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

22 THE PREHISTORIC CIVILIZATIONS
of stone and metal beads. It is impossible for me to enumerate the
scores of objects found in these graves : I shall indicate only the most
characteristic. Among the weapons, the forks or spikes are particu-
larly curious : one of them is decorated with little human figures.
Curious also, the remains of a fur coat and of other garments in the
second stone-box. The dead man was covered by a black fur coat, the
fur turned outwards, with a silver collar ; under the fur was a tissue
of yellow down, and under this, on the body itself, remains of a linen
garment with a painted border of purplish red.
The last grave which I wish to mention was found in 1909 at
Ulski, a village of the Mountain Tatars. The most interesting finds
were a model of a wagon and fragments of five or six female statuettes
in clay and of two others in alabaster. This grave is undoubtedly later
than the preceding : for, first, the grave is in the loose earth and not
in the virgin soil ; secondly, the skeleton lies in an extended position ;
and, thirdly, the type of pin is more advanced. Nevertheless, it still
belongs to the copper age or to the early part of the bronze age.
All these graves of which I have spoken bear witness to a high
development of cultural life in the Northern Caucasus during the
early copper age. But the copper age is of course a relative conception:
it does not provide an absolute chronology. Yet absolute chronology
is of the utmost importance to us. Is the copper age in Northern
Caucasus contemporary with the copper age in Mesopotamia, in
Turkestan, or in Egypt ? I beheve it is, although most investigators
deny this and attribute our finds not to the third but to the second
millennium B.C.
The reasons for my conclusion are derived from a stylistic comparison
of the artistic objects, especially the engraved silver vases,
with similar objects found in Mesopotamia and in Egypt.
I will begin with the engraved vessels from Maikop (pi. Ill), as they
are the most artistic objects among the Kuban finds. The first (pi. Ill,
1-2) has the usual shape of the Maikop vases—ovoid body, wide neck,
no foot, two handles nailed to the neck for suspension. The engraved
decoration (fig. 2) is disposed as follows : on the neck is represented
a chain of mountains, interrupted by two spreading trees. Between
the trees, a bear is standing on his hind legs to reach the fruit : the
fruit is not indicated. On the body of the vase are two rivers flowing
from the mountains and meeting in a sea or lake which occupies the
bottom of the vase. At the mouth of one river a bird—duck or goose
is sitting on the water : at the mouth of the second, a water-plant,
probably a reed, grows on the bank. On the body of the vase are
two rows of animals, four in each row : in the first row, a bull, a wild
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