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

THE PREHISTORIC CIVILIZATIONS 27
significantly enough by means of geometric patterns as in the second
Maikop vase.
Before proceeding I must point out the close resemblance, in
general ornamentation and in the treatment of animals, between the
Nubian handle and, on the one hand, the Maikop objects, on the
other the Egyptian ivories. The embossed work of the Maikop gold
plaques and of the Nubian handle finds a parallel outside Egypt in the
Sumerian objects from Astarabad recently published by myself.
We may also notice the great similarity between the panthers on the
second Maikop vase and on the Nubian handle : in both we find a
tendency to render the fur of the animal by means of geometric ornaments.
The same peculiarity may be observed in the well-known gold
plaques, forming the mounting of a stone knife, in the Cairo Museum.
The bulls of the Maikop find do not differ from each other or
from the Staromyshastovskaya figurine. The type is constant : a
huge head with an exceedingly long, almost square muzzle, enormous
lyre-shaped horns, a massive body with drooping hind-quarters, short
heavy legs, big round eyes with a dot in the middle. This type of
bull is entirely foreign to Egypt. The only parallels are furnished by
Elamitic and by one or two Sumerian monuments ; especially
Elamitic seals, and seal-impressions on proto -Elamitic tablets. Very
curious, the wild ass or Przhevalski's horse, the oldest representation
of a horse on monuments. The animal on the Maikop vase is cer-
tainly not an ass : a glance at the rows of asses on Egyptian palettes
makes that clear. The only counterpart to our animal is the probably
contemporary figure on an ivory plaque from Susa. The likeness is
conspicuous : the same muscular body and expressive head, the same
treatment of the mane and tail by means of straight lines.
The wild boar and the bear are pecuhar to our find. There are
no representations of these animals on early monuments of the Near
East or of Egypt. The types of bird are almost identical with those
on various bone and ivory objects from Egypt. The Maikop birds
are of course rougher and less individual than the Egyptian, but the
stylistic treatment of the plumage is the same in every detail.
The analysis of the artistic monuments of Maikop has shown
throughout a very close affinity with the earliest monuments of the
Near East and of Egypt, which belong to a period when the arts of
Egypt and Asia were still closely related, and did not present any of
the very marked dijfferences observable during the historic period. The
monuments of Maikop, though very similar to those of Elam, Sumer,
and Egypt, are as original as any of these groups. I have no ground
for affirming that the monuments of Elam were imported from