tomb furniture is almost
identical ; fourthly, the style of the objects is the same ; fifthly,
duplicates are often found in different tombs, especially duplicates of
the plaques were produced
the gold plaques sewn on to garments :
and sold in large quantities.
The chronology of the group has been hotly disputed. According
to some scholars, some of the tombs date from the fifth century :
Farmakovski and others place some of them in the second century B.C.
Both dates are impossible. Comparison of the contents with dated
objects, especially of the garment plaques with the Greek coins from
which they were imitated ; analysis of the pottery found in some of the
;