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

INTHEROMANPERIOD 173
polychrome ornaments—in the civihzed Hfe of the Greco-Roman
world, led to that change of psychology which has been well characterized
by Alois Riegl. But I do maintain that South Russia was one
of the centres, in which polychromy developed early, and independently
of the other centres of ancient jewellery ; and assumed special
forms which brought about the new style commonly called Gothic,
Even after what I said in the preceding chapter, I shall allow
myself to return once more to this question, because it is extremely
important for us, if we wish to appreciate the part which the Bosphorus
played in the history of civilization during the period of the migrations
and the early Middle Ages.
The characteristic feature of the polychrome style at Panticapaeum
and in the Sarmatian world—for the same objects are found in both
places, and it cannot be doubted that the Bosphoran workshops
furnished the Sarmatian world with most of its jewellery—is not
merely the use of precious stones to adorn jewels, or rather the
predominance of the stone in the goldsmith's art, which is now
principally concerned with providing artistic settings for one or more
gems ; but something more important and more distinctive. The
speciality of Panticapaean and Sarmatian jewellery does not lie in
providing settings for precious stones, but in the incrustation of gold
objects, in ornamenting the surface with gems and cut stones, occasionally
enamels. The surface gradually loses its independence and
becomes no more than a field for incrustation, for the production
of polychrome effects. The goldsmith uses inset gems of various
shapes and sizes ; the same stones cut to the required shape ; and glass
and enamel of various hues. The result is a kind of carpet made of
precious stones, in which the scheme and arrangement of colours is
all, while the form of the objects themselves, and their geometric,
floral, or animal ornamentation, play hardly any part. Polychrome
effect is now the alpha and omega of the Panticapaean jeweller.
This tendency in jewellery, as I have already pointed out, is by
no means new. It is to be observed in South Russia during the
archaic period. The Kelermes find, the finds of Vettersfelde, of
Tomakovka on the lower Dnieper , of the Golden Tumulus in the Crimea
furnish characteristic specimens of this Oriental style, in which enamel
and precious stones are employed side by side to enliven the surface
of gold objects. But at this period the polychrome decoration was
subordinated to the form and ornamentation of the objects themselves.
Towards the fifth century, this style disappears in South Russia : a few
survivals, discreet touches of colour, occur in some jewels of the
fourth and third centuries : but these are exceptions. The style as
,