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

i88 THE POLYCHROME STYLE AND
published by Pulszky and Hampel, which undoubtedly belongs to the
same period as the Kerch finds of 1904, the period of Valens, Valentinian
and Gratian. Let us look at the fibulae. One class of fibula
is enriched with cabochons, which are set in cavities surrounded
by granulation or false filigree, and is ornamented with granulated
geometric patterns—double spirals spectacle-shaped, eight-shaped, or
triangular : the whole decoration, therefore, is of the same type as in
the Sarmatian polychrome objects. In another class of fibula, the
granulated ornaments are partly replaced by, partly combined with,
the embossed work which is frequent on the Kuban. It is with this
class that we must connect the large fibula in the form of an oval
brooch : a common shape on the Kuban. A third class finds remarkable
analogies among the Sarmatian objects from the Don and the
Dnieper, and in the treasure of Petroasa : the most characteristic
specimen is a fibula with the body in the form of a couchant lion,
geometrically stylized, and embellished with precious stones. The
figure of the lion is strangely reminiscent of the Scythian animal style
pure and simple, modified to suit the fashion of polychrome decoration.
The tail of the fibula is adorned with an embossed griffin. Curiously
enough, the incisions on the lion's body are extraordinarily like the
incisions in the field of the plaque from Siverskaya Stanitsa. Still
closer to the Sarmatian plaques or phalarae, with their vegetable,
animal and mythological decoration, are the boss-shaped fibulae :
the boss is decorated with two embossed friezes of animals : the
work, though barbarous, is exceedingly like that of the South Russian
phalarae.
Before leaving Szilagy-Somlyo, let me point out another queer
coincidence. The gold vases of Szilagy-Somlyo have triangular
plaques, studded with gems, attached to their mouths. This strange
system of decoration can be explained with the help of Scythian
monuments : the rhyta, of horn or wood, from the kurgans of the
Seven Brothers, the wooden vases from Solokha and from other tombs
of the same group. In these objects, the golden triangles fastened
to the mouth have a technical justification : in the Szilagy-Somlyo
vases, they are decorative survivals and nothing more. I have no
doubt that the Szilagy-Somly6 vases, which are very primitive, were
imitated from wooden originals. It is not surprising that the ornamentation
in triangles reappears on the well-known drinking-horn
from Taplow Barrow in Buckinghamshire, now in the British Museum,
a work of the Anglo-Saxon period.
It would be easy, if space permitted, to multiply these comparisons
between Sarmatian art and the art of the Merovingian epoch. To