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

i8 THE PREHISTORIC CIVILIZATIONS
This is easy to understand. Tliere is no copper in the Russian steppes,
and none in Central Russia. The only good copper mines are far
away—in the Ural, in Transcaucasia, and in Hungary. Objects
produced in these regions found their way to the Russian steppes.
But we cannot expect to find such objects in great numbers. The
steppes had nothing to offer in exchange for precious articles. The
time had not yet come when the corn, the fish, and the leather of
South Russia found a certain and permanent market in countries which
abounded in gold, silver, copper, and iron.
The conditions in the valley of the Kuban were very different.
The Kuban valley, rich in natural produce, always served as a granary
for the mountainous and alpine regions of Central Caucasus, which
had plenty of fruit but were poor in cereals. Now Central Caucasus
and Transcaucasia abound in metals, especially copper and iron. It is
well known that the most ancient Greek writers always affirmed that
iron and even copper—as to copper there was a difference of opinion
were ' invented ' by the peoples of Transcaucasia. A recently published
papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, containing fragments of Hellanicus,
gives a new version of the current story : according to this version,
the use of iron weapons was introduced by one Saneunos, a Scythian
king. I have not the least doubt that the mines of Transcaucasia
furnished much of the copper which was fashioned into weapons,
implements, and objects of art in Mesopotamia ; as to the precious
metals, especially gold, I need only recall the legend of the Argonauts
and the Golden Fleece : I shall return to the question later. Silver
was extracted in great quantities from the mines in the country of the
Chalybians. Is it not natural that the copper and precious metals of
the Caucasus should have easily found their way, probably by sea, to
the fertile valley of the Kuban ? We know that the inhabitants of the
Black Sea littoral, and particularly of the Crimea and the Caucasian
coast, were always intrepid sailors, and that in historic times they
practised a piracy which was difficult to repress, even with the regular
fleet of the Bosphoran kingdom. I am convinced that it was they
who from the earUest times transported the metals of Transcaucasia
to the seaports in the Straits of Kerch. These seaports were probably
active hundreds of. years before the Greeks settled there. One of
them was certainly Panticapaeum. The barbarian name of the town,
and the legend, preserved by Stephanus of Byzantium, that it was
founded by a son of Aietes, king of those Colchians who appear in the
story of the Argonauts, testify to the great antiquity of the town, to
its ancient intercourse with the Caucasus, and to its existence as a
seaport long before the arrival of the Milesians. I take it that two
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