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

40
THE CIMMERIANS AND THE
Unhappily, we have no archaeological data to verify these hypotheses.
I have every reason to believe that two seventh-century
graves—one discovered in the interior of the Taman peninsula, the
other near Kerch on a hill called Temir Gora—belong to the indigenous
population, to the native aristocracy of Cimmerians mixed
with Sindians. My supposition is confirmed by the very peculiar
weapons found in the former of the two graves, especially the bronze
battle-axe, and by the openwork belt-clasp, with two lions in a heraldic
attitude, from the same tomb (pi. V, i, 2, 4)
quite different from the objects typical of Scythian sixth-century
graves, and the clasp recalls the heraldic figures on the pole-heads
of Cappadocia—another refuge of the Cimmerians (see pi. II and
pi. V, 3). A bronze statuette of a galloping horseman with a quiver, in
a style recalling the Cappadocian bronzes, may represent a native
horseman, a Maeoto- Cimmerian chief of the region of the Kuban
(pi. V, 5). Finally, I am inclined to recognize Cimmerians or Sindians
: both axe and clasp are
in the opponents of the Scythians on the Solokha gorytus (pi. XXI).
There is a strong contrast between the tall, handsome figures of these
two warriors, apparently victorious, and the Scythian horseman and
foot-soldiers with their- half- Mongolian faces, who bear the same
weapons as are always found in Scythian graves. The weapons of
the victorious foot-soldiers resemble those from the Taman grave :
the principal piece is a battle-axe of bronze or iron.
I should also like to draw attention to a curious and interesting
find from Bessarabia, published by Ernst von Stern. It belongs to
the late bronze age, consists of personal ornaments in diorite, in silver
inlaid with gold, and in bronze, and recalls finds of the same class and
period from Hungary and from Troy.
I would also mention the famous treasure of Mikhalkovo, and the
Daljy fibula which is closely akin to it. Hadaczek, who published a
minute study of the Mikhalkovo find, proposed—I think with good
reason—to connect it with the Cimmerians. The objects from
Mikhalkovo and Daljy are decorated in a mixed style, at once animal
and geometric. The Mikhalkovo animal style is very different from
the Scythian animal style, and reminds one of the objects found at
Koban in the Caucasus and of Transcaucasian pottery, which are
known to belong to the end of the bronze age and to the early iron
age, just the period in which we might place the first attempts of the
Cimmerians to cross the Caucasian mountains and establish themselves
in Transcaucasia. There is a rather strange object in the
British Museum which is perhaps connected with the objects from
Mikhalkovo : a bronze celt of highly developed form, decorated with