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

136 THE SARMATIANS
From the same region of the Don and the Donets comes a pecuHar
group of silver gilt plaques, mostly from horse-trappings, which belong
to the earlier part of the same period (pi. XXVII, 4). The decoration
of these phalarae, which have recently been published by Spitsyn, is
sometimes identical with that of similar plaques from the region of
the Kuban. The most interesting of those found on the Kuban is the
bronze phalara, excavated at Vozdvizhenskaya Stanitsa in 1899,
representing a goat devoured by a hydra with six heads, all eared
and nearly square. Large finds of plaques have been made at Siverskaya
Stanitsa in the Taman peninsula, at Taganrog, Fedulovo and
Starobelsk in the region of the Don and the Donets, at Yanchekrak
in the district of Taurida : that is, between the Caucasus and the
steppes of the Dnieper. The style of the plaques from Akhtanizovka
is different, and appears to be purely Greek : the Akhtanizovka
phalarae were probably either imported, or made by Greek artists in
South Russia. The Siverskaya find dates from the second or first
century B.C.: the others from about the same period. Some of the
plaques are decorated with patterns only, and in these the ornamentation
is purely Iranian ; just as in a plaque found in 1901 at
Tiflisskaya Stanitsa on the Kuban. Others, at Starobelsk for instance,
bear figures of animals (fig. 20) or mythological scenes. The animals
have nothing in common with the animals of Roman provincial art
a similar style prevails in the painted tomb discovered by Stasov at
Kerch and presently to be described : a pure Iranian style ; derived,
as I have proved in my work on decorative painting, from the art of
which one branch is Parthian art ; and perhaps presenting a certain
analogy with the earliest stage of the Ionian animal style, which was
borrowed from the East. Two gilded silver plaques in the Cabinet des
Medailles at Paris (pi. XXVII, 1,2), which are said to have come from
Pontus, although the provenience is not certain, show a style and
a technique which are almost identical with those of the plaques
from South Russia. The Oriental style of the Paris plaques was
recognized, and their date established, by Drexel and by Reinach,
but neither scholar noticed the numerous and convincing analogies
from South Russia. It is well known that in their artistic development
Pontus and South Russia were always closely associated. But
it may be that the Paris plaques reached Constantinople, where they
were purchased, from South Russia. The engraved inscription, in
spite of Drexel's arguments, I believe to be false : it looks as if it had
been made in Russia, where Mithridates is even more popular among
forgers than Saitapharnes : the Pontic provenience would be subsequent,
and occasioned by the inscription.
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