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

SCYTHIANS IN SOUTH RUSSIA 53
made in Southern Caucasus, at the village of Zakim in the district of
Kars. The chief piece is a bronze belt in the same style as the objects
from Kelermes. We can see one of the routes by which objects of
the Kelermes type reached Northern Caucasus.
Extremely important finds have been made in the group of kurgans
on the Kuban which the inhabitants call the Seven Brothers. Some
of the graves certainly go back to the fifth century B.C.; another may
be later, of the fourth century B.C. Unhappily the objects have
never been thoroughly studied, although Stephani devoted several
pages to them in the Reports of the Archaeological Commission.
Some of the finds are pure Greek : Attic red-figured and black
varnished vases ; silver vases engraved and gilded (pi. XV, 3) ; bronze
candelabra ; jewels of exquisite finish, for example, a pair of snake
bracelets (pi. XV, i) ; gold plaques sewn on garments ; and so forth.
As far as I can judge, some of these articles were made in Athens, and
others in Asia Minor. The gold plaques may have been manufactured
at Panticapaeum, on partly Greek, partly Scythian models. But side
by side with Greek imports, we have Oriental ; such as the silver rhyton
terminating in the forepart of a wild goat (pi. XII, a), which recalls
Hittite and Cappadocian works of art. It is exactly analogous to the
famous handles from Armenia, part of a bronze vase, one of which is
in the Louvre and the other in the Berlin Museum ; and to certain
bronze objects, of the same type and the same provenience, now
in the Louvre. We may perhaps assign the same origin to the
numerous rhyta of gold and horn, terminating in the foreparts of
animals, which were placed in the tumuli of the Seven Brothers : we
still possess the golden portions—the lower ends and the plaques
which decorated the mouths (pis. XII, b, c, and XIII) : the plaques
are embossed with figures of beasts and birds of prey, sometimes
fantastic, devouring goats, deer, or hares. The same style appears
on the famous silver plaque, the pectoral of a corslet, with figures of
a deer suckling her young, and, below it, of an eagle with wings
displayed. We are so unfamiliar with the art of Eastern Asia Minor,
that it is not easy to find convincing analogies : the style, in my
opinion, is at any rate not Ionian. It must be noticed that side by
side with plaques of exquisite work we find others which are unquestionably
imitations, influenced by the Scythian animal style. In a
find which has lately been acquired by the Berlin Museum, and has
not yet been published, I saw objects which were perfectly analogous
to the plaques described above.
The only articles from the tumuH of the Seven Brothers, which
show the Scythian animal style in a pure form, belonged to bronze