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

178 GREEK CITIES OF SOUTH RUSSIA
with carnelians fixed in bezels. The flat pommel is a chalcedony with
a gold rosette in the middle : the rosette is enriched with enamel and
coloured pastes forming a mosaic design. The same combination,
then, of proto-cloisonne and inlaid stones as is typical of the Gothic
style.
The other feature is the entire absence of decoration in the animal
style, which we found abundantly represented in Siberia and at
Novocherkassk, and much less abundantly on the Kuban. The
western variety of the polychrome style is developing before our eyes :
it will presently start from Panticapaeum to conquer the world.
It has always been recognized that the Kerch finds which I have
just analysed are of the greatest importance for determining the origin
of the Gothic or Merovingian style of jewellery. The close affinity of
the two styles is undeniable. No one will dispute the significance of the
conclusions which we have now reached : first, that the finds analysed
date from the beginning of the third century, that is, from the pre-
Gothic period ;
more ancient finds, which we have every justification for assigning to
the Sarmatians, and which go back as far as the fourth century B.C.
and form an uninterrupted sequence.
Let us now return to Bosphoran civilization. The tomb furniture
of the second and third centuries A. D. agrees with the rest of our
evidence in pointing to progressive, almost precipitate Iranization at
Panticapaeum and in the Bosphorus generally. It is difficult to think
of the family tombs of Rhescuporis II as belonging to persons who
spoke Greek and called themselves Greeks. These persons were
Iranians, Sarmatians, with a veneer of Hellenism. It was mainly in
the second century that the transformation took place. This is proved
by a number of tombs which I have no time to describe. I refer the
reader to Ernst von Stern's careful description of one of these
monumental chambers, or to Ashik's of a chamber with fourteen
wooden coffins, one of which contained a crown with an imprint
from a coin of Marcus Aurelius (a. d. 173), and a number of typical
Sarmatian plaques : or to the account of the chamber discovered by
Kareysha in 1842, which is dated by an imprint from a coin of Commodus.
He will receive the same impression everywhere : Hellenism,
still strong in the first century A. d., was now in complete decline :
Iranian world was overwhelming the Greek.
the
secondly, that they are connected with a series of much
It remains to say a few words about religion and worship in the
Bosphoran kingdom during Roman times. I have already spoken of
the power wielded by native, especially Maeotian cults, in the Asiatic
portion of the Bosphorus during the Greek and Hellenistic periods.