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

THE ANIMAL STYLE 185
The introduction of the new arms, and the modification of the
old, were certainly due to the military and conquering spirit of the
new-comers. I will not deny that they brought with them the new
variety or varieties of fibula, which they had developed elsewhere,
out of the same type, however, as was current at Panticapaeum, the
tendril fibula. Nevertheless these new forms of fibula were now
deeply influenced by Panticapaean art. I would instance the intro-'
duction of the animal style into the ornamentation— ^the use of bird's
heads, the lion fibula from Szilagy-Somlyo, and so forth— ; and the
constant occurrence of fibulae in the shape of animals, such as were
widespread in the Bosphorus from the first to the third centuries a.d.
But I see no novelty in the technical processes of the jewellery, or in
the decorative system. The Goths adopted all the processes which
were employed in the Bosphorus before their arrival : embossing, false
filigree, cloisonne. They also appropriated the polychrome style of
decoration with all its rules. Their predilection for the garnet is
nothing new. Before their time, the garnet was the most popular of
precious stones with the Sarmatians, no doubt because it was the
cheapest and the easiest to work. Lastly, the development of cloisonne
combined with cut garnets was merely the natural outcome of principles
which had been observed in the Bosphorus long before the
arrival of the Goths : witness the Maikop belt. It must also be noted,
that the fourth-century style of jewellery at Panticapaeum was not
greatly affected by the animal style : we said the same about the
western branch of the polychrome style as a whole, the branch of
the Kuban valley and the Bosphoran kingdom.
The fourth-century finds just mentioned are by no means isolated.
We have several of them, and some later ones as well. They
are not confined to Kerch ; like the Sarmatian art of the previous
age, they are spread all over the Russian steppes. I may cite
the finds, published by Tolstoy and Kondakov in the Antiquities
of South Russia, from Chiilek near Taganrog in the region of
the Don, from Kudinetov in the Tersk province in Northern
Caucasus, the great fibula from Nezhin in the district of Chernigov ;
and the excavations, unknown to these writers, in the cemetery of
Suiik Su near Gurziif in the southern Crimea. The Gotho-Sarmatian
civilization, therefore, developed uninterruptedly in South Russia
and covered the same area as the Sarmatian. Every one knows that
it did not stop at the frontiers of modern Russia. It spread, through
the region of the Danube, all over the western Roman provinces and
even over Italy itself. Products of this distinctive art, which was very
closely connected with the Gotho-Sarmatian, are found on the Rhine,
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