Barbarian Tides. TimeFrame 1500-600 BC.
NOTE: We have 75,000 books in our library, almost 10,000 different titles. Odds are we have other copies of this same title in varying conditions, some less expensive, some better condition. We might also have different editions as well (some paperback, some hardcover, oftentimes international editions). If you don’t see what you want, please contact us and ask. We’re happy to send you a summary of the differing conditions and prices we may have for the same title.
PLEASE SEE IMAGES BELOW FOR JACKET DESCRIPTION(S) AND FOR PAGES OF PICTURES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.
CONDITION: Hardcover with laminated, printed covers (no dustjacket, as published). Time-Life Books (1987) 175 pages. Light shelf wear, otherwise in Very Good to Like New condition. Seemingly never read, at worst flipped through a few times. Pages are pristine; clean, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING!
DESCRIPTION: Hardcover: 175 pages. Publisher: Time-Life Books Inc; (1987). Dimensions: 11¼ X 9¼ inches; 1¾ pounds. The Time Frame series was released in the late 80's-early 90's. Each volume undertakes to describe the major events that happened in one specific time period in the development of mankind’s civilization(s). The volumes are richly illustrated, and designed as an introduction to the time frame covered. Especially compelling are the artists interpretations or recreations of what various ancient civilizations would have looked like – their architecture, homes, monuments, cities, daily life, jewelry, food, family life, dwellings, occupations, etc. As just one instance, the ruins of Babylon and Ur, Athens and Rome hint at the incredible richness of those fabled cities. The artist’s recreations in this series are simply mind-numbing. This is as close as you can be to actually having been there.
The entire series is truly a magnificent introduction to the history of the era. If you could have just one book (or series of books) to introduce the history of humankind, this would have to be it. The overviews are concise and well-written. Together with the illustration and pictures they impart a wonderful mental and emotional “picture” of what life must have been like in various civilizations and at various times. Done in a style so wonderfully characteristic of Time-Life’s publications, these are over-sized “coffee table” type books full of impressive imagery. The pictures of the world’s greatest art and architecture alone are worth the cost of these books. But don’t get the impression that these volumes are “fluff”. While a particular volume might not quite take the place as a university degree, the material is well-written, informative, and immensely intellectually gratifying, overview though it might be. This particular volume, “Time-Frame 1500-600 B.C.”, is sub-titled “Barbarian Tides”.
The material is divided into a number of subjects which will give you an idea of the rich content; and includes:
“The Aggressive Empires” (Indo-Europeans/Celts + Arabian Semitics + Assyrians + Hittites + Luristan + Elamites + Israelites) – Sargon’s Magnificent Folly (Khorsabad – the square mile palace) + Trek to a Promised Land (The Israelites) – The Royal Sportsmen – A Systematic Siege (Assyria vs. Judah).
“Egypt’s Golden Age” (War with the Hyksos – Nubians – Punt – Nefertari – Akenaten - Tutankhamun) – The Ubiquitous Gods – Ramses’ Incredible Temple – Postures of Faith – Homage to the Sun – The Promise of Fertility – The Lure of the Cat – The Wrathful Storm Gods – Passage to the Afterlife – A Collision of Chariots (Hittite/Egyptian War) – Repelling the Raiders (The Sea Peoples).
“The Greek Crucible” (Myceneans – Dorians – Trojans – Athens – Sparta - Corinth) – The Machines of War – Fortress Mycenae – Gold from Royal Tombs – Masters of the Phalanx (The Spartans).
“The Mediterranean Traders” (Phoenicians – Etruscans - Pirates) – Making the Maritime Rounds – Artistry in Glass – Masks for the Dead -
“Asian Evolutions” (Hindu Kush – Ayrans – Indo-Europeans – Harappa/India – Shang/China) – Casting a Masterpiece (Shang Dynasty Bronzework) – Offerings of Jade and Blood – Reading an Oracle Bone.
“Awakening in the Americas” (Andes – Olmec) – The Olmec’s Stone Colossi.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: Scythia was a region of Central Eurasia in classical antiquity, occupied by the Eastern Iranian Scythians, encompassing parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula River and Central Asia, with the eastern edges of the region vaguely defined by the Greeks. The Ancient Greeks gave the name Scythia (or Great Scythia) to all the lands north-east of Europe and the northern coast of the Black Sea. The Scythians – the Greeks' name for this initially nomadic people – inhabited Scythia from at least the 11th century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on the map opposite.
Scythia was a loose state that originated as early as 8th century B.C. Little is known of them and their rulers. The most detailed western description is by Herodotus, though it is uncertain he ever went to Scythia. He says the Scythians' own name for themselves was "Scoloti". The Scythians became increasingly settled and wealthy on their western frontier with Greco-Roman civilization. The region known to classical authors as Scythia included the Pontic-Caspian steppe: Ukraine, southern Russia, and western Kazakhstan (inhabited by Scythians from at least the 8th century B.C.).
Genetic evidence for ranging clear across the plains (steppes) from Black Sea to Lake Baikal. The Kazakh steppe: northern Kazakhstan and the adjacent portions of Russia Sarmatia, corresponding to eastern Poland, Ukraine, southwestern Russia, and the northeastern Balkans, ranging from the Vistula River in the west to the mouth of the Danube, and eastward to the Volga Saka tigrakhauda, corresponding to parts of Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, southeastern Kazakhstan, and the Tarim Basin Sistan or Sakastan, corresponding to southern Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and southwestern Pakistan, extending from the Sistan Basin to the Indus River.
Following successive invasions of the Indo-Greek kingdoms, the Indo-Scythians also expanded east, capturing territory in what is today the Punjab region. Parama Kamboja, corresponding to northern Afghanistan and parts of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan Alania, corresponding to the northern Caucasus region Scythia Minor, corresponding to the lower Danube river area west of the Black Sea, with a part in Romania and a part in Bulgaria.
In the 7th century B.C. Scythians penetrated from the territories north of the Black Sea across the Caucasus. The early Scythian kingdoms were dominated by inter-ethnic forms of dependency based on subjugation of agricultural populations in eastern South Caucasia, plunder and taxes (occasionally, as far as Syria), regular tribute (Media), tribute disguised as gifts (Egypt), and possibly also payments for military support (Assyria).
It is possible that the same dynasty ruled in Scythia during most of its history. The name of Koloksai, a legendary founder of a royal dynasty, is mentioned by Alcman in the 7th century B.C. Prototi and Madius, Scythian kings in the Near Eastern period of their history, and their successors in the north Pontic steppes belonged to the same dynasty. Herodotus lists five generations of a royal clan that probably reigned at the end of the 7th to 6th centuries B.C.: prince Anacharsis, Saulius, Idanthyrsus, Gnurus (Гнур (ru)), Lycus and Spargapithes.
After being defeated and driven from the Near East, in the first half of the 6th century B.C., Scythians had to re-conquer lands north of the Black Sea. In the second half of that century, Scythians succeeded in dominating the agricultural tribes of the forest-steppe and placed them under tribute. As a result, their state was reconstructed with the appearance of the Second Scythian Kingdom which reached its zenith in the 4th century B.C.
Scythia's social development at the end of the 5th century B.C. and in the 4th century B.C. was linked to its privileged status of trade with Greeks, its efforts to control this trade, and the consequences partly stemming from these two. Aggressive external policy intensified exploitation of dependent populations and progressed the stratification among the nomadic rulers. Trading with Greeks also stimulated sedentarization processes.
The proximity of the Greek city-states on the Black Sea coast (Pontic Olbia, Cimmerian Bosporus, Chersonesos, Sindica, Tanais) was a powerful incentive for slavery in the Scythian society, but only in one direction: the sale of slaves to Greeks, instead of use in their economy. Accordingly, the trade became a stimulus for capture of slaves as war spoils in numerous wars.
The Scythian state reached its greatest extent in the 4th century B.C. during the reign of Ateas. Isocrates believed that Scythians, and also Thracians and Persians, are "the most able to power, and are the peoples with the greatest might." In the 4th century B.C., under king Ateas, the tribune structure of the state was eliminated, and the ruling power became more centralized. The later sources do not mention three basileuses any more. Strabo tells that Ateas ruled over the majority of the North Pontic barbarians.
Written sources tell that expansion of the Scythian state before the 4th century B.C. was mainly to the west. In this respect Ateas continued the policy of his predecessors in the 5th century B.C. During western expansion, Ateas fought the Triballi. An area of Thrace was subjugated and levied with severe duties. During the 90 year life of Ateas, the Scythians settled firmly in Thrace and became an important factor in political games in the Balkans. At the same time, both the nomadic and agricultural Scythian populations increased along the Dniester river. A war with the Bosporian Kingdom increased Scythian pressure on the Greek cities along the North Pontic littoral.
Materials from the site near Kamianka-Dniprovska, purportedly the capital of the Ateas’ state, show that metallurgists were free members of the society, even if burdened with imposed obligations. Metallurgy was the most advanced and the only distinct craft specialty among the Scythians. From the story of Polyaenus and Frontin, it follows that in the 4th century B.C. Scythia had a layer of dependent population, which consisted of impoverished Scythian nomads and local indigenous agricultural tribes, socially deprived, dependent and exploited, who did not participate in the wars, but were engaged in servile agriculture and cattle husbandry.
The year 339 B.C. was a culminating year for the Second Scythian Kingdom, and the beginning of its decline. The war with Philip II of Macedon ended in a victory by the father of Alexander the Great. The Scythian king Ateas fell in battle well into his nineties. Many royal kurgans (Chertomlyk, Kul-Oba, Aleksandropol, Krasnokut) are dated from after Ateas’s time and previous traditions were continued, and life in the settlements of Western Scythia show that the state survived until the 250s B.C. When in 331 B.C. Zopyrion, Alexander's viceroy in Thrace, "not wishing to sit idle", invaded Scythia and besieged Pontic Olbia, he suffered a crushing defeat from the Scythians and lost his life.
The fall of the Second Scythian Kingdom came about in the second half of the 3rd century B.C. under the onslaught of Celts and Thracians from the west and Sarmatians from the east. With their increased forces, the Sarmatians devastated significant parts of Scythia and, "annihilating the defeated, transformed a larger part of the country into a desert".
The dependent forest-steppe tribes, subjected to exaction burdens, freed themselves at the first opportunity. The Dnieper and Southern Bug populace ruled by the Scythians did not become Scythians. They continued to live their original life, which was alien to Scythian ways. From the 3rd century B.C. for many centuries the histories of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of North Pontic diverged. The material culture of the populations quickly lost their common features. And in the steppe, reflecting the end of nomad hegemony in Scythian society, the royal kurgans were no longer built. Archeologically, late Scythia appears first of all as a conglomerate of fortified and non-fortified settlements with abutting agricultural zones.
The development of the Scythian society was marked by the following trends: An intensified settlement process, evidenced by the appearance of numerous kurgan burials in the steppe zone of North Pontic, some of them dated to the end of the 5th century B.C., but the majority belonging to the 4th or 3rd centuries B.C., reflecting the establishment of permanent pastoral coaching routes and a tendency to semi-nomadic pasturing. The Lower Dnieper area contained mostly unfortified settlements, while in Crimea and Western Scythia the agricultural population grew. The Dnieper settlements developed in what were previously nomadic winter villages, and in uninhabited lands.
In the 4th century B.C. in the Dnieper forest-steppe zone, steppe-type burials appear. In addition to the nomadic advance in the north in search of the new pastures, they show an increase of pressure on the farmers of the forest-steppe belt. The Boryspil kurgans belong almost entirely to soldiers and sometimes even women warriors. The bloom of steppe Scythia coincides with decline of forest-steppe. From the second half of the 5th century B.C., importing of antique goods to the Middle Dnieper decreased because of the pauperization of the dependent farmers. In the forest-steppe, kurgans of the 4th century B.C. are poorer than during previous times. At the same time, the cultural influence of the steppe nomads grew. The Senkov kurgans in the Kiev area, left by the local agricultural population, are low and contain poor female and empty male burials, in a striking contrast with the nearby Boryspil kurgans of the same era left by the Scythian conquerors.
Growth of trade with Northern Black Sea Greek cities, and increase in Hellenization of the Scythian aristocracy. After the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, Attican agriculture was ruined. Demosthenes wrote that about 400,000 medimns (63,000 tons) of grain was exported annually from the Bosporus to Athens. The Scythian nomadic aristocracy not only served a middleman role, but also actively participated in the trade of grain (produced by dependent farmers as well as slaves), skins and other goods. Scythia's later history is mainly dominated by sedentary agrarian and city elements. As a result of the defeats suffered by Scythians, two separate states were formed, the 'Lesser Scythias': one in Thrace (Dobrudja), and the other in the Crimea and the Lower Dnieper area.
Having settled this Scythia Minor in Thrace, the former Scythian nomads (or rather their nobility) abandoned their nomadic way of life, retaining their power over the agrarian population. This little polity should be distinguished from the Third Scythian Kingdom in Crimea and Lower Dnieper area, whose inhabitants likewise underwent a massive sedentarization. The interethnic dependence was replaced by developing forms of dependence within the society.
The enmity of the Third Scythian Kingdom, centered on Scythian Neapolis, towards the Greek settlements of the northern Black Sea steadily increased. The Scythian king apparently regarded the Greek colonies as unnecessary intermediaries in the wheat trade with mainland Greece. Besides, the settling cattlemen were attracted by the Greek agricultural belt in Southern Crimea. The later Scythia was both culturally and socio-economically far less advanced than its Greek neighbors such as Olvia or Chersonesos.
The continuity of the royal line is less clear in the Lesser Scythias of Crimea and Thrace than it had been previously. In the 2nd century B.C., Olvia became a Scythian dependency. That event was marked in the city by minting of coins bearing the name of the Scythian king Skilurus. He was a son of a king and a father of a king, but the relation of his dynasty with the former dynasty is not known. Either Skilurus or his son and successor Palakus were buried in the mausoleum of Scythian Neapol that was used from c. 100 B.C. to c. 100 AD. However, the last burials are so poor that they do not seem to be royal, indicating a change in the dynasty or royal burials in another place.
Later, at the end of the 2nd century B.C., Olvia was freed from Scythian domination, but became a subject to Mithridates I of Parthia. By the end of the 1st century B.C., Olbia, rebuilt after its sack by the Getae, became a dependency of the Dacian barbarian kings, who minted their own coins in the city. Later from the 2nd century AD Olbia belonged to the Roman Empire. Scythia was the first state north of the Black Sea to collapse with the invasion of the Goths in the 2nd century AD (see Oium). At the end of the 2nd century AD, King Sauromates II critically defeated the Scythians and included the Crimea into his Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a Roman client state.
Scythian art is art, primarily decorative objects, such as jeweler, produced by the nomadic tribes in the area known to the ancient Greeks as Scythia, which was centered on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and ranged from modern Kazakhstan to the Baltic coast of modern Poland and to Georgia. The identities of the nomadic peoples of the steppes is often uncertain, and the term "Scythian" should often be taken loosely; the art of nomads much further east than the core Scythian territory exhibits close similarities as well as differences, and terms such as the "Scytho-Siberian world" are often used.
Other Eurasian nomad peoples recognized by ancient writers, notably Herodotus, include the Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Saka, the last a name from Persian sources, while ancient Chinese sources speak of the Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu. Modern archaeologists recognize, among others, the Pazyryk, Tagar, and Aldy-Bel cultures, with the furthest east of all, the later Ordos culture a little west of Beijing. The art of these peoples is collectively known as steppes art.
In the case of the Scythians the characteristic art was produced in a period from the 7th to 3rd centuries B.C., after which the Scythians were gradually displaced from most of their territory by the Sarmatians, and rich grave deposits cease among the remaining Scythian populations on the Black Sea coast. Over this period many Scythians became sedentary, and involved in trade with neighboring peoples such as the Greeks.
In the earlier period Scythian art included very vigorously modeled stylized animal figures, shown singly or in combat, that had a long-lasting and very wide influence on other Eurasian cultures as far apart as China and the European Celts. As the Scythians came in contact with the Greeks at the Western end of their area, their artwork influenced Greek art, and was influenced by it; also many pieces were made by Greek craftsmen for Scythian customers. Although we know that goldsmith work was an important area of Ancient Greek art, very little has survived from the core of the Greek world, and finds from Scythian burials represent the largest group of pieces we now have. The mixture of the two cultures in terms of the background of the artists, the origin of the forms and styles, and the possible history of the objects, gives rise to complex questions.
Many art historians feel that the Greek and Scythian styles were too far apart for works in a hybrid style to be as successful as those firmly in one style or the other. Other influences from urbanized civilizations such as those of Persia and China, and the mountain cultures of the Caucasus, also affected the art of their nomadic neighbors Scythian art especially Scythian gold jeweler is highly valued by museums and many of the most valuable artifacts are in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Their Eastern neighbors, the Pazyryk culture in Siberia produced similar art, although they related to the Chinese in a way comparable to that of the Scythians with the Greek and Iranian cultures. In recent years, archaeologists have made valuable finds in various places within the area.
The Scythians worked in a wide variety of materials such as gold, wood, leather, bone, bronze, iron, silver and electrum. Clothes and horse-trappings were sewn with small plaques in metal and other materials, and larger ones, including some of the most famous, probably decorated shields or wagons. Wool felt was used for highly decorated clothes, tents and horse-trappings, and an important nomad mounted on his horse in his best outfit must have presented a very colorful and exotic sight. As nomads, the Scythians produced entirely portable objects, to decorate their horses, clothes, tents and wagons, with the exception in some areas of kurgan stelae, stone stelae carved somewhat crudely to depict a human figure, which were probably intended as memorials. Bronze-casting of very high quality is the main metal technique used across the Eurasian steppe, but the Scythians are distinguished by their frequent use of gold at many sites, though large hoards of gold objects have also been found further east, as in the hoard of over 20,000 pieces of "Bactrian Gold" in partly nomadic styles from Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan.
Earlier pieces reflected animal style traditions; in the later period many pieces, especially in metal, were produced by Greek craftsmen who had adapted Greek styles to the tastes and subject-matter of the wealthy Scythian market, and probably often worked in Scythian territory. Other pieces are thought to be imports from Greece. As the Scythians prospered through trade with the Greeks, they settled down and started farming. They also established permanent settlements such as a site in Belsk, Ukraine believed to the Scythian capital Gelonus with craft workshops and Greek pottery prominent in the ruins.
The Pazyryk burials (east of Scythia proper) are especially important because the frozen conditions have preserved a wide variety of objects in perishable materials that have not survived in most ancient burials, on the steppes or elsewhere. These include wood carvings, textiles including clothes and felt applique wall hangings, and even elaborate tattoos on the body of the so-called Siberian Ice Maiden. These make it clear that important ancient nomads and their horses, tents, and wagons were very elaborately fitted out in a variety of materials, many brightly colored Their iconography includes animals, monsters and anthropomorphic beasts, and probably some deities including a "Great Goddess", as well as energetic geometric motifs.
Archaeologists have uncovered felt rugs as well as well-crafted tools and domestic utensils. Clothing uncovered by archaeologists has also been well made many trimmed by embroidery and applique designs. Wealthy people wore clothes covered by gold embossed plaques, but small gold pieces are often found in what seem to be relatively ordinary burials. Imported goods include a famous carpet, the oldest to survive, that was probably made in or around Persia.
Steppes jewelry features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The "looped" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period.
The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include the examples from: the burial site of Kostromskaya in the Kuban dating from the 6th century B.C. (Hermitage); Tápiószentmárton in Hungary dating from the 5th century B.C., now National Museum of Hungary, Budapest; Kul Oba in the Crimea dating from the 4th century B.C. (Hermitage).
Another characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.
Although gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armor.
The use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess & powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accouterments of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.
The primary weapon of this horse riding culture was the bow, & a special case had been developed to carry the delicate but very powerful composite bow. This case, "the gorytus", had a separate container on the outside which acted as a quiver, & the whole was often decorated with animal scenes or scenes depicting daily life on the steppes. There was a marked following of Grecian elements after the 4th century B.C., when Greek craftsmen were commissioned to decorate many of the daily use articles.
Scythian art has become well known in the West thanks to a series of touring loan exhibitions from Ukrainian and Russian museums, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. Kurgans are large mounds that are obvious in the landscape and a high proportion have been plundered at various times; many may never have had a permanent population nearby to guard them. To counter this, treasures were sometimes deposited in secret chambers below the floor and elsewhere, which have sometimes avoided detection until the arrival of modern archaeologists, and many of the most outstanding finds come from such chambers in kurgans that had already been partly robbed.
Elsewhere the desertification of the steppe has brought once-buried small objects to lie on the surface of the eroded land, and many Ordos bronzes seem to have been found in this way. Russian explorers first brought Scythian artworks recovered from Scythian burial mounds to Peter the Great in the early 18th century. These works formed the basis of the collection held by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Catherine the Great was so impressed from the material recovered from the kurgans or burial mounds that she ordered a systematic study be made of the works. However, this was well before the development of modern archaeological techniques.
Nikolai Veselovsky (1848-1918) was a Russian archaeologist specializing in Central Asia who led many of the most important excavations of kurgans in his day.[11] One of the first sites discovered by modern archaeologists were the kurgans Pazyryk, Ulagan district of the Altay Republic, south of Novosibirsk. The name Pazyryk culture was attached to the finds, five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949 opened in 1947 by a Russian archaeologist, Sergei Rudenko; Pazyryk is in the Altay Mountains of southern Siberia. The kurgans contained items for use in the afterlife. The famous Pazyryk carpet discovered is the oldest surviving wool pile oriental rug.
The enormous hoard of "Bactrian gold" discovered at Tillya Tepe in northern Afghanistan in 1978 comes from the fringes of the nomadic world, and the objects reflect the influence of many cultures to the south of the steppes as well as steppes art. The six burials come from the early 1st century AD (a coin of Tiberius is among the finds) and though their cultural context is unfamiliar, it may relate to the Indo-Scythians who had created an empire in north India.
Recent digs in Belsk, Ukraine uncovered a vast city believed to be the Scythian capital Gelonus described by Herodotus. Numerous craft workshops and works of pottery have been found. A kurgan or burial mound near the village of Ryzhanovka in Ukraine, 75 mi (121 km) south of Kiev, found in the 1990s has revealed one of the few unlooted tombs of a Scythian chieftain, who was ruling in the forest-steppe area of the western fringe of Scythian lands. There at a late date in Scythian culture (c. 250 - 225 B.C.), a recently nomadic aristocratic class was gradually adopting the agricultural life-style of their subjects. Many items of jewelry were also found in the kurgan.
A discovery made by Russian and German archaeologists in 2001 near Kyzyl, the capital of the Russian republic of Tuva in Siberia is the earliest of its kind and predates the influence of Greek civilization Archaeologists discovered almost 5,000 decorative gold pieces including earrings, pendants and beads. The pieces contain representations of many local animals from the period including panthers, lions, bears and deer. Earlier rich kurgan burials always include a male, with or without a female consort, but from the 4th and 3rd centuries there are number of important burials with only a female.
The finds from the most important nomad burials remain in the countries where they were found, or at least the capitals of the states in which they were located when found, so that many finds from Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union are in Russia. Western European and American museums have relatively small collections, though there have been exhibitions touring internationally. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has the longest standing and the best collection of Scythian art. Other museums including several local ones in Russia, in Budapest and Miskolc in Hungary, Kiev in Ukraine, the National Museum of Afghanistan and elsewhere have important holdings. The Scythian Gold exhibition came from a number of Ukrainian exhibitions including the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, the Institute of Archaeology in Kiev and the State Historical Archaeological Preserve at Pereiaslav-Khmel'nyts'kyi.
REVIEW: SCYTHIAN/SARMATIAN HISTORY: The Scythians were a ferocious civilization of nomadic warriors who ranged throughout the steppes of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Both the Scythians and their closely related successors, the Sarmatians, were nomadic cultures of the Russian and Ukrainian steppes. In fact the name “Scythian” literally translates to “nomad”, associated with the Slavonic root “skit”, as in the Russian “skitat'sya”, meaning “to wander”. They were essentially nomads, semi-nomads and farmers; yet history finds them most notable as, first and foremost, excellent horsemen. In fact they were the first ever horsemen in the world to master arrow-shooting at full tilt. Anthropological evidence suggests that both the Scythians and Sarmatians were of Indo-European Celtic origin (along with the Galatians, Gauls, Latini, Mycenae, Hittites, Dorics, Slavs, Goths, Germanic tribes, as well as the ancestors of the Vikings). Though the Celts left no written history of their own, though it is believed they originated in Southern Russia and by around 2,000 B.C. had reached the British Isles.
According to the 5th century B.C. Greek Historian Herodotus, the Scythians gave birth to the Samaritan culture, the Sarmatians in legend said to be the offspring of Scythians who had mated with Amazonians. The Amazons of course were a (perhaps) mythical civilization of fierce female warriors. According to Herodotus, the union of Scythian men and Amazonian women produced female Samaritan descendants that, "have continued from that day to the present to observe their ancient (Amazonian) customs”. These customs included, “frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands; in war taking the field; and wearing the very same dress as the men". Moreover, claimed Herodotus, "no girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle." Herodotus quoted one of these fierce women warriors as stating, "we are riders; our business is with the bow and the spear, and we know nothing of women's work."
Hippocrates, the Greek father of medicine recorded that these women warriors, “have no right breasts. While they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm." Until very recently, archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists regarded the Sarmatian women warriors as purely mythical. However recent excavations including the skeletal remains Sarmatian Prince-Warriors have upon closer examination turned out to be the remains of decidedly female warrior priestesses.
In the ancient times the Sarmatians and Scythians were composed of diverse nomadic tribes living in the South Urals steppes. Both the Scythians and their successors, the Samartians, were skillful hunters and brave warriors. Their armies were greatly feared, and were formed mostly of archers. They had a very special relationship with their horses. Their warrior archers not only fought mounted on horses, they were often buried with their horses. These cultures produced not only exceptional warriors, shepherds and farmers, but also skilled metallurgists. From bronze they would manufacture axes, knives, daggers and various articles of personal adornment. The Scythians in particular were well known for their astonishingly intricate and sophisticated animalistic gold work.
The story of the Scythians and the Sarmatians started almost a million years ago in present-day Kazakhstan. As early as the Paleolithic, ancient man settled down on these lands rich with game and wild fruit. It is there that they founded ancient Stone Age settlements, and eventually came to control the area of present-day Kazakhstan. Excavations of their Neolithic settlements have shown that they were horse breeders, and likely some of the earliest peoples to use horse-mounted warriors. The horse enabled considerable movement, and these ancient peoples developed what in contrast to most ancient cultures was a mobile, nomadic lifestyle. Recent archaeological discoveries have unearthed dwellings, along with numerous hand-made articles of stone and ivory.
As early as the Bronze Age, some four thousand years, ago these tribes were engaged in farming and cattle-breeding, and were fine warriors who expertly handled chariots in combat. To this day we can see images of chariots drawn on rocks where these ancient people would arrange their tribal temples and sanctuaries. These petroglyphs include chiseled scenes of dances, images of sun-headed deities, and mighty camels and bulls as impersonations of ancient gods. Burial mounds of noble warriors scattered all throughout the Kazakh steppes are known for the magnificent size of mounds and burial vaults. They buried their dead warriors in deep pits, up to 50 feet deep, and then mounded up to 70 additional feet of earth above ground level.
If the Scythians were not the first to domesticate the horse they were among the earliest, if not the first of the Central Asian people to learn to ride it. Mounted soldiers were the foundation of the Scythians' success in war. When the Scythians penetrated Asia their techniques of riding and warfare were rapidly adopted and mastered throughout the entire Middle Eastern area. They are one of the earliest races to wear trousers, reflecting their horseback lifestyle. They wore pliable boots with heels. From the 2000-years-old frozen body recovered in 1947 in Siberia, it was learned that Scythians liked to cover themselves with elaborate tattoos. Men cropped their hair, lacerated their ears, forehead, noses and arms. After the king was buried with the best of all his weapons and possessions, the funeral party strangled one of his concubines, his cup-bearer, his cook, his lackey, his messenger and his best horses and placed all the bodies beside him. Even then, the funeral was not over. One year later as many as 50 Scythian youths might be selected from among those who had directly served the king. They would be strangled and buried in a circle around the royal tomb.
Scythian mythology holds that their origin was the Black Sea Region. Perhaps the most striking feature of Scythians was the enormous amount of gold they wore and used. Commonly the Scythians wore golden ornaments and belts. Gold plates were sewn to their garments and gold gleamed from their weapons. Archaeologists are consistently amazed by the amount of gold offerings deposited in the great burial mounds of the Scythian kings. Dating the earliest Scythians has been a problem since they did not develop their distinctive art style until the 6th century B.C. However it is believed that between the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. and the end of the 7th century B.C., Scythians moved in several waves from the Volga-Ural steppes into the North Black Sea area and assimilated the local Cimmerians. In history, the Scythians was first recorded in the 7th century B.C. as Assyria's ally against the Cimmerians. Scythians and Assyrians together conquered the Medes of the Caspian Sea; however the Medes was able to drive the Scythians out of western Asia and back to the Pontic Steppes by the turn of the century.
In 514 BC., Darius, the third of the Persian great Kings, decided to invade Scythia, marching an army of 700,000 soldiers across the Danube to the Russian steppes. The ancient historian Herodotus in his histories records the campaign, and its ultimate failure. It was during the 4th century B.C. that the Scythian kingdom reached the highest economic, political, social and cultural development. Many nomads became sedentary in the North Black Sea and Kamenskoe Gorodishche was the economic, political and trading capital of Scythia in the 4th till the first half of the 3rd century BC. The great king Atheas united all the Scythian tribes and expanded his territory to the Thracian border on the right bank of the Danube. In 339 B.C., Atheas was killed at age of 90 in the battle with Philip of Macedon. However the Scythian kingdom remained strong and wealthy.
The outside threat did not disturb their stability until the Celts and the Thracians swept in from the west and the Sarmatians from the east starting at the second half of the 3rd century BC.; after which the Scythian kingdom was absorbed by other powers (principally the Sarmatians) and by and large disappeared from history. However ancient first century (BC) historian Diodorus Siculus recorded of the diminished Scythians, they "lived in very small numbers at the Araks River....that they gained for themselves a country in the mountains up to the Caucasus, in the lowland on the coast of the Ocean (Caspian Sea) and the Meot Lake (Azov Sea) and other territories up to the Tanais River (Don River). Born in that land from the conjugal union of Zeus and a snake-legged goddess was a son Scyth who gave the name Scythian to the people."
The known history of the Sarmatian tribes starts around 1,000 B.C. during a period of flourishing nomadic cattle-breeding. Around this time they built fortified settlements in the Urals River valley. Classified as Indo-Scythians, and like the Scythians to whom they were closely related, they are believed to have originally been of Iranian descent, migrants from Central Asia who settled most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans. Their administrative capability and political astuteness contributed to their gaining widespread influence. The first nomads who lived in what is today Kazakhstan were the Cimmerians. During the 7th century B.C., in the steppe north of the Black Sea, the Scythians replaced the Cimmerians, who, vanquished by the new invaders, migrated toward Asia Minor. The Sarmatians original westward migration from Central Asia, starting in about the 6th century B.C., brought them into conflict with the Scythians, whom they gradually displaced, coming to dominate the southern area of European Russia from about the 4th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.
When the Sarmatians penetrated into southeastern Europe, they were already accomplished horsemen. They were nomadic, devoting themselves to hunting and pastoral (livestock) occupations. Owing to their common nomadic Central Asian heritage, at first Sarmatian society paralleled that of the Scythians. However the Scythian gods were those of nature, while the Sarmatians venerated a god of fire to whom they offered horses in sacrifice. In contrast to the reclusive, domestic role of Scythian women, unmarried Sarmatian females, especially in the society's early years, took arms alongside men. The Sarmatians horsemanship and cavalry corps led to the invention of the metal stirrup and the spur. These innovations contributed greatly to success in military campaigns and even influenced the Roman style of combat.
By the 5th century B.C. the Sarmatians held control of much of the Urals region, and in the 4th century B.C. they conquered the Scythians, replacing them as rulers of almost all of southern Russia by the 2nd century B.C. Some tribes which lived near the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov ultimately gave rise to the Slavs. The Sarmatians penetrated the Roman province of Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) during the time of Nero's rule, and an alliance which the Sarmatians formed with Germanic tribes posed a formidable threat to the Romans in the West as late as the 1st century A.D. During the period of their greatest power, the Sarmatians were a constant threat to Roman provinces in the Balkans, especially to Dacia (Romania).
The Sarmatian civilization was described by the Alexandrian scholar Ptolemy (100-178 A.D.) in his work, "Geographike Hyphegesis". They were also described by the Roman writers Pliny and Tacitus. Under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A.D.) the Roman Army campaigned for eight years in Pannonia Barbarica (i.e., in the central and northern parts of the Carpathian Basin, north and east of the Roman lines along the Danube) against the Quadi, a German tribe, and the Sarmatians. Roman history recorded the Sarmatians as, “Iranian speaking barbarians who came from east of the Carpathians, from the south Russian steppe and from the Lower Danube Plains near the Black Sea”. Eventually the Roman armies prevailed against the Sarmatians. However the Romans had so much respect for these warriors that 5,500 Sarmatian heavy (armored) cavalry prisoners were posted to Britain in 175 A.D. to augment the Roman soldiers already stationed there. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius sent these warriors to Britannia not only to keep them out of trouble in Pannonia Barbarica, but also to deploy them beyond Hadrian's Wall.
These Sarmatians are known to have been stationed in permanent camps outside the Roman forts at Ribchester in Lancashire, Chester, and elsewhere. The Sarmatian enclaves, especially the one at Ribchester, known in ancient times as “Bremetennacum Veteranorum”, survived until the end of the Roman era in the late 4th century A.D. As Rome’s power waned in the west, and her focus shifted to Constantinople, Roman soldiers were essentially “marooned” in Britain and were eventually absorbed into the local population. Speculation is that a similar fate befell the Sarmatians who did not manage to work their way back to their homelands in Eastern Europe.
In the final centuries of their existence the Sarmatians invaded Dacia (Romania) and the lower Danube region, only to be overwhelmed by the Goths during the 3rd century A.D. Many Sarmatians joined their conquerors in the Gothic invasion of Western Europe as the Roman Empire crumbled. However Sarmatia as a discrete civilization perished when hordes of Huns conquered Southern Russia after 370 A.D. Those surviving Sarmatian became assimilated or escaped to the West as refugees to fight the Huns and the last of the Goths. Then in 472 A.D. the remaining refugee population of Sarmatians were beaten by Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, and the two Sarmatian kings, Beukan and Babai, fell in battle. Within decades there were no more historical references to the Sarmatians, their conquered descendants vanished or were assimilated without a trace, and this glorious civilization was at an end [AncientGifts].
REVIEW: Russian scholars from the State Hermitage Museum have concluded that a discovery of Scythian gold in a Siberian grave last summer is the earliest of its kind ever found and that it predates Greek influence. The find is leading to a change in how scholars view the supposed barbaric, nomadic tribes that once roamed the Eurasian steppes.
The dig near Kyzyl, the capital of the Siberian republic of Tuva, revealed almost 5,000 decorative gold pieces -- earrings, pendants and beads -- that adorned the bodies of a Scythian man and woman, presumably royalty, and dated from the fifth or sixth centuries B.C. In addition to the gold, which weighed almost 44 pounds, the archaeologists discovered items made of iron, turquoise, amber and wood.
"There are many great works of art -- figures of animals, necklaces, pins with animals carved into a golden surface," said Dr. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum. "It is an encyclopedia of Scythian animal art because you have all the animals which roamed the region, such as panther, lions, camels, deer, etc. This is the original Scythian style, from the Altai region, which eventually came to the Black Sea region and finally in contact with ancient Greece, and it resembles almost an Art Nouveau style."
Russian and German archaeologists excavated a Scythian burial mound on a grassy plain that locals have long called the Valley of the Kings because of the large number of burial mounds of Scythian and other ancient nomadic royalty.
The fierce nomadic Scythian tribes roamed the Eurasian steppe, from the northern borders of China to the Black Sea region, in the seventh to third centuries B.C. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. they interacted with the ancient Greeks who had colonized the Black Sea region, which is now in Ukraine and southern Russia. Not surprisingly ancient Greek influence was evident in Scythian gold previously discovered, but the recent find dates from before contact with the Greeks and from the heart of Siberia where, scholars say, contact with outsiders can almost be excluded.
Research on the Tuva burial mound, known as Arzhan 2, began in 1998, and to the amazement of scholars the grave was discovered to be untouched, though failed attempts by grave robbers to locate the burial chamber were evident on the sprawling, 185-foot-long, 5-foot-high mound.
This was the first such discovery since the early 1700's, when Russian explorers brought Scythian treasures to Czar Peter the Great, a find that became the State Hermitage Museum's collection of Scythian gold. All burial mounds explored since then had been robbed.
To avoid contamination and disturbing the items stored in the grave, the Russian and German archaeologists entered it first with a small remote-control video camera to study how burial items were originally arranged and to reconstruct the burial rituals. The discovery was made by Russian scholars from the Hermitage Museum and the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, led by the Russian archaeologist Konstantin Chugonov, who has been studying Bronze Age and Scythian sites in Tuva for 20 years.
German scholars also took part in the dig and were led by Herman Parzinger and Anatoli Nagler from the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. "Tuva's Valley of the Kings has long been a major area of interest for archaeologists because it contains the largest burial mounds in the region of Tuva and in all of the Altai region," Mr. Chugonov said. "We chose to work on those mounds in greatest danger, and we chose this one because of all the major mounds it is the most damaged."
About 25 percent of the excavated burial mound, which is stone slate, was destroyed when Soviet authorities built a road through the area in the 1960's. Over the years, residents walked off with pieces of the stone to use in building their houses.
After its discovery, the treasure was sent to the Hermitage Museum for storage and restoration, and it will stay there until Tuva can build a museum to house the items. This is in accordance with Russian Federation law stating that items be displayed in their place of discovery so long as local authorities provide the proper conditions.
Building such a museum is years away, however, Dr. Piotrovksy said. Until then they will remain in the Hermitage, and at some point will be put on display. Though the Russian-German dig began last May, preparations took almost three years. Scholars first approached the burial mound in 1998, studying it with geophysical equipment allowing them, without excavating, to determine the presence of almost 200 items inside. The first reconnaissance dig was made in the summer of 2000.
"The find was not an accident, because scholars know there are burial mounds in that area, but most were robbed, and empty," Dr. Piotrovsky said. "Their success in actually finding something was a combination of hard work and luck."
REVIEW: A team of archaeologists led by Anton Gass of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has unearthed a small trove of gold objects left behind by a people known as the Scythians, a group of fierce nomads that thrived for over a thousand years in the environs of what is now southern Russia.
The Scythians are believed to have been a warring people, occupying the steppes of central Eurasia from the ninth century B.C. to the fourth century AD—but they did not leave behind much evidence of their existence, much less their history—they built no cities and kept on the move. They did however, create grave mounds called kurgans (Slavic for tumulus, or a particular type of grave where a mound of dirt is heaped over a chamber). One particular kurgan stood in the path of a power line construction, which caused utility officials to contact Gass to investigate. He brought a team to the site expecting to find nothing but dirt, clay and sand—it had been combed over by looters many times already.
But, as it turns out the looters had missed something—deep inside a layer of clay was a chamber lined with stone, inside of which lay artifacts made of gold: two vessels shaped like buckets sitting upside down. Inside the buckets were three gold cups, a finger ring, a gold bracelet and two neck rings—taken together the find adds up to seven pounds of riches.
In speaking with the press, the researchers described how the vessels had intricate inscriptions on them, one depicting an elderly man slaying a younger man, and another showing griffons killing a stag and a horse. Both are so well done that the researchers were able to make out details such as hair styles, clothing types, etc. They reported also that they had found sticky dark residue on the insides of the vessels, which after analysis turned out to contain both cannabis and opium. The researchers believe the opium was used in a tea of sorts and consumed, while the cannabis was smoked. The find corresponds to the writing of Greek historian Herodotus, who described occasions where the Scythians burned a plant to produce a smoke that made them shout out loud.
REVIEW: The Scythians were a much-feared, barbaric group of pre-common era tribes that ruled the Eurasian grasslands for over a thousand years. Said to be of Iranian origin, they left no cities behind, only huge burial mounds called kurgans. Solid gold artifacts discovered in a Scythian burial mound in southern Russia include two bucket-shaped vessels, three gold cups, a heavy finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet.
The kurgans of the Scythians dot the Eurasian steppes from Mongolia to the Balkans, and through Ukraine and on to the Black Sea. It is from the artifacts uncovered in the kurgans that archaeologists have learned much about Scythian life and art. A massive kurgan was discovered in Stavropol, a territorial district in Southern Russia, by workers clearing the way for a power line project. Stavropol-based archaeologist Andrei Belinski began excavating the kurgan, called Sengileevskoe-2, the summer of 2013, and his finds prompted authorities to keep the site a secret until now.
Solid gold artifacts, including two bucket-shaped vessels, three gold cups, a heavy finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet were unearthed. In all, the artifacts when cleaned, weighed about seven pounds (3.2 kilos). "It's a once-in-a-century discovery," says Anton Gass, an archaeologist at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin. "These are among the finest objects we know from the region." When the excavation of the kurgan began, the archaeology team didn't have great expectations of finding much because it was apparent the kurgan had been looted some time in the past. But after several weeks of digging, the team came across a thick layer of clay.
After careful digging, underneath the clay they came across a large rectangular chamber lined with broad, flat stones. Inside the chamber, the team found a 2,400-year-old treasure the looters had missed. "It was definitely a surprise for us," Belinski says. "We weren't expecting to find anything like this." Once the residue was removed from the gold vessels, ornate decorations, showing great detail were revealed. One vessel shows an old bearded man slaying young warriors. The other vessel shows griffons, mythological creatures ripping apart a horse and a stag. The bleak background depicted on the vessel led Belinski to think this was a representation of the Scythian underworld. Inside the vessels, Belinski discovered a black, sticky substance. Samples were sent to a forensics laboratory for identification.
The images on the vessels are an exciting find. The vessel depicting the shoes, haircuts and clothing of the old man and the warriors is amazingly lifelike. "I've never seen such a detailed representation of the clothing and weaponry of the Scythians," says Belinski. "It's so detailed you can see how the clothing was sewn." Gass thinks the vessel depicting the old man slaying young warriors is a representation of the "bastard wars" as described by the Greek historian Herodotus. As Herodotus tells the story, the Scythians were engaged in a 28-year war with their neighbors. the Persians. When the Scythians finally returned home, they found intruders in their tents.
They were the bastard children of the Scythians lonely wives and their slaves. Gass believes the slaughter that ensued was important enough that it was described in detail on the vessel. Herodotus writes that the grown bastard children went forth to engage the returning warriors, and many lives on both sides were lost. Herodotus writes: one Scythian warrior turned to his fellows, saying: "What are we doing, Scythians? We are fighting our slaves, diminishing our own number when we fall, and the number of those that belong to us when they fall by our hands. Take my advice- lay spear and bow aside, and let each man fetch his horsewhip and go boldly up to them. So long as they see us with arms in our hands, they imagine themselves our equals in birth and bravery; but let them behold us with no other weapon but the whip, and they will feel that they are our slaves, and flee before us."
Belinski believes the vessel has a more metaphorical meaning. This could be a representation of the power struggle that occurs when a ruler or king has died. "When a king died, there was chaos," he says. "The spirit world was upset by the death of the king, and order had to be born anew." The black, sticky substance inside the vessels was cannabis and opium residue. For Scythians, cannabis was an important part of the death ritual when a leader died. First, the body was cleaned and dressed. Then, the leader's body was taken around the region where he ruled for 40 days so that everyone could pay their respects.
After the leader's body was buried, Scythians would purify their bodies by erecting small tepee-like structures. A fire was made inside the structure, and when red-hot coals were left, hemp seeds were either thrown on the hot coals or put into vessels and set on the coals. The vapors produced were intoxicating, and the out-of-body experience supposedly cleansed the soul and mind. Herodotus, in about 450 B.C. writes, "when, therefore, the Scythians have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths and put the seeds on the red-hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapor-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported by the vapor, shout aloud."
It has long been believed that these "hemp rituals" were nothing more than a myth, but it is a fact this ceremony did occur. In 1929, Professor S. I. Rudenko and his team of archaeologists were digging some ancient ruins near the Altai Mountains, on the border between Siberia and Outer Mongolia. They unearthed a 20-foot deep trench about 160 square feet in size. Around the trench, they found the skeletons of horses and inside the trench was the embalmed body of a man and a large cauldron filled with the residue of cannabis seeds. It is interesting to note that the sacrifice of a horse was considered the most "prestigious" sacrificial gift to their pantheon of seven gods.
The central portion of the burial mound was finally excavated in full last fall. The team found additional trenches around the kurgan, but due to political tensions, the excavating has been put on hold. "It's like a detective investigation. We don't understand it all, not immediately," says Gass. "We need to keep digging."
REVIEW: Scythian Art showcases ancient treasures of the Scythians, the fierce, nomadic horsemen who roamed the European steppe from the seventh to the third centuries BC. These proud warriors, who grew rich on trade with the Greeks, commissioned lavish gold objects for adornment, ceremony and battle, drawing on their own ancient artistic traditions and employing the finest Greek goldsmiths of the age.
The Scythians flourished more than 2,500 years ago in what is present-day Ukraine and are among the most fascinating of the great warrior cultures that dominated the steppes for centuries. They originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium, BC. After migrating into what is present-day Ukraine, they flourished, from the seventh to the third centuries, BC, over a vast expanse of the steppe that stretched from the Danube, east across what is modern Ukraine and east of the Black Sea into Russia. Invincible for nearly four centuries, the Scythians were a people of great military skill and unrelenting ferocity. They were also extremely influential patrons of the arts, and left behind an extraordinary legacy of both ruthless conquest and lavish artifacts. Gold of the Nomads offers visitors a rare glimpse into the lives of these great warriors, whose brutality was matched only by their passion for exquisite ornament.
Much of what is known about the Scythians has been uncovered through archaeological excavations of their burial mounds, known as kurhany. Ongoing explorations of kurhany continue to recover an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects, ranging from horse trappings to armor, weaponry, jewelry and ceremonial adornment. Early finds of Scythian gold artifacts in the 1700s were so stunning that Catherine the Great ordered their systematic study, launching what became the field of Scythian archaeology. Some of the most extraordinary finds were uncovered only in the last two decades, and excavations continue on an ongoing basis to explore some of the more than 40,000 kurhany still unexcavated in Ukraine.
Many of the works of art are in the animal style associated with the central Asian steppes, while others reflect influence from ancient Near Eastern cultures. Still other objects reveal a fusion of the animal style with Near Eastern motifs and Greek iconography and style. Rich evidence of this sophisticated, artistic dialogue constitutes an intriguing new frontier in archaeological research.
The story of the Scythians and Scythian art is also a story of interaction with the Greek world, which eagerly purchased grain, furs and amber from the Scythians. Profits from this trade brought Scythians the wealth to indulge their taste for elaborate objects ranging from torques to horse decorations. Magnificent gilded bronze Greek vessels discovered in a bog 300 miles up the Dnipro River testify to the extensive commercial and cultural ties between the peoples.
When the Scythians at last abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for the prosperous, settled life which trade had brought them, the door was opened for the invasion of a hardier nomadic tribe, the Sarmatians. The exhibition will close with several superb Sarmatian gold objects, including a torque, a dolphin brooch and a pendant, as a reminder of how intriguing and how still little known are the cultures, objects, and artistic styles of this part of the world.
REVIEW: The Hermitage collection of Scythian antiquities is renowned worldwide, its nucleus consisting of finds from burial complexes in the Crimea, Kuban basin and in the valleys of the Dneiper and Don rivers. The most attractive feature of the collection is the abundance of articles of applied art from a variety of schools and trends, with objects created in the Scythian Animal style, and items made by Greek craftsmen or imported from Oriental countries and the nearby Classical centers to the North of Black Sea and intended for Scythian noblemen.
According to Scythian tradition, alongside a dead chief the tribe buried his wives, servants, armor-bearers, grooms and horses, and these burials thus contain numerous artifacts, from weapons and harness to everyday objects and a multiplicity of personal adornments. Most valuable of all is the Scythian Gold, often lavishly decorated with precious stones. Two gold shield emblems in the forms of a panther and stag – the Kelermes Panther and the Kostromsky Stag (from burial mounds in the Kuban area, 7th century B.C.) – are true masterpieces, which have come to symbolize the achievements of Scythian craftsmen. These two animals were hugely popular during the Scythian era and appear on many objects.
No less remarkable are the articles from the burial mounds of Scythian chiefs (5th to 4th centuries B.C.), executed in the Graeco-Scythian style and decorated with scenes from a Scythian heroic epic: the gold comb from the Solokha burial mound; gold and silver vessels from the Kul-Oba and Chastye barrows; a silver amphora bearing relief representations of scenes from Scythian life (Chertomlyk burial mound). The detailed images on these pieces make it possible for us to picture the appearance of the Scythians, their clothes and weapons.
Rich tombs beneath tumuli and ancient settlements in the area of the forested steppes, inhabited by the tribes subject to the Scythians, have also yielded hand-made clay vessels, farming tools, utensils, arms and armor and objects associated with the working of bronze and iron, both imported and of local production.
REVIEW: Russian archaeologist Andrey Belinski wasn’t sure what to expect when he found himself facing a small mound in a farmer’s field at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. To the untrained eye, the 12-foot feature looked like little more than a hillock. To Belinski, who was charged with excavating the area to make way for new power lines, it looked like a type of ancient burial mound called a kurgan. He considered the job of excavating and analyzing the kurgan, which might be damaged by the construction work, fairly routine. “Basically, we planned to dig so we could understand how it was built,” Belinski says. As he and his team began to slice into the mound, located 30 miles east of Stavropol, it became apparent that they weren’t the first people to take an interest. In fact, looters had long ago ravaged some sections. “The central part was destroyed, probably in the nineteenth century,” Belinski says. Hopes of finding a burial chamber or artifacts inside began to fade.
It took nearly a month of digging to reach the bottom. There, Belinski ran into a layer of thick clay that, at first glance, looked like a natural feature of the landscape, not the result of human activity. He uncovered a stone box, a foot or so deep, containing a few finger and rib bones from a teenager. But that wasn’t all. Nested one inside the other in the box were two gold vessels of unsurpassed workmanship. Beneath these lay three gold armbands, a heavy ring, and three smaller bell-shaped gold cups. “It was a huge surprise for us,” Belinski says. “Somehow, the people who plundered the rest didn’t locate these artifacts.”
As he continued to excavate the area surrounding the kurgan, he spotted post-holes near the stone box, as though tree trunks had once been sunk in the earth to support a pavilion or roof. Belinski and Anton Gass of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, whom Belinski had invited to participate in the excavation, realized that they had found something far beyond a simple burial mound. In fact, some scholars think the site may have been the location of an intense ritual and subsequent burial rite performed by some of the ancient world’s most fearsome warriors.
From about 900 to 100 B.C., nomadic tribes dominated the steppes and grasslands of Eurasia, from what is today western China all the way east to the Danube. All across this vast expanse, archaeological evidence shows that people shared core cultural practices. “They were all nomads, they were heavily socially stratified, they had monumental burial structures and rich grave goods,” says Hermann Parzinger, head of Berlin’s Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and former head of the German Archaeological Institute. Today, archaeologists refer to the members of this interconnected world as Scythians, a name used by the Greek historian Herodotus.
REVIEW: “Gold of the Nomads” showcases ancient gold treasures of the Scythians, the fierce, nomadic horsemen who roamed the European steppe from the seventh to the third centuries B.C. These proud warriors, who grew rich on trade with the Greeks, commissioned lavish gold objects for adornment, ceremony and battle, drawing on their own ancient artistic traditions and employing the finest Greek goldsmiths of the age.
Featuring over 170 objects from the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, Kyiv (Kiev); The Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv; and the State Historical Archaeological Preserve (Pereiaslav-Khmel'nyts'kyi) Gold of the Nomads will encompass the largest and most comprehensive collections of Scythian gold objects ever assembled for an exhibition. Many of the objects included in the exhibition were only recently unearthed and will be seen for the first time outside Ukraine in this exhibition.
The Scythians flourished more than 2,500 years ago in what is present-day Ukraine and are among the most fascinating of the great warrior cultures that dominated the steppes for centuries. They originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium, B.C. After migrating into what is present-day Ukraine, they flourished, from the seventh to the third centuries, B.C., over a vast expanse of the steppe that stretched from the Danube, east across what is modern Ukraine and east of the Black Sea into Russia. Invincible for nearly four centuries, the Scythians were a people of great military skill and unrelenting ferocity. They were also extremely influential patrons of the arts, and left behind an extraordinary legacy of both ruthless conquest and lavish artifacts. Gold of the Nomads offers visitors a rare glimpse into the lives of these great warriors, whose brutality was matched only by their passion for exquisite ornament.
Much of what is known about the Scythians has been uncovered through archaeological excavations of their burial mounds, known as kurhany. Ongoing explorations of kurhany continue to recover an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects, ranging from horse trappings to armor, weaponry, jewelry and ceremonial adornment. Early finds of Scythian gold artifacts in the 1700s were so stunning that Catherine the Great ordered their systematic study, launching what became the field of Scythian archaeology. Some of the most extraordinary finds were uncovered only in the last two decades, and excavations continue on an ongoing basis to explore some of the more than 40,000 kurhany still unexcavated in Ukraine.
Many of the works of art are in the animal style associated with the central Asian steppes, while others reflect influence from ancient Near Eastern cultures. Still other objects reveal a fusion of the animal style with Near Eastern motifs and Greek iconography and style. Rich evidence of this sophisticated, artistic dialogue constitutes an intriguing new frontier in archaeological research.
Gold of the Nomads showcases a broad range of objects that have been excavated in the last two decades and have never been seen in the United States. These virtually unknown masterpieces include a gold helmet bearing scenes in relief of Scythian combat, the style of which is clearly influenced by Attic Greek red-figure vase painting of the 5th century B.C.; a nearly foot-high object that is thought to have served as a finial, covered with intricately intertwined animal combat scenes; and a sensational series of recently discovered gold cut-out plaques from a gorytos (bow and arrow case), with winged dragons depicted in a blend of the animal and Near Eastern styles and a leafy-footed, scaly, bearded man who looks to be part Scythian, part Assyrian.
The story of the Scythians and Scythian art is also a story of interaction with the Greek world, which eagerly purchased grain, furs and amber from the Scythians. Profits from this trade brought Scythians the wealth to indulge their taste for elaborate objects ranging from torques to horse decorations. Magnificent gilded bronze Greek vessels discovered in a bog 300 miles up the Dnipro River testify to the extensive commercial and cultural ties between the peoples.
When the Scythians at last abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for the prosperous, settled life which trade had brought them, the door was opened for the invasion of a hardier nomadic tribe, the Sarmatians. The exhibition will close with several superb Sarmatian gold objects, including a torque, a dolphin brooch and a pendant, as a reminder of how intriguing and how still little known are the cultures, objects, and artistic styles of this part of the world.
A major 352-page volume published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and edited by Ellen Reeder accompanies the exhibition, with essays by Reeder, Esther Jacobson (professor of art history at the University of Oregon), and Michael Treister (former curator, Pushkin Museum, Moscow). The sumptuously-illustrated volume showcases the Scythian treasures with original collections photography, including many images which are published here for the first time. Presenting newly excavated works of art as well as important new scholarship, Scythian Gold is a landmark volume for the study of Scythian art and culture. Alex Castro, who designed the exhibition, also designed the catalog
REVIEW: This exhibition of approximately 165 works of art comprises the finest Scythian gold objects from the Treasures of Ukraine Museum and the Archaeological Institute in Kiev. Although small groups of Scythian objects from Ukraine have been seen in several European cities over the past few years, this exhibition is the largest and most complete ever assembled from the Scythian material in Ukraine.
The Scythians were a nomadic people who originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium, B.C. After migrating into what is present-day Ukraine, they prospered from the fifth to the third centuries, B.C, through trade with the Greek cities on the Black Sea coast.
Scythian graves and burial mounds continue to yield an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects, many of which are in the salled animal style associated with the central Asian steppes. Other objects reflect influence from ancient Near Eastern cultures, and still other pieces are either strongly in the Greek style or exhibit an intriguing blend of Greek and animal style elements. Many of the recently excavated objects in the exhibition constitute a new chapter, even a new book, on the interrelationships of the ancient Aegean world, the ancient Near East, and the steppes that extend from north of the Black Sea as far as the Altai Republic near Mongolia. Objects in the exhibition include the celebrated gorytos (bow and arrow case), with relief scenes very close to the iconography and style of fifth century Athens that some level of Greek involvement in its creation is an inevitable conclusion.
Other famous pieces include two great gold scabbards and swords bearing scenes of animal combat, and the foot-high gold plaque worked in a cutout technique and destined for a horse’s head, which bears a hunting scene that finds its closest parallels in the art of the Asian steppes. A very large proportion of the pieces in the exhibition have been excavated since 1975 and thus will be seen in the United States for the first time. These virtually unknown masterpieces include a gold helmet bearing scenes in relief of Scythian combat; the style is clearly influenced by Attic red-figure vase painting.
REVIEW: In the 1970s, Scythian gold was the subject of one of the first of what are now commonly called "treasure house" shows at American art museums. An exhibition seen in New York and Los Angeles focused on the exquisitely fabricated decorative metalwork so highly prized by the ancient nomads of the region north of the Black Sea--metalwork in some cases made for them by Greek artisans working in Crimea more than 2,300 years ago. Scythian gold was hitherto largely unknown in the West, but the popular exhibition left a gilded icon in its wake: the glittering image of an elk-like deer, its legs tucked beneath its body in a recumbent pose, its antlers transformed into an elegant, rhythmic interlace of serpentine lines.
Scythian gold is back now, in a concise, informative and well-laid-out exhibition opening Sunday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures from Ancient Ukraine" offers about 170 objects, including bronzes, stone carvings, silver ornaments and pottery, in addition to the jewelry and ritual objects made from gold that the Scythians so mightily craved.
One big difference between the current show, which was organized jointly by Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery and the San Antonio Museum of Art, and its 1970s predecessor is the radically different political climate that surrounds the presentation today. Then, an unprecedented presentation of Scythian gold was played out as one cultural episode in a larger Cold War drama of one-upmanship between East and West. Today, nearly a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and following numerous discoveries by Ukrainian and other archaeologists and art historians, the material is seen in a considerably different light.
In fact, walking through the show, what easily springs to mind now are current questions about economic globalization and its cultural impact. For the story told by Scythian artifacts is a story of ancient international trade and the subsequent transformation of established cultural tradition, albeit on a relatively small scale. Something of the dramatic difference that Scythian art underwent in its increasingly interdependent encounter with the Greeks can be seen in the first gallery.
Two stone burial markers, each about 6 feet tall, are crudely carved into representations of standing men. Frontal, flat and two-dimensional, the sculptures have an unsophisticated, folk-like quality. The 5th century B.C. artisans who made them relied mostly on incised lines rudely chiseled into the granite and limestone to show blunt facial features, schematic arms held across bodies, prominent phalluses, drinking horns and weapons of war. These are not the works of a civilization with a refined, urbane tradition of sculptural craftsmanship.
In the center of the room, by contrast, a vitrine displays a bell-shaped golden helmet from the 4th century B.C., decorated with relief figures of Scythian warriors doing combat in a landscape. Two bearded Scythians have taken on four clean-shaven fighters, and the Scythians clearly have the upper hand. While still somewhat schematic, the relief is far more naturalistic and complicated in its rendering, especially of the warriors' faces. Hammered from the inside, the design was engraved from the outside. A rosette surrounded by a rope pattern crowns the helmet, while an intricate floral band circles the rim.
Because it's made of gold, the helmet was likely used in a ritual way--perhaps as part of a burial cache (it was excavated from a tomb in 1988). But if the stone carvings nearby look like the work of untrained artisans, the finely worked helmet is positively Greek. The stark difference in refinement isn't a simple matter of materials, either--of stone versus metal. Another nearby case holds an even older figural bronze, a hatchet-shaped scepter that looks distinctly like Gumby. The difference between the older sculptures and the newer golden one is more telling.
As nomads, the Scythians were relatively limited in their artistic traditions and capacities. They had migrated from Central Asia around 600 B.C. Hunting and gathering (and no doubt plundering) still went on, but in relatively short order they discovered something new. They discovered trade, and especially the meaning of the potentially lucrative term "middleman."
The wandering Scythians found they could take grain grown by indigenous farmers in the north and sell it, at a big profit, to the Greek cities springing up in the south along the Black Sea coast. Eventually their peripatetic nomadism gave way to regular seasonal encampments. Slowly but surely the Scythians were getting rich, and so they did what the newly rich do: They went shopping. What they bought were luxuries.
The Greeks who were building small cities around the Black Sea bought Scythian grain, but they had artistic talent to sell back to their increasingly prosperous traders. Several dozen works in the show are of Greek manufacture, including bronze vessels, clay amphorae, terra cotta figurines and various pieces of jewelry, and many were excavated from Scythian burial mounds. Others are likely by Scythians emulating Greek styles. The Greek objects are adorned with traditional motifs, both decorative and mythological. Two of the more remarkable are bronze helmets, no doubt used in actual battle, each distinctively shaped like the head of a phallus.
In the exhibition, Scythian style and Greek style begin to mingle, merge and mix with one another. One extraordinary example is an elaborately decorated sword and scabbard plated in gold. The refined and cleverly composed reliefs show scenes of fierce animal combat. The pommel of the sword carries a single crouching stag, typically Scythian, while the blade cover is arrayed with fantastic griffins--half eagle, half lion--of Near Eastern heritage. Elsewhere a half-goat figure of Pan, Greek god of the forests, turns up. And asymmetrical dynamism, which speaks of a worldview based on continuous movement and dramatic flux, begins to be transformed into a more relaxed balance and equilibrium, an expression of eternal harmony.
In more general terms, Scythian decorative motifs tended to be animal and vegetable in origin, as might be expected from warriors who hunted. From Greece came representations of human beings, such as those that turned up at war on the ritual gold helmet, or the elegant seated women who appear on a pair of elaborate earrings, or the portrait-like men's faces that adorn bridle attachments. And the powerful Scythian figure of a ruling goddess, shown in the center of a magnificent diadem, is eventually joined by a bridle ornament showing the Greek figure of a bearded hero with a lion's pelt and an enormous club--who else but Hercules.
The exhibition, which is housed at LACMA West, concludes with four pieces of gold jewelry that, however luxurious, with their rock crystal and bits of colored stone, also seem more garish, sometimes even clumsy. The spiral armband, dolphin-shaped pin, floral brooch and intaglio ring are all of more recent vintage, made by the Sarmatians who finally supplanted the Scythian nomads. It is said that the Scythians, whose brutal ways included human sacrifice in the ritual slaughter of attendants (and horses) at elaborate burial feasts, might have grown weak and slothful with all their worldly success as tradesmen.
No one really knows for sure the details of why or how the Sarmatians quashed the Scythians. You get the feeling, though, that this otherwise engaging post-Cold War look at Scythian gold has been given a small but distinctly cautionary coda: Beware getting fat and sassy in a globalizing economy.
REVIEW: In the 1970s, Scythian gold was the subject of one of the first of what are now commonly called "treasure house" shows at American art museums. An exhibition seen in New York and Los Angeles focused on the exquisitely fabricated decorative metalwork so highly prized by the ancient nomads of the region north of the Black Sea--metalwork in some cases made for them by Greek artisans working in Crimea more than 2,300 years ago. Scythian gold was hitherto largely unknown in the West, but the popular exhibition left a gilded icon in its wake: the glittering image of an elk-like deer, its legs tucked beneath its body in a recumbent pose, its antlers transformed into an elegant, rhythmic interlace of serpentine lines.
Scythian gold is back now, in a concise, informative and well-laid-out exhibition opening Sunday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures from Ancient Ukraine" offers about 170 objects, including bronzes, stone carvings, silver ornaments and pottery, in addition to the jewelry and ritual objects made from gold that the Scythians so mightily craved.
One big difference between the current show, which was organized jointly by Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery and the San Antonio Museum of Art, and its 1970s predecessor is the radically different political climate that surrounds the presentation today. Then, an unprecedented presentation of Scythian gold was played out as one cultural episode in a larger Cold War drama of one-upmanship between East and West. Today, nearly a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and following numerous discoveries by Ukrainian and other archaeologists and art historians, the material is seen in a considerably different light.
REVIEW: Originally nomads, the Scythians migrated from central Asia through the Near East, finally settling on the shores of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine. The wealth they earned by selling grain to Greek cities provided the means to purchase fabulous gold ornaments that fused the styles of Greece, the Near East, and Central Asia. Four Ukrainian museums combined their treasures and their scholarship to produce "Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures from Ancient Ukraine," one of the most important museum exhibits to come to the United States from Ukraine. Reeder, curator of ancient art at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, does an excellent job of bringing together authorities in various areas of Scythian culture with color photographs of the artifacts. One of the most beautiful exhibit catalogs of the year, this is recommended for any library needing solid, up-to-date information on Scythian culture. [Library Journal].
REVIEW: It would be fair to say that the Scythians had a weakness for gold. Where did they get all that gold? It is accepted that the Scythians were fierce warriors. The emphasis in this accompaniment to the exhibit Gold of the Nomads is their "fierce" trading with the Greeks, and the exchange is grain for gold, not service for gold. The myth is not explained. But the discussion on metalworking explains the two types of gold objects that scholars and the public are most interested in. And Scythian art, characterized by its so-called animal style, is discussed in a chapter written by editor Reeder. The catalog displays some of the finest gold treasures of this ancient nomadic people--swords, a helmet, exquisite jewelry, and other objects dating from the fifth to the third centuries B.C. [Booklist].
REVIEW: HISTORY OF RUSSIA: Prior to the current era (before 0 A.D.) the vast lands of South Russia were home to various Proto-Indo-European tribes such as the Scythians. Between the third and sixth centuries A.D., the steppes were overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions when swept through Europe, as was the case with Huns and Turkish Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled South Russia through the 8th century. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire and waged a series of successful wars against the Arab Califates. The Early East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia from the 7th century onwards and slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera.
In the mid-9th century, a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, assumed the role of a ruling elite at the Slavic capital of Novgorod. Although they were quickly assimilated by the predominantly Slavic population, the Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries, during which they affiliated with the Byzantine, or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in A.D. 882. In the 10th to 11th centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and one of the most prosperous, due to diversified trade with both Europe and Asia. However the opening of new trade routes with the Orient at the time of the Crusades contributed to the decline and defragmentation of Kievan Rus by the end of the 12th century.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the constant incursions of nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, led to the massive migration of Slavic populations from the fertile south to the heavily forested regions of the north. The medieval states of Novgorod Republic and Vladimir-Suzdal emerged as successors to Kievan Rus, while the middle course of the Volga River came to be dominated by the Muslim state of Volga Bulgaria. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongol invaders known as the “Golden Horde”, which would pillage Russia for over three centuries. Later known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while the territories of present-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, thus dividing the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west.
Nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development. However, the Novgorod Republic together with Pskov retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and was largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Led by Alexander Nevsky, the Novgorodians repelled the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the region. While still under the domain of the Mongols the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence in Western Russia in the early 14th century. Assisted by the Russian Orthodox Church Muscovy inflicted a defeat on the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo (1389). Ivan the Great (ruled 1456-1505) eventually tossed off the control of the invaders, consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion and first took the title "grand duke of all the Russias".
After the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in 1453 A.D., Muscovite Russia remained the only more or less functional Christian state on the Eastern European frontier, allowing it to claim succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. By the beginning of the 16th century the Russian state set the national goal to return all Russian territories lost as a result of the Mongolian invasion and to protect the southern borderland against attacks of Crimean Tatars and other Turkic peoples. In 1547, Ivan the Terrible was officially crowned the first Tsar of Russia. During his long reign, Ivan annexed the Muslim polities along the Volga River and transformed Russia into a multiethnic state.
By the end of the century, Russian Cossacks established the first settlements in Western Siberia. In the middle of the 17th century there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia all the way to the Pacific coast, where the strait between North America and Asia was first sighted by a Russian explorer in 1648. Muscovite control of the nascent nation continued after the Polish intervention of 1605-1612 under the subsequent Romanov dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613. Peter the Great (ruled in 1689-1725) defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede even more territory to Russia, including Ingria in which Peter founded a new capital, Saint Petersburg. Peter succeeded in bringing ideas and culture from Western Europe to a severely underdeveloped Russia. After his reforms, Russia emerged as a major European power.
Catherine the Great, ruling from 1762 to 1796, continued Peter’s efforts at establishing Russia as one of the great powers of Europe. Examples of its 18th-century European involvement include the War of Polish Succession and the Seven Years' War. In the wake of the Partitions of Poland, Russia had taken territories with the ethnic Belarusian and Ukrainian population, earlier parts of Kievan Rus. As a result of the victorious Russian-Turkish wars, Russia's borders expanded to the Black Sea and Russia set its goal on the protection of Balkan Christians against a Turkish yoke. In 1783 Russia and the Georgian Kingdom (which was almost totally devastated by Persian and Turkish invasions) signed the treaty of Georgievsk according to which Georgia received the protection of Russia.
In 1812, having gathered nearly half a million soldiers from France, as well as from all of its conquered states in Europe, Napoleon invaded Russia but, after taking Moscow, was forced to retreat back to Europe. The Russian armies ended their pursuit of the enemy by taking his capital, Paris. As a result of the Napoleonic wars Bessarabia, Finland, and Poland were incorporated into the Russian Empire. However the continuation of Russian serfdom impeded the development of Imperial Russia in the mid-19th century. As a result, the country was defeated in the Crimean War, 1853–1856, by an alliance of major European powers, including Britain, France, Ottoman Empire, and Piedmont-Sardinia. Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) was forced to undertake a series of comprehensive reforms and issued a decree abolishing serfdom in 1861.
The Great Reforms of Alexander's reign spurred increasingly rapid capitalist development and attempts at industrialization. The Slavophile mood was on the rise, spearheaded by Russia's victory in the War of 1877-1878, which forced the Ottoman Empire to recognize the independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and autonomy of Bulgaria. However the failure of agrarian reforms and suppression of the growing liberal intelligentsia were continuing problems however. On the eve of World War I, the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared precarious. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I and the resultant deterioration of the economy led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the Romanovs. At the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917, a Marxist political faction called the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd and Moscow under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin.
The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party. A bloody civil war ensued, pitting the Bolsheviks' Red Army against a loose confederation of anti-socialist monarchist and bourgeois forces known as the White Army. The Red Army triumphed, and the Soviet Union was formed in 1922. The Soviet Union was meant to be a transnational worker's state free from nationalism. The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore not emphasized in the early Soviet Union. Although Russian institutions and cities certainly remained dominant, many non-Russians participated in the new government at all levels.
One of these was a Georgian named Joseph Stalin. A brief power struggle ensued after Lenin's death in 1924. Stalin gradually eroded the various checks and balances which had been designed into the Soviet political system and assumed dictatorial power by the end of the decade. Leon Trotsky and almost all other Old Bolsheviks from the time of the Revolution were killed or exiled, and the ideals of communism died with them. As the 1930’s began, Stalin launched the Great Purges, a massive series of political repressions. Millions of people who Stalin and local authorities suspected of being a threat to their power were executed or exiled to Gulag labor camps in remote areas of Siberia. As bad as the Soviet was for Eastern Europe, it was equally bad for Russia. And though 27 million Russians perished in World War II, it would be difficult to determine in the end who killed more Russians, the Nazi’s or the Soviet Union itself under Stalin. [AncientGifts].
ANCIENT TATARS: The Tatars of the Crimean Black Sea Region are one of the ethnic sub-populations of Russia (present-day Ukraine). Prior to the current era (before 0 A.D.) the vast lands of South Russia were home to various Proto-Indo-European tribes such as the Scythians. Between the third and sixth centuries A.D., the steppes were overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions when swept through Europe, as was the case with Huns and Turkish Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled South Russia through the 8th century. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire and waged a series of successful wars against the Arab Califates. The Early East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia from the 7th century onwards and slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera.
In the mid-9th century, a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, assumed the role of a ruling elite at the Slavic capital of Novgorod. Although they were quickly assimilated by the predominantly Slavic population, the Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries, during which they affiliated with the Byzantine, or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in A.D. 882. In the 10th to 11th centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and one of the most prosperous, due to diversified trade with both Europe and Asia. However the opening of new trade routes with the Orient at the time of the Crusades contributed to the decline and defragmentation of Kievan Rus by the end of the 12th century.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the constant incursions of nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, led to the massive migration of Slavic populations from the fertile south to the heavily forested regions of the north. The medieval states of Novgorod Republic and Vladimir-Suzdal emerged as successors to Kievan Rus, while the middle course of the Volga River came to be dominated by the Muslim state of Volga Bulgaria. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongol invaders known as the “Golden Horde”, which would pillage Russia for over three centuries. Later known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while the territories of present-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, thus dividing the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west.
The name “Tatars” eventually become a collective name applied to the Turkic people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The majority of Tatars today live in European Russia, and are the descendants of the Eastern European Volga Bulgars who were conquered by the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. The original Ta-ta Mongols inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward, there founding the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the Turkic Ural-Altayans towards the plains of Russia. On the Volga they mingled with remnants of the old Bulgarian empire (Volga Bulgaria), and elsewhere with Finno-Ugric speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.
The name of Tatars, given to the invaders, was afterwards extended so as to include different stems of the same Turkic-Mongol branch in Russia, and even the bulk of the inhabitants of the high plateau of Asia and its northwestern slopes, described under the general name of Tartary. This name has almost disappeared from geographical literature, but the name Tatars, in the above limited sense, remains in full use. Most current day Tatars live in the central and southern parts of Russia (the majority in Tatarstan), Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus and in Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century.
The Crimean Tatars may still be found in Crimea, an autonomous republic of Ukraine on the northern coast of the Black Sea occupying the Crimean peninsula. The Crimean Tatars are actually descendants of a number of Turkic peoples. The ethnicity of the Crimean Tatars is quite complex as it absorbed by both nomadic Turkic and European components (in the first place, the Goths and the Genoese) which is still reflected in their appearance and language differences. A small enclave of the Karaims, possibly of Khazar (i.e. Turkic) descent but members of a Jewish sect, was founded in the 8th century. It existed among the Muslim Crimean Tatars, primarily in the mountainous Çufut Qale area.
The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times through its history. The Cimmerians, Greeks, Iranians, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Khazars, the state of Kievan Rus', Byzantine Greeks, Kipchaks, and the Mongols all controlled Crimea in its early history. These were followed by the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire in the 15th–18th centuries, the Russian Empire in the 18th–20th centuries, Germany in World War II, and now, the independent Ukrainian state. The Crimean Tatars were forcibly expelled to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin's government, but have begun returning to their homeland in recent years.
The ancient Greeks called Crimea Tauris (later Taurica), after its inhabitants, the Tauri. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions that Hercules plowed that land using a huge ox ("taurus"), hence the name of the land. The earliest inhabitants of whom we have any authentic traces were the Cimmerians, who were expelled by the Scythians (Iranians) during the 7th century B.C. The remaining Cimmerians that took refuge in the mountains later became known as the Tauri. According to other historians, the Tauri were known for their savage rituals and piracy, and were also the earliest, indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula. In 5th century B.C., Greek colonists began to settle along the Black Sea coast, among those were the Dorians from Heraclea who founded a sea port of Chersonesos outside Sevastopol, and the Ionians from Miletus who landed at Feodosiya and Panticapaeum (also called Bosporus).
Two centuries later (438 B.C.), the Archon (ruler) of the latter settlers assumed the title of the Kings of Cimmerian Bosporus, a state that maintained close relations with Athens, supplying the city with wheat, honey and other commodities. The last of that line of kings, Paerisades V, being hard-pressed by the Scythians, put himself under the protection of Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, in 114 B.C. After the death of this sovereign, his son, Pharnaces II, was invested by Pompey with the kingdom of Bosporus in 63 B.C. as a reward for the assistance rendered to the Romans in their war against his father. In 15 B.C., it was once again restored to the king of Pontus, but since ranked as a tributary state of Rome.
Throughout the later centuries, Crimea was invaded or occupied successively by the Goths (A.D. 250), the Huns (376), the Bulgars (6th century), the Khazars (8th century), the state of Kievan Rus' (10th–11th centuries), the Byzantine Greeks (1016), the Kipchaks (the Kumans) (1050), and the Mongols (1237). In the 13th century, the Republic of Genoa seized the settlements which their rivals, the Venetians, had built along the Crimean coast and established themselves at Cembalo, Soldaia, Cherco and Caffa, gaining control of the Crimean economy and the Black Sea commerce for two centuries.
After the destruction of the Golden Horde by Timur in 1441, the Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean Khanate under Hacı I Giray, a descendant of Genghis Khan. The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the Kuban and to the Dniester River, however, they were unable to take control over commercial Genoese towns. After the Crimean Tatars asked for help from the Ottomans, an Ottoman invasion of the Genoese towns led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1475 brought Kaffa and the other trading towns under their control. In 1774, The Crimean Khans fell under the Russian influence in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. In 1783, entire Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire [AncientGifts].
SHIPPING & RETURNS/REFUNDS: We always ship books domestically (within the USA) via USPS INSURED media mail (“book rate”). Most international orders cost an additional $17.99 to $48.99 for an insured shipment in a heavily padded mailer. There is also a discount program which can cut postage costs by 50% to 75% if you’re buying about half-a-dozen books or more (5 kilos+). Our postage charges are as reasonable as USPS rates allow. ADDITIONAL PURCHASES do receive a VERY LARGE discount, typically about $5 per book (for each additional book after the first) so as to reward you for the economies of combined shipping/insurance costs.
Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment. We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers. All of our shipments are fully insured against loss, and our shipping rates include the cost of this coverage (through stamps.com, Shipsaver.com, the USPS, UPS, or Fed-Ex). International tracking is provided free by the USPS for certain countries, other countries are at additional cost.
We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex). Please ask for a rate quotation. Please note for international purchasers we will do everything we can to minimize your liability for VAT and/or duties. But we cannot assume any responsibility or liability for whatever taxes or duties may be levied on your purchase by the country of your residence. If you don’t like the tax and duty schemes your government imposes, please complain to them. We have no ability to influence or moderate your country’s tax/duty schemes.
If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked 30-day return policy. Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price; 1) less our original shipping/insurance costs, 2) less non-refundable eBay payment processing fees. Please note that eBay does NOT refund payment processing fees. Even if you “accidentally” purchase something and then cancel the purchase before it is shipped, eBay will not refund their processing fees. So all refunds for any reason, without exception, do not include eBay payment processing fees (typically between 5% and 15%) and shipping/insurance costs (if any). If you’re unhappy with eBay’s “no fee refund” policy, and we are EXTREMELY unhappy, please voice your displeasure by contacting eBay. We have no ability to influence, modify or waive eBay policies.
ABOUT US: Prior to our retirement we used to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Asia several times a year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers. Most of the items we offer came from acquisitions we made in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) during these years from various institutions and dealers. Much of what we generate on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay goes to support worthy institutions in Europe and Asia connected with Anthropology and Archaeology. Though we have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, our primary interests are ancient/antique jewelry and gemstones, a reflection of our academic backgrounds.
Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset. Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them originally crafted a century or more ago. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting.
Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from us. There is a $3 fee for mailing under separate cover. I will always respond to every inquiry whether via email or eBay message, so please feel free to write.
