nunc cognosco ex parte

THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY

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 SCYTHIAN ART
BY
GREGORY BOROVKA
Keeper of Scythian Antiquities in the
Hermitage Museum, Leningrad

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

PROFESSOR Y. G. CHILDE, B.Litt., F.S.A.

With
Seventy-four Plates
in Collotype

PARAGON BOOK REPRINT CORPORATION

New York

1967
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67—22932

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

An unaltered and unabridged reprint

of the work first published in London 1928

Printed in the United States of America

 PREFACE

Since this book is the first to be devoted exclusively to the

subject of Scythian art, I must preface it with a few words of
explanation.
The great majority of the objects illustrated on the following
plates will not only come as a surprise to the general public,
but will offer unexpected novelties to many experts who have not
had the opportunity of studying the Russian collections. Scythian
antiquities have hitherto received but little attention. Till
recent years interest centred in the products of Greek art, and
set beside these exquisite and readily appreciated jewels, bronzes,
painted vases and terracottas the native products often found in
conjunction with them on Scythian soil appear crude and clumsy,
strange and insignificant, in a word barbaric; and they were
dismissed. As a consequence the majority of the Scythian
antiquities are either not published at all or only (and often very
imperfectly) in Russian works, for example in the annual reports
of the Archaeological Commission. But such works are only
accessible to a few specialists.
It is the great merit of Prof. Rostovtseff, whose pupil I am
proud to have been, that he grasped the Scythian culture as
such in its integrity in all the many-sidedness of its ingredients,
and described it in a masterly way. It was he who opened our
eyes and taught us to devote the same sympathetic attention to
the native “ barbaric ” creations of Scythia as to the local advance
of Greek culture.
But though we must recognize the panorama of cultural
development in Scythia, that Rostovtseff unrolled before our
eyes, as in its essential outlines a true picture, an independent
and thorough study of the documents still remains necessary.
It may often lead to divergent results. Perhaps the most im¬
portant of such results that I have obtained is the conclusion

5
 PREFACE

that the native element, neither Greek nor Iranian but specifically
Scythian, played a far more prominent part in the culture of
Scythia, or at least in its art, than had hitherto appeared even in
RostovtsefFs conception. We are in fact dealing with a vast
independent and unique cultural province. Scythia only forms
a part of it; though one which, owing to its contact with the
classical world and especially with Hellenic civilization, attained
the utmost importance. My journey to Mongolia in 1924,
together with the results of excavations there and a rapidly
increasing body of indications from various regions, convinced
me that this “ Scythian ” cultural province extended right to the
frontiers of China and was to some extent unitary throughout
its whole area.
Such are the views, divergent from all hitherto expressed,
that the documents seem to bid me champion. Since I have
not as yet had the opportunity of defending my position in
technical publications, I have been compelled to insert in the
text of this book, the appeal of which is to the general public,
some arguments in support of my opinions. Experts will easily
be able to pick these out. Of course I had to take care that the
readability of the text to the layman, for whom the book is in¬
tended, should not be impaired. I have therefore taken pains
to speak only of those points that are important for an appre¬
ciation of the documents from an artistic as well as from a his¬
torical standpoint.
In the first place I have given a survey of the characteristic
motives of Scythian art. That will form the best introduction
to an understanding of the unique, highly stylized and, to an
untrained eye, often enigmatic repertoire of Scythian art. The
strangeness and complexity of the fantastically stylized animal
forms make it necessary in my opinion to give a brief description,
6
 PREFACE

to explain or, as it were, to decipher each specimen, despite the

enlargement of the text entailed thereby.
By this means I hope the opportunity at least will be offered
to the reader, especially with the aid of the references to the rele¬
vant passages in the text inserted in the list of illustrations, to
understand the documents* collected here and orientate himself
among them. Any one desirous of familiarizing himself further
with the artistic and historical problems implicit in the documents
will do best to pick them out for himself by a comparison of the
documents, studied in reference to the text. These documents,
peculiar and perhaps even astonishing though they seem at
first glance, are sure to evoke lively interest in the widest circles.
That is, I think, guaranteed by another of their peculiarities:
they are “ modern.” This markedly decorative quality in
Scythian art is so allied to the artistic sentiment of our own day
that Scythian art is thoroughly sympathetic to modern taste.
I have had occasion to convince myself of this in watching the
impression that Scythian monuments make upon quite unpre¬
pared spectators. And so I confidently hope that the documents
will speak for themselves.
I shall only add that in discussing the problems relating to
cultural history one point has been too summarily dealt with.
The importance of the intimate connections subsisting between
the Scythian world and ancient China is enormous. I see quite
clearly that my brief and merely incidental treatment of this
problem is incommensurate with its first-class significance.
However, I am not a master of the Chinese material and, more¬
over, the whole question is, in my opinion, not yet ripe for solu¬
tion. I have therefore thought it best to content myself with a

* 4 Documents ’ here, of course, means the works of art themselves, not written
information concerning them.

7
 PREFACE

bare indication of the direction in which I believe a solution

should be sought. The excavations in Mongolia have furnished
much fresh material in that direction, and in studying it I hope
to have the opportunity to press deeper into this exceptionally
weighty problem.
At the last moment it has become possible to include here
three illustrations of the Mongolian material through the
courtesy of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of
Archaeology and Ethnology, to which the publication of the
finds has been entrusted. The description of these specimens
has been appended to the list of illustrations.
This book has had to be finished between two journeys to
Mongolia, the preparations connected with which have taken
up much of my time. This circumstance leads me to fear lest
this book may have suffered thereby and exhibit much uneven¬
ness. I take this opportunity for thanking all who have assisted
me and spared no pains in eliminating such defects as far as
possible. I am particularly grateful to Mr. Arthur Waley and
my publishers, Messrs. Benn Bros., for their forbearance in face
of my excessive delays in completing the work. For the trans¬
lation of the German text and checking the references in the
list of illustrations I am indebted to Mr. Gordon Childe. I wish
to express my thanks to my colleagues at the Hermitage, Miss K.
Malkina, A. Mantsevich and K. Trever for much assistance both
in reading through the German text and list of illustrations and
in other directions. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to
Prof. A. Zakharov of Moscow for permission to photograph
and reproduce in my own book the finds of the Academician
Radloff from Katanda in the Altai which he had prepared for
publication (Plates 60 B, 61, 62 , 63). I am indebted to Prof.
Tallgren of Helsingfors for similar friendly services.
8
 PREFACE

Permission to publish illustrations of the objects in so far as

they are reproduced from the originals has in each case been
most courteously accorded by the authorities of the museum
in which the object is preserved. The photographs of objects
in the Anthropological and Ethnographical Museum of the
Academy of Sciences at Leningrad have been prepared by the
Museum and placed at my disposal (Plates 64 D and 68 A & B).
Mr. N. Sinelnikov has been so good as to take the photographs
of the specimens in the collection of the Anthropological Institute
in the University of Moscow (Plates 64 B, C & E, 65 A).
For the remainder the prints from photographs belonging to
the Academy of Archaeology and Ethnology have been prepared
by Mr. J. Chistyakov and those from the Hermitage by Mr. I.
Ukhov, both of whom I wish to thank for the trouble they have
taken.
The above preface was written after the completion of the
manuscript in July 1925. Unfortunately a further delay occurred
in the printing of the book and the first proofs did not reach me
till the spring of 1927. They contain much which I should
now write somewhat differently. But my conception of the whole
problem has not materially changed, and I have decided to leave
the text as it was, only making some additions to the biblio¬
graphical notes, and in a few cases adding remarks that recent
research makes indispensable.
G. BOROVKA,

Keeper of Scythian Antiquities

T in the Hermitage.
Leningrad,

May, 1927.

9
'
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The references in the description of Plates are only designed to

enable the reader to find fuller information on the circumstances
and context in which each object illustrated came to light.
Accordingly they are principally confined to the “ Comptes-
Rendus ” (C.R.) of the Archaeological Commission.. Where the
Russian periodical can be replaced by the books of Ebert,
Minns, or Tolstoi-Kondakov-Reinach the necessary references
to these are added. It must be noted that RostovtsefFs Russian
work Scythia and the Bosphorus (Leningrad, 1925), subjects
the whole Scythian material to a systematic and critical examina¬
tion and for this reason has to be constantly cited for scientific
purposes.
RostovtsefFs other book written in English, Iranians and
Greeks in South Russia (Oxford, 1922), gives a brilliant historical
sketch of Scythian civilization and the problems connected
therewith. Scientifically of the highest value, this popularly
written book at the same time makes fascinating reading for
anyone who has been inspired by the documents illustrated
here with the desire to learn more of the peculiar and mysterious
Scythian world. Minns’ work is an admirable collation of the
whole scientific material and as such is of the highest value.
Ebert’s book gives a handy and easily understood but far from
exhaustive summary of the same material as is treated by Minns.
It cannot compare with the latter but has the advantage, for those
who read German, of being easily accessible and cheap. The
account of Scythian antiquities designed for the general public
in the work of Tolstoi-Kondakov-Reinach is quite out of date.
Lately appeared a masterly though summarized account of
the whole Scythic problem. I refer to the introduction in the
second edition of O. M. Dalton’s The Treasure of the Oxus
(London, 1926). It is for me a great joy that this scholar, who
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

had the opportunity to make himself acquainted with the manu¬

script of my book, to which he refers repeatedly, now evidently
is inclined to treat the whole question from a point of view very
near to that from which the main lines of evolution of Scythian
art are seen by my own.
A brief summary of the principal works on the several cultural
provinces and a list of abbreviations are here added to the list
of illustrations by way of preface.

Principal Works

Scythia : M. Rostovtseff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia

(Oxford, 1922).
Scythia and the Bosphorus (Leningrad, 1925. Russian).
Ellis H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge, 1913).
Max Ebert, Siidrusslandim Altertum (Bonn and Leipzig, 1921).
J. Tolstoi, N. Kondakov and S. Reinach, Antiquites de la
Russie Meridionale (Paris, 1891).
O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus, 2nd edition (London,
1926), p. xlvi seq.

Siberia : A. M. Tallgren, Collection Tovostine des antiquites

frehistoriques de Minoussinsk conservees chez le Dr. Karl
Hedman a Vasa (Helsingfors, 1917).
W. Radloff, Siberian Antiquities (Russian)—M.A.R. vols.
Ill, V, XV, XXVII.
T. R. Martin, Id age du bronze au musee de Minoussinsk
(Stockholm, 1893).
J. V. Merhart, Bronzezeit am Jenissei (Wien, 1926).

Siberian Goldwork : Minns, p. 271ft'. Dalton, l.c. LVIII ft.

12
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

East Russia: A. M. Tallgren, Uepoque dite d'Ananino dans la

Russie orientale (SMYA, XXXI—Helsingfors, 1919).
China: M. Rostovtseff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia
(Oxford, 1922). Chap. VIII.
“ L’art greco-sarmate et l’art chinois de l’epoque des Han ”
(.Arcthuse, April, 1924).

The literature on the connections between Scytho-Siberia

and Ancient China is rapidly growing. A summary will be found
in the bibliographies to Chapter III of Rostovtseff’s Iranians and
Greeks and to the Burlington Magazine Monograph Chinese
Art. Cf. also my articles in Comptes rendus des expeditions pour
1'exploration du nord de la Mongolie (Russian), Leningrad, 1925,
p. 23 sqq., and Archdologischer Anzeiger, 1926, Die Funde der
Expedition Koslow.

Abbreviations

A. B.C. Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmcrien (St. Petersburg, 1854).

B. C.A. Bulletin de la Commission archcologique. H3BecTHJi

ApxeoJiormiecKOH Kommhcchh (St. Petersburg).
Chinese Art. Burlington Magazine Monograph, Chinese Art
(London, 192 5).

C. R. Comte-Rendu de la Commission Archcologique. Oi'iei b

ApxeojiorH’iecKOH Kommhcchh (St. Petersburg).
Ebert. M. Ebert, Siidrussland im Altertum (Bonn and Leipzig,
1921).

M.A.R. Materials for the Archaeology of Russia. MaTepnajiLi no

ApxeojiorHH Pocchh (St. Petersburg).

Minns. Ellis H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge, 1913).

13
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Rostovtseff. M. Rostovtseff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia

(Oxford, 1922).

Smirnoff. M. Smirnoff, Argenterie orientate (St. Petersburg,

1909).

SMTA. Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistyksen Aikakauskirja (Journal

of the Finnish Antiquarian Society, Helsingfors).

T.K.R. J. Tolstoi, N. Kondakov and S. Reinach, Antiquites de

la Russie Meridionale (Paris, 1891).

Khanenko. B. Khanenko, Antiquites de la region du Dniepre

ApeBHOcTH IlpHjHenpoBHH (Kiev, 1899-1900, Russian).

J.R.A.I. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great

Britain and Ireland (London).

G. Borovka. Der Skythische Tierstil, Archaologischer Anzeiger,

1926.
 SCYTHIAN ART

The centuries preceding and following the year 1000 b.c. were
a veritable age of national migration. About that time the in¬
vasion of the west Indo-European tribes, of the Greeks and the
Italici, and the advance of the east Indo-European Medes and
Persians finally shattered the great pre-classical civilizations.
Approximately at the same epoch the whole vast ocean of peoples,
grouped together by the Greeks under the collective name of
Scyths, was set in violent motion. Of the causes of these mighty
popular movements in the vast steppe region north of the
Caucasus and Iran we know practically nothing. The history
of those regions in pre-classical times is almost a sealed book.
Even for the classical epoch our sources of information are
exiguous and the archaeological record is still inadequately
studied ; before we can interpret it, the material must be com¬
prehended in its inner significance. We can only suggest
hypothetically that all these popular movements, the western and
the eastern alike, were interrelated and are to be regarded as a
single great phenomenon.
Still one ultimate result of this migration of “ Scythian ”
tribes does come fully within our ken. The westernmost of
these peoples, the Scyths proper, took permanent possession of
the steppe region of South Russia and entered into close relation
with the classical world on the coasts of the Black Sea. From
this contact between two worlds, which as we shall see were quite
heterogeneous, arose most significant and enduring results.
The first and principal consequence of their interrelation was
the incorporation of the whole Scythian region north of the
Caucasus and the Black Sea in the living body of the ancient
world. From the annihilation of the civilizations of the ancient
East through waves of fresh peoples to the repetition of the same
process at the end of the classical age, the course of evolution

*5
 SCYTHIAN ART

in Scythia was, despite all local peculiarities, the same as in the

other frontier provinces of the Greco-Roman world. The
cultural foundation created by the classical civilization in regions
such as Gaul or Scythia is the basis on which modern life has
been built up, in Russia as much as in the West.
But the effects of Scythia’s intercourse with the classical
world were still more far-reaching; they spread to the east
across the Ural to the Altai and even right into Mongolia. We
encounter them as fundamental elements in the art of ancient
China in pre-Christian times and their echoes are still vibrating
to-day throughout the Far East.
How did this contact between classical culture and the
unknown and mysterious world of the East come about?
Its scene is a land of ancient culture. Unfortunately the
investigation of the antiquities which the soil has richly yielded
us is still very incomplete. Only a few stages of the evolution
stand out distinctly. The whole western part of the South Rus¬
sian steppe land up to the Dniepr valley was occupied at the end
of the Stone Age by an advanced culture created by a sedentary
population living by agriculture and pasturage. It is termed the
Tripolye culture and is celebrated for its splendid pottery,
brilliantly decorated with painted designs. It belongs to the
same cultural group as the so-called spiral-maeander pottery
which extends throughout the Danube valley and the Balkans,
and its orientation is markedly western. It is to be noticed that
this region exhibits relations with the west also in Scythian
times.
In the early Copper and Bronze Ages we meet a culture rich
in gold in the Kuban district north of the Caucasus which is
most brilliantly illustrated by the Maikop grave. Massive gold
and silver models of oxen, a multitude of stamped gold plaques,
16
 SCYTHIAN ART

necklaces of gold, silver and carnelian beads, seventeen gold and

silver vases, two of them engraved with pictorial scenes—such
are the treasures that make this grave a unique phenomenon,
and reveal the high level of civilization reached in this region
even at so remote a date. Professor Rostovtseff has shown that
we have here to do with the same culture which, extending
over a wide area to the east, meets us in the oldest deposits in
Mesopotamia and pre-dynastic Egypt. Other finds are connected
with those from Maikop and show that this culture was widely
spread and well represented in the Kuban district. The com¬
plete divergence of the funeral furniture and the forms of tools
and weapons from all European types shows that here, in con¬
trast to the Tripolye culture, we are dealing with an independent
eastern aspect of civilization. It seems that this culture aroused
a very permanent influence on wide regions in Russia right into
the full Bronze Age.
Another funerary deposit of the Kuban district—from Ulski
Aul—dating from the Bronze Age, shows somewhat divergent
characteristics which point to a relation with Aegean culture.
It included primitive female statuettes of alabaster, corresponding
to the well-known specimens found in great numbers on the
Cyclades. Further points of contact between these two areas of
civilization can apparently be detected.
On the other hand, other signs suggest that in the full Bronze
Age, South Russia was exposed to strong influences emanating
from Asia Minor and the Caucasus. The whole Copper and
Bronze Age of South Russia is distinguished by extremely
numerous but generally very poor graves containing contracted
skeletons, often showing traces of red colorization, which
probably cover a very long period of time. Several groups can
be distinguished with the aid of the form of the tombs, and the

B 17
 SCYTHIAN ART

character of the pottery they contain. The meagre cultural

picture afforded by the graves can, however, to some extent, be
supplemented by chance deposits and isolated finds. In the
western part of what afterwards became known as Scythia,
an influence from the Donau region is clearly discernible in the
late Bronze Age, and thus the steppes are once more brought
into the sphere of Central European pre-history. It has even
been suggested that the whole steppe region that stretches
along the north bank of the Black Sea was, at the beginning of
the Metal Age, flooded by a great stream of culture, originating
in Northern Europe. But our picture of the sequence of cultures
remains fragmentary and misty. We can only say that even in
these early times the region reveals a many-sided historical life
which came into contact with the advanced centres of civilization
in the ancient East and the Aegean. If the course of develop¬
ment in this remote provincial region was relatively independent,
still the picture presented by this early epoch already resembles
that offered by later times.
It may be assumed with the highest degree of probability
that all these cultures did not vanish without leaving a trace, nor
simply succeed one another without intermingling. It is more
likely that one culture overlaid the other and that survivors of
the earlier population remained in their former haunts even when
the region was repeatedly occupied by fresh intruders. That can
be asserted with certainty of the last forerunners of the Scyths,
the Cimmerians. The remnants of this people were evidently
concentrated on both sides of the Straits of Kerch, between the
Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, on the eastern promontories of
the Crimea and on the islands off the Kuban delta, forming the
present Tamen peninsula. Their presence on those shores is
attested by the ancient place-names, above all by the name of
18
 SCYTHIAN ART

the Straits themselves, which were called by the Greeks the

Cimmerian Bosporus.
Of the Cimmerians we know little more than that they were
driven from South Russia by the Scyths. Some of them combined
with their assailants in the VUIth and Vllth centuries to con¬
stitute one of those waves of invaders which occasioned the
final collapse of the civilizations of the ancient East. They
fell upon Asia Minor and spread terror and destruction over the
realms of the Chaldasans in Van (Armenia) and of the Lydians
and Phrygians in Anatolia and even over the New Assyrian
Empire. Greek and Assyrian sources give a concordant account
of these events.
This first onslaught of Scythian tribes, partly on the trail of
the Cimmerians and partly in alliance with them, is of importance
in so far as it brought the world of peoples living and wandering
north of the Caucasus and Iran into touch with the life of Iran
and Hither Asia. A section of the Scythian tribes actually
settled down in the Armenian regions and no doubt thereby
again strengthened the relations which must long have subsisted
between the northern and southern shores of the Black Sea.
At the time of the expansion of the Persian Empire a couple
of centuries later, the Scyths who lived round the Caspian
Sea and to the east thereof, came into contact with the Iranian
world. It is probable that the strong Iranian influences which
made themselves felt even in South Russia and at the same time
spread far to the east radiated from these regions.
At the time of the Cimmerian invasion of Asia Minor the
flood of Scythian tribes was spreading all across the South
Russian steppes from the Urals to the Caucasus on the south
and to the Balkans on the west. To the Greeks they always
appeared as nomads, and the Greek authors never tire of

19
 SCYTHIAN ART

describing Scythian manners and customs. Their accounts agree

in many points with what we know of the warlike nomads who,
to-day, pasture their herds of cattle and horses on the Caspian
and Central Asian steppes. The breeding of cattle and horses
was favoured by the conditions of their new home and remained
one of the foundations of the Scyths’ prosperity down to their
last days. But Herodotus also mentions the Scythian tribes of
the agriculturalists (Georgoi) and the ploughmen (Aroteres)
and on the middle Dniepr, and in part of the Kuban district we
find clear traces of a sedentary population. Moreover, during
the whole of the Classical Age, as much as to-day, corn was inten¬
sively cultivated on the black-earth country and formed the second
chief factor in its highly developed economic life. The third
element was provided by the fisheries on the great rivers and
along the coasts. In addition the trade in furs and skins with the
forest regions to the north and east, deserves mention. Finally,
the gold of the Urals and the Altai began to flow westward in a
rich stream through the agency of the Scyths.
The population must have been as varied in its components
as in its occupations. Remains of the older peoples of the land
must everywhere have survived and mingled with the Scyths.
The clearest traces of them are found on the middle Dniepr.
No doubt a strong Iranian element entered into the population
of South Russia in Scythian times. Still signs seem to be multi¬
plying that other ethnic constituents were also represented among
them.
The whole population was divided into tribes governed by
princes and grouped together under the overlordship of kings.
The political organization was already firmly established by the
Vlth century, and the Scyths were able successfully to resist
the attack of Darius of Persia. The typical graves of Scythian
20
 SCYTHIAN ART

princes from that period give an impression in close agreement

with Herodotus’ account of the burial rites of the Scythian kings >•
and vividly reflect their wealth and their habits. The horse
offerings are innumerable—in one grave alone more than three
hundred and sixty horses’ skeletons were found-—and the
wealth of the Scythian graves in gold is inexhaustible. Weapons
and vessels, horse-trappings and personal costume were all
either made of solid gold or spangled with gold plaques. x
But all these articles reveal most plainly the intensive Greek
influence to which the Scyths’ culture was exposed from its
beginnings. Already in the Vlllth century b.c. a branch of the
stream of Greek colonization had begun to pour into the Black
Sea. That colonizing movement, starting from the coasts of
Asia Minor, had cast the far-flung net of Greek City-States over
the whole Mediterranean basin to Sicily and Gaul, and thus
paved the way for the Hellenization of the ancient world. The
same significance attaches to the foundation of Greek cities on
the Black Sea coasts. From this time on the shores of the
Euxine and its hinterland were inseparably bound up with the
whole life of the classical nations and were incorporated in the
ancient world as an integral part thereof. The fortunes of the
Greco-Roman world were also the fortunes of the Pontic region.
Ionians from the cities of Teos, Mytilene and Klazomenae on the
north coast of Asia Minor were the first settlers; the Milesians
followed them, and later, won the supremacy. So the young
urban life that had arisen from the ruins of the old Aigean
civilization upon a soil that had now become Greek was early
transplanted to the Pontus. The magnet that attracted the
Greeks thither was in the first place the inexhaustible multitudes
of fish swarming in the great river estuaries with their lagoons
and salt deposits. In addition, the export of grain and cattle
21
 SCYTHIAN ART

quickly acquired supreme importance. Scythia became one of

the chief sources of supplies for the Greek world, the soil of
which could no longer feed the ever growing population.
The earliest and most important Greek settlements in the
Pontus were concentrated in just that territory round the Cim¬
merian Bosporus where the remnants of the pre-Scythian
population had been penned up. Here first Phanagoria on an
island in the Kuban delta and then Panticapasum on the site of
the modern Kerch on the shores of the Crimea played the leading
part. In the west of the Pontus, Olbia, at the joint mouth of the
Bug and the Dniepr, became the foremost city. From the
moment of their foundation the Greek cities began a lively inter¬
change, both of commodities and ideas, with the native tribes.
We can watch Greek influence spreading with the victorious
vigour of youth. Greek products, notably painted vases, were
already to be found as far away as the Governments of Podolia
and Kiev, and the heart of the Kuban district by the Vllth
century. The country round the Cimmerian Bosporus became
saturated with Greek urban civilization. It may be guessed
that older elements of culture preserved here by the Cimmerians
who were probably closely akin to the Thracians made this
soil peculiarly responsive to such Hellenization. In any case, a
strongly organized State arose here in the Vth century. Under
the rule of a dynasty with half Greek and half Thracian names
it embraced the surrounding regions and the Greek cities in a
political unity, the Bosporan Kingdom. The archons of Pan-
ticapseum, the capital of the realm, style themselves kings in
dealing with the native tribes and thus embody in their double
title the double aspect of their power while preserving in contact
with their Hellenic subjects the appearance of the free constitu¬
tion of a City-State. The Bosporan Kingdom remained at all
22
 SCYTHIAN ART

times the cultural centre of the whole country on the north

coast of the Pontus. Its wealth depended on the Greek cities’
flourishing trade in the natural resources of the land. Its
prosperity was substantially increased when the colony of
Tana'is at the mouth of the Don, the terminus of the trade routes
from the East, Central Asia and the Volga region became subject
to it. From this moment Greek influence expands in manifold
forms over all Scythia. The Scythian graves show how thousands
of articles in daily use among the Scyths were manufactured
by Greek artisans in the coastal towns. The Scythian chiefs
possessed many marvellous jewels, the finest masterpieces of the
Hellenic goldsmiths that we know.
But soon the reaction began. The native population was
not content merely to absorb Greek influence, and to be enriched
by the inspiration of Greek culture it began itself to reinforce
and interpenetrate the citizen body in the Greek colonies. This
reaction was slowly preparing in the course of centuries and came
to the surface in Hellenistic times when, after the exhausting
Peloponnesian War, the Greek settlements on the Pontus ceased
to receive a continuous influx of new colonists from the mother
land. From that time opens an age of trouble for the Greek
cities. '.The native folk, themselves once more disturbed by
Thracian, Celtic and Germanic wanderers from the west and
fresh invaders from the east, begin to press upon the cities.
The undefended town of Olbia on the west was the worst sufferer,
till at length she was sacked by the Getae in the 1st century b.c.
She only revived again slowly and on a smaller scale under the
Romans. By the Ilnd century b.c., it was no longer the Scyths,
but their eastern kinsmen, the Sarmatians, who were in posses¬
sion of the open steppe. The Scyths, like the Cimmerians
before them, had sought refuge in the Crimea, and there formed
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a new State in the interior of the peninsula, a source of peril to

the Bosporan Kingdom and still more to the town of Chersonnese.
These were disturbed, restless and perilous times, interrupted
only by brief intervals of respite in which prosperity and civili¬
zation always blossomed forth afresh with astonishing vigour.
Mithradates Eupator, king of the realms of Pontus, in Asia
Minor, intervened in the contest with the Crimean Scyths.
The Bosporan Kingdom became dependent upon him and he
founded a new dynasty there. The years of his rule, the last
decade of the Ilnd and the first half of the 1st century b.c.,
saw the northern coast of the Pontus directly involved in the
world-shattering war which this prince waged against Rome.
His masterful personality embodies the last revolt of the old
native elements in the east against the victorious progress of
Hellenic culture as the champion whereof Rome now girt up
the iron strength of her organization for war. At bottom, it was
the same process as we have been watching in Scythia. That is
why, brief though the dependence of the Bosporan Kingdom on
the Anatolian dynasty was, Mithradates’ rule left a deep mark
on the Cimmerian Bosporus. The old political organization
under which the Greeks enjoyed at least equality of rights and
that not only at law, was broken down. The new State which
took its place was a semi-barbarized society in which the native
elements, now predominantly Sarmatian, took the lead. At
the same time it, like the whole eastern portion of the ancient
world, was politically dependent upon Rome, who assisted the
Bosporan Kingdom and the other Greek cities on the north
coasts of the Pontus against the restless and dangerous tribes of
the steppe in order thus better to defend her own frontiers against
barbarian inroads. But the pressure of the new peoples soon
became too strong; Rome was too deeply preoccupied with her
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own concerns, and in the IVth century a.d. the Bosporan King¬
dom ceased to exist. First the Goths from the west, and then
the Huns from the east overran the steppes and, save in Christian
Chersonnese, put an end to classical life in these regions, the
Huns being the principal agents of destruction. This is one
scene from the first act of the Collapse of the Ancient World.
Such in brief is the story of Scythia’s fortunes. But what
do we know of the Scyths themselves ?
We possess no remains of Scythian literature. A written
tradition emanating directly from the Scyths is altogether
wanting. Only in the Greek authors, especially Herodotus,
do we find full accounts of this people. But the Greek sources
are reliable only in those sections which describe the life of their
own kinsmen on the Pontus and the fortunes of the Bosporan
Kingdom. The account of the true Scyths, the inhabitants of the
vast hinterland, is for the most part confused and interwoven
with legend and myth. Scythia seemed to the Greeks a strange
and savage land, full of astonishing marvels lying somewhere
on the far edge of the known world much as the Far East
appeared to the eyes of Europeans as late as last century. It is
certain that the Greeks dwelling on the Pontus possessed an
accurate and thorough knowledge of conditions and events in
the hinterland, and a sediment of such knowledge was no doubt
carried by the stream of local historical tradition. But unhappily
it has not survived to our day but has been almost completely
lost. What we find in the remaining authors is usually, as in
Herodotus, tales about strange customs and fragments from
popular tradition, myths and ritual, repeated with childish
wonder. Little is to be gleaned from such reports. In the first
place, they seldom reach us first hand; only once or twice do they
reproduce the writer’s own experiences and views. Moreover,

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the Greeks drew no distinction between the several diverse

elements in the population, so that we cannot decide to which
of them this or that trait should be ascribed. Finally, these
reports are either relatively colourless or obviously tinged with
mythology.
What we learn of the customs and manners of the Scyths
forms a picture which would be equally typical of any nomadic
people. The women and children live in wagons provided with
roofs; the food, consisting principally of meat and mares’ milk,
is cooked at the open fire; near by, graze the herds of horses,
cattle and sheep, and the whole band wanders slowly from
place to place. By night the men come into camp; during the
day they ride away on their steeds to hunt on the open steppe
or travel for longer periods on warlike expeditions. Obviously
such accounts can only refer to the nomadic tribes, but it remains
questionable whether the true Scyths themselves actually
were such. Dress is suited to the cold winter climate of these
regions. Men wear trousers and a double-breasted sleeved
jacket, fastened with a girdle. The head is covered with a
peaked cap, provided with two flaps coming down over the ears,
and the feet are protected by supple leather boots. The chief
weapon is the bow and arrow, both carried in a case, the gorytus,
at the side. But lances and a sword, usually short, are also in
use.
The Greek authors have much to say of the Scyths’ love of
war and of their many cruel customs. He wins honour who
slays a foe; drinking vessels are made from the skulls of slain
enemies; the blood from the foeman’s death wound is drunk;
his skin is used to deck weapons and harness. One tribe bears
the name of Androphagoi, i.e. cannibals. The burial rites
are bloody too. A great man’s wife follows her lord to death
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 SCYTHIAN ART

and is buried with him. In honour of princes and kings many

of their subjects are sent to the underworld. All that he used
in this life as weapons, clothing and ornaments, are laid beside
the dead man in his grave. Numerous horses are included in the
wealth which he takes with him. Horses are also offered to the
gods, especially the war god. The latter also receives human
sacrifices, and is worshipped under the guise of a sword. The
supreme deity is female; her cult is entrusted to the queens.
The Enarees (impotent men) also worship the same goddess.
A male deity who had intercourse with the supreme goddess is
represented as the ancestor of the Scyths; his native name was
kept secret but Greek tradition calls him Herakles. The
recurrent stories of the Amazons also deserve mention: they
had waged war upon the Scyths and Cimmerians and had made
alliance with them. Such tales are evidently inspired by reminis¬
cences or survivals of matriarchal organization.
No distinct picture results from all these reports. Even when
they are supplemented by linguistic researches into geographical,
divine and personal names and by representations of scenes
from Scythian life, this picture remains blurred. It is clear that
many of its details, especially in later days, are to be referred to
an Iranian element. Beside them, constituents are present which
are related to the old native world of the Caucasus and Asia
Minor. On the other hand, statements are constantly repeated,
emphasizing, apparently with justice, points of agreement with
Finno-Ugrian or even Mongolian tribes.
One important point is still to be noted. In the enumeration
of the nations and the account of the trade routes the great
tradition takes us far into the north-east Russian forest country
on the Volga and Kama on the one hand and on to the Trans¬
caspian steppe right up to the Altai and the borders of China
27
 SCYTHIAN ART

on the other. Among the Budini, in the Kama district, which

has been inhabited right down to our own days by Finnish
tribes, they speak of urban settlements peopled by a mixed
population of Greeks and barbarians. All such tribes seemed
to the Greeks to be cast in one mould with the Scyths. The little
that they tell us of their customs agrees with this and is in many
respects confirmed and supplemented by the accounts given by
early Chinese authors of the Middle Kingdom’s northern
neighbours.
However, literary sources are not the only ones available.
Through the excavation of Scythian burial places, a rich archaeo¬
logical material has been exhumed by Russian scientists and
amateurs especially since the middle of last century. Much,
very much, alas, has been sacrificed to the lust for gold that such
rich graves could easily gratify. Nevertheless, the Hermitage,
where the mass of the finds has been concentrated, and many
museums in Moscow, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav and other cities
possess incredibly rich collections of antiquities from the Scythian
period. It is the conspicuous merit of Prof. RostovtsefF that he
has taught us to bring an unprejudiced mind to the study of these
remains of a strange culture in their full individuality. They
speak to us in unmistakable language, and in their enormous
wealth in gold and their peculiar character, a blend of native,
Oriental and Greek elements, they reveal the high standard
and striking individuality of Scythian civilization. But, what
is yet more important, these finds provide us with a direct,
unadulterated and authentic source for the study of the dumb
Scythian world. With the aid of this material we are enabled
clearly to recognize the diverse foreign influences to which
Scythian culture had been exposed. We can distinguish the
Greek and Iranian elements, the impulses emanating from the
28
 SCYTHIAN ART

Caucasus and Asia Minor and also from western Europe. We

find that, despite the intensity of the Greek influence in particular,
an independent native element, strong and indeed dominating,
had been at work. Here, for the first time, we can grasp it
in its unsullied purity and completeness.
The first point that strikes us is the wealth of Scythian culture
.in gold. Never before or since, apparently not even in the days
of the Maikop civilization, was gold in such universal use in this
region. And scarcely any other culture, not even “ Mycenae
rich in gold,” can rival Scythia for its superfluity of gold. Siberia
is the sole exception. To-day, indeed, finds of gold in Siberia
are extremely rare. But we possess ancient reports speaking
of the fabulous wealth of the graves of the Siberian steppe. The
Russian immigrants, especially in the XVIIIth century, have
systematically plundered these graves and melted down the
gold and silver they found, and now hardly a grave is left in
which we can hope to find gold objects. For the preservation
of the unique collection of Siberian goldwork in the Hermitage,
we have to thank the personal intervention of Peter the Great,
who issued an ordinance that such finds must not be melted down
but surrendered to the “ Art Room ” at St. Petersburg. Un¬
happily, this command was soon forgotten. Nevertheless, the
objects, striking for their solidity and their lavishness in material
wealth, prove that Siberia must have excelled even Scythia in
its wealth of gold. None the less, the use of gold among the
Scythians had assumed extraordinary proportions, even when
measured by modern standards. >-It implies that the Scyths
controlled a regular and perfectly secure traffic with the gold¬
fields whence the metal was won, that is, with the Urals and
still more with the Altai.
The individuality of the Scythian culture stands out very
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 SCYTHIAN ART

distinctly in the funeral structures in which the numerous horses

buried with the departed play so prominent a part. The graves
of the archaic epoch from the Kuban district are especially
characteristic; in them the horses originally encircled the tent¬
shaped wooden tomb on all four sides. This, too, is a feature
which appears first with the Scyths and then vanishes and is
nowhere else exactly paralleled.
But the specifically Scythian element expressed itself most
definitely in the distinctive artistic style that the Scyths brought
with them. This style is thoroughly individual, so individual
that it long remained quite unintelligible; only in recent years
have we begun to understand it. This style is at once so lively
that a modern eye is instantly caught by it, and so fanciful that
the observer at first can scarcely make out the details of the presen¬
tation. It produces the effect of an impressionistic ornamenta¬
tion, but its components are living bodies. The artistic power
of the style is very great, yet all its products are infected with
a touch of the primitive.
None of the cultures with which the Scyths came in contact
on their westward advance possessed anything comparable.
In the interior of Europe, in Greece, in Asia Minor, in Meso¬
potamia and in Persia a totally different style of art was current.
On the other hand, a thoroughly analogous style ruled in the
eastern countries bordering upon Scythia from the Caspian to
beyond Lake Baikal. Of course we can distinguish everywhere
local varieties. Scythia, Permia and Central Siberia, the three
chief centres, each exhibits its own peculiarities. But taken
together they constitute an unitary stylistic group contrasted
with all other known cultures.
The style ruling in these regions is very rightly called an
animal style. Its motives are composed of the bodies of animals

3°
 SCYTHIAN ART

—now complete animal forms, now individual members, especi-r

ally heads or legs. The several motives are decoratively com¬
bined and blended together in the most fantastic manner. The
products are the most weird and puzzling shapes, especially
when we reach forms already in process of degeneration. Some¬
times the figure of a whole animal is covered with other complete
or partial animal shapes. Sometimes we meet the converse, for
instance, a bird’s head decorated with animal shapes. The
antlers of an animal of the deer tribe, used to fill up spaces,
proved a very prolific motive. It gives birth to a whole series
of variants in which the ends of the antlers’ branches turn into
animals’ or birds’ heads. An unfettered fancy is at play expressing
itself in these protean combinations. The style’s ingenuity in
creating ever fresh and unexpected shapes was inexhaustible.
But innumerable as the variations are, they may for the most
part be traced back to a few fundamental motives. Whether
the design be executed in gold or silver, in bronze or iron, in
wood or bone, or even in stone, as in some still rare cases, we
generally meet the same motives constantly recurring in new
combinations and stylizations.*
Among these motives that of a sitting animal of the deer
species deserves to be mentioned first of all on account of its
extraordinarily wide distribution. The most splendid example
of the motive is the large representation of a sitting stag, ham¬
mered out of a solid gold plate found at Kostromskaya Stanitsa,
in the Kuban district. The object evidently served as the
emblematic decoration on the centre of an iron shield (Plate i).
The characteristic quality of this motive consists in the following

* In 1924/25, through the excavation of barrows in Mongolia, the Koslov

expedition discovered the first examples of Scytho-Siberian art applied to textiles
—two carpets decorated with scenes of animals fighting.

31
 SCYTHIAN ART

traits: The legs are doubled up under the body in a quite peculiar
way so that the forelegs lie pressed against the body and the
hind legs are extended forward below them. In this case the
animal is depicted strictly in profile so that only one of each pair
of legs is represented. Though this is a common, in fact the
normal, form, it is not rigidly adhered to. A further character¬
istic of this motive is that the neck and head are stretched far
forward as if in continuation of the lines of the body. The
antlers accordingly lie extended along the back and relieve the
flatness of the upper contour of the figure with their many
spiral or hooked branches, the front pair of which project
forward apart from the rest. This motive was often repeated
with all its peculiarities. On each of the twenty-four rectangular
fields on the chased gold plate decorating a gorytus (i.e. case
for bow and arrows) from Kelermeskaya Stanitsa, also in the
Kuban district, it recurs unchanged (Plate 2). The same motive
often appears on little stamped gold plates for sewing on gar¬
ments. These have been found in the Dniepr district and else¬
where as well as in the Kuban valley (Plate 3 E). Thus we are
evidently dealing with a well-established type.
We can already observe in this first example the characteristic
peculiarities of the Scythian artistic style. The portrayal is
anything but naturalistic; on the contrary, the treatment
is throughout markedly stylized, one might almost say, con¬
ventional. The motive itself, taken as a whole, is not true to
life. It is not even clear what position the animal is conceived
as occupying. We might hesitate to say whether we are looking
at a leaping or a sitting beast. And what could be more con¬
ventional than the treatment of the antlers or the whole manner
in which the legs are tucked up under the body, not to speak of
the modelling of the body, breaking it up into large unitary
32
 SCYTHIAN ART

surfaces in an almost tectonic fashion! And yet what fresh

and original liveliness is expressed in this representation ! How
perfectly the artist has caught and reproduced the essential
peculiarities of the stag in the pose of head and neck ! The
delicacy and elasticity of the body, the grace and yet the strength
of the legs expressed in the prominent hind-quarters, the slender
hoofs terminating in a point, the mobile ears extended—all this
is the fruit of most accurate observation embodied in the clearest
and simplest form. And in the picture as a whole how the
impression of speed, the fleeting, nay, the instantaneous has
been seized ! Just in this attitude we might espie the timid
beast in freedom in his native haunts before he takes to flight
at the appearance of his foe, man.
It is a unique contradiction that is here embodied; a con¬
junction of rigorous stylization with the highest verisimilitude.
But this very contradiction is typical of the whole of Scythian
art, and not of Scythian art in the narrow sense only, but of the
approximately contemporary art of Siberia and even of the Kama
region in North-east Russia. We can at once confirm this state¬
ment by the remark that in the later Bronze Age of Siberia, which
cannot be very far removed in time from the Scythian period,
bronze plaques with precisely the same figures are very common.
Only here curiously enough the motive often appears in forms
already degenerate. Frequently the legs are no longer separated
but are depicted as running into one another, so that a sort of
long rod seems to lie under the body; however, a transverse
dent on this rod betrays the original position of the legs under¬
lying the conventionalization (Plate 43 B). At the same time
the correct treatment and the characteristic position of the legs
are also found as our illustrations show (Plate 43 E). The
reader can see that all the peculiarities of the motive are preserved.
c 33
 SCYTHIAN ART

Even the presentation of the antlers with spiral or hooked

branches is the same. We find a very similar representation of
the antlers on the Siberian bronze mirror in the Hermitage
(Plate 41). Identical bronze plaques representing stags are
said to have been found in the Kama district, yet it is uncertain,
even if the reports be reliable, whether these were not Siberian
imports. In other cases we shall meet plenty of evidence for
the identity of this artistic province with the Siberian and the
Scythian in the form of unmistakably local products.
It is important to note that, especially in Siberia, the so-called
stag figures often allow us to perceive that the animal repre¬
sented is not a stag but an elk. The conformation of the heavy
drooping muzzle leaves no room for doubt on this point. The
elk is very plainly depicted on the beautiful wooden plate from
the Altai region now in the Hermitage (Plate 59). The peculiari¬
ties of this animal are characteristically reproduced in the heavy
muzzle, the broad palm antlers and the exaggeratedly long limbs.
Besides this motive of the crouching stag or elk with out¬
stretched head we meet manifold variants upon similar repre¬
sentations of the same animals. More rarely other animals,
particularly the wild goat, are depicted in the same attitude.
The stag frequently appears in Scythia in a very similar pose,
but with the head erect. The limbs are folded beneath the body
as before, but the antlers are rather differently treated (Plate 3
B & F). They spread out more widely and the hinder branches
are longer and fill up the whole angle between the figure’s neck
and back. We clearly see the effort to comprehend the whole
subject in a compact outline with a view to decorative effect.
That striving after a decorative compactness in the motive is
also characteristic of Scythian art. On the plaque from Kara-
Merket in the Crimea (Plate 3 B), we observe that the two first

34
 SCYTHIAN ART

and the last antler-branches have been transformed into the

heads of birds with hooked beaks in just such a decorative
fashion. In the case of the front branches these birds’ heads
are turned topsy-turvy; the third is pointing straight down on to
the stag’s back. The animal is depicted in a similar way with
the head upraised rather than stretched out on some of the
Siberian bronze plaques (Plate 43 B).
The motive of the same animal in a like pose but with the
head turned back over the shoulder is also very common in
Scythia. Two variants may be distinguished. In one the head
is turned half round so that it comes to lie along the line of the
spine and nestles into the back just as the feet are tucked up
tightly against the belly. Alternatively the animal has twisted
his head round in the plane of his body and rested it sideways
against his flank so that the head falls within the outlines of the
frame. Both postures are equally natural and can be observed
in nature. In the first variant the elk often figures on gold
plaques. The head is most clearly portrayed on the plaque
purchased at Maikop in the Kuban district (Plate 3 C). The
most extreme contortion of the neck is shown on a plaque from
Solokha, a grave in the Dniepr region (Plate 3 G); on it, the
muzzle is nestling in the hollow of the back. The most conven¬
tional treatment is seen on the plaque from a tomb in the Kuban
delta (Plate 3 H). In all these cases—only one example of each
type is reproduced on the plate—the composition remains quite
uniform. The antlers, too, are always represented in precisely
the same manner curiously shortened. From the forehead rises
a bent rod, following the contour of the head and terminating
in a bird’s head, again inverted, the beak of which reproduces
the spirals of the antler-branches.
The wild goat is treated in just the same way in the districts

35
 SCYTHIAN ART

of the Kuban, Don and Dniepr. His horn is not bent over
the head to the back but follows the arch of the neck in quite a
natural position (Plate 3 D).
The same motive is also repeated in bronze. The bronze
plaque from the Kiev Government (Plate 4 B), the bottom of
which ends in a figure, half the paw of a beast of prey and half
the talon of a bird, is surmounted by an elk with its heavy muzzle
and short but palm-shaped antlers clearly marked. Stylization
has advanced further on a plaque from one of the so-called
Graves of the Seven Brothers in the Kuban delta (Plate 4 C).
Here the elk’s muzzle is still distinctly recognizable, although
it is very much elongated. The antlers, too, are characteristically
broad. But they spread out decoratively in two symmetrical
divisions as if viewed full-face, and tower high above the head.
On other plaques from the same grave we meet the second
variant of the motive. The stag’s head is laid sideways along
his flank so as to cover the whole body as far as the hind-quarters
(Plate 4 A), the antlers once more spread out decoratively
over the head in two symmetrical divisions, in one plane.
In all these examples, parallels to which might be quoted
from Siberia (Plate 44 C), we meet the same characteristics:
the motive is curiously and regularly stylized; at the same time
the representations are always thoroughly alive and true to
nature; the appreciation of the forms of the animal world is
deep and highly developed.
Let us next examine the representation of a standing stag
with his head turned back on a gold plaque in the collection
of the Moscow Historical Museum (Plate 3 A). How natural
is the head’s pose! how truly is the grace of body, muzzle and
ear reproduced! And yet a hornless elk’s head is attached,
purely ornamentally, to the shoulder ! The most characteristic

36
 SCYTHIAN ART

feature is, however, the position of the legs. How well all the
lightness and agility of the beast is thereby expressed. If we
look closer, we note that the hoofs are not really depicted as
standing on the ground but with the toes turned down.
We get the impression that the legs are hanging down loose.
This is no accident; there are other examples, too, even from
Scythia, and it recurs in more marked form in Siberia on the
bronze mirror in the Hermitage collection (Plate 41). All
the stags or elks and the goat there depicted are floating with
hanging legs as if suspended in mid air. Note, too, that the
ground is not indicated; the figures are completely cut away
from all environment. The artist has reproduced with the most
lifelike accuracy and the strongest emphasis on characteristic
traits the impression gained from immediate observation of the
animals. Abstracted from all context, without any association
with ideal constructions, alone and isolated, the fresh living
impression, the memory-picture, has served as the artist’s model.
We might be tempted to speak of a primitive impressionism,
but that we are dealing at the same time with such a markedly
decorative stylization.
In addition to figures of complete animal forms, motives
based upon individual parts of the body, especially the head,
were much in vogue. Deer’s and elk’s heads are also used as
independent motives. The impulse to decorative stylization
is still more marked in such partial representations.
We have already met the elk’s head in profile as an independent
ornament upon a figure of a stag. It appears also quite by itself.
It is always very much stylized. The pendancy of the muzzle
is emphasized in an exaggerated way. Occasionally the outlines
of the muzzle in front nearly form a right angle, as happens
particularly in objects from the Dniepr district, both of bronze

37
 SCYTHIAN ART

and of carved bone (Plates 5 A & C and 32 E). The contours

are more rounded on plaques from the Crimea and the Kuban
delta (Plate 5 B). But, en revanche, the jowl droops lower. The
antlers are extraordinarily stylized. Two branches in the shape
of birds’ heads sprout out on either side of the forehead over
the eyes. The birds’ heads are once more inverted so that their
beaks may form the proper volutes. Between them grows a
palmette, while on Fig. A another grows between the ear and
the nape of the neck. This is a clear instance of the penetration
of Scythian culture by Greek elements. Typically local on the
other hand are the volute-shaped mouldings, often encircling the
mouth and nostrils (Plates 5 B & C). They recur in a very
similar way in Siberia on a double figure of elks’ heads in carved
bone (Plate 60 C). Such reduplication of the motive is also
met in Scythia. A fine example is the bronze plaque from the
Dniepr district (Plate 5 D), which, like the Siberian specimen
in bone, served as a clasp. Two elks’ heads in strict profile,
with but one eye and one ear each, are here opposed with
the muzzles and necks touching. A strip of bronze purely
utilitarian in purpose unites the ears above the heads. On the
bronze specimen from Siberia as on some representations of single
elk’s heads the eye, too, is made unnaturally big and stands out
as a round boss with a flanged edge right on the outline of the
head. The stylization of the ear is also characteristic; in
almost all cases the hair on the inside is suggested by parallel
lines (Plates 5 A, C & D). In one of these elks’ heads the
thick mane of the neck provides an effective border for the out¬
line behind.
We see that the elk constituted a clearly marked, independent
and fairly widely diffused motive even in Scythia. To show
that the same motive was current in the third artistic province

38
 SCYTHIAN ART

—North-east Russia—we may refer to the exquisite carving in

bone which was found in that region and is certainly a local
product (Plate 64 F).
Beside the elk’s head the motive of the stag’s head lived
its own independent life. It is characteristic of it that the
antlers are fruitfully used for decorative ends. In the simpler
figures the antlers generally tower over the head. They are
represented thus on a series of bronze stags’ heads from various
graves in the two adjacent groups of barrows known as the
Great and Small Seven Brothers in the Kuban district (Plate
6 B, C & D). Here, too, some branches are frequently not
naturalistic, but shaped decoratively into the form of birds’
heads (Plate 6 A). In such decorative stylization the antlers
of the stag’s head on the side plate of a gold sword-sheath from
a grave at the mouth of the Don are represented in an exaggerated
and already rather degenerate fashion (Plate 22 B). Here
extended birds’ heads in an endless row perch as branches on
the antler, which ultimately terminates in a half Greek, half
Oriental palmette. This motive of the stag’s antlers with birds’
heads also appears quite by itself and in fact without any indi¬
cation of the head on late and degenerate products. How fruit¬
fully the motive of the stag’s antlers was used for decorative
purposes is shown by the illustrations on Plate 7, all bronzes
from the Kuban district. In the middle of the girdle-plate the
forequarter of a stag—head, foreleg, and antlers—is represented
(Plate 7 A). The antlers are spread out in some incompre¬
hensible way into two symmetrical halves, each branch being
a very long drawn out bird’s head. To left and right lie stags’
heads. That on the left is preserved whole; on the right, the
head itself has been broken off and only the antlers, formed as
on the other side, have survived. The antlers are again divided

39
 SCYTHIAN ART

each pair into two symmetrical halves, each one consisting of

three birds’ heads, of which the middle one projects furthest.
The birds on either antler are facing in opposite directions.
The several corresponding birds’ heads vary considerably in
size. In a like manner, nearly the whole of the object on the
plate decorating the bridle-piece is framed by the antlers of two
stags, heraldically opposed, with the heads turned backwards
(Plate 7 C).
In these specimens, however freely the antlers are used for
decorative ends, they are still understood more or less for what
they are. But in the next two examples they are wholly dis¬
solved into a purely ornamental scheme. On the plate adorning
another bit from the same find in the Kuban district (Plate 7 B),
the stag’s head is still quite clear, with its extended ear, its eye
and its firm set muzzle. The antlers have, however, become a
mere ornament, and in the midst of their decoratively interlacing
lines appears a sort of inverted Greek palmette. On the pole-
top from the Kuban district the meaning of the motive has
already been entirely forgotten. Of the stag’s head, only a
thoroughly degenerate ear and the tip of the muzzle survive,
the eye has disappeared and the antlers have grown into a sense¬
less medley of volutes (Plate 7 D). These are good examples
for showing how in this art province the organic animal form
is the original element; the purely ornamental or vegetable
shapes are secondary and generally first arise out of the degenera¬
tion of animal forms.
In the whole domain of the Scytho-Siberian animal style
r-
the bird’s head motive is perhaps even more widespread than
the stag’s or elk’s head. We have already encountered it several
times ornamenting antlers. But it is also very common as an
independent motive. It is most definitely elaborated on the
40
 SCYTHIAN ART

magnificent bronze plaque from one of the Seven Brothers

(Plate 8 A). The palmette at the back is again naturally to be
ascribed to Greek influence. On the other examples on this plate
too the characteristic features of this motive are well marked.
Perhaps the purest is the specifically Scythian stylization
on the beautiful bronze bridle-piece from the Kuban district
(Plate 8 D). The hooked beak rolled into a regular scroll is
exaggeratedly big. In front of the eye the cere at the base of the
nose is clearly marked and has been deliberately emphasized
for decorative effect. The cere and the hooked beak are char¬
acteristic marks of birds of prey and at the same time typical
features of the Scytho-Siberian stylization. Thus on this motive
too we recognize the same quality: the artist selects the charac¬
teristic features of the animal form as he has observed them in
nature, restricting himself most rigidly to the absolutely essential
elements, uses these as the basis of a representation, and then
works it up as an independent element in decorative fashion.
The reader will notice how repeatedly this emphasis on the
cere recurs everywhere, both in Scythia and in Siberia and the
Kama district. The birds’ heads on the dagger-hilts from
Siberia (Plate 40), the similar bird’s head on a bronze from
the Kama district (Plate 64 E), and all the specimens from
Scythia reproduced here exhibit the same peculiarity in different
variants. This feature is especially marked on the cruciform
bronze girdle-plate found in the necropolis of Olbia (Plate 9).
It reappears again on the bone comb from Poltava Government,
here indeed repeated twice on the same head (Plate 33 A).
The bird’s head motive is also common in gold work; examples
are collected on Plate 11. Four birds’ heads are perched in a
row on a vase handle from the Solokha grave (Plate 11 H).
In the case of another vase handle, also of typically Scythian

4i
 SCYTHIAN ART

form, the whole object is wrought into the form of a bird’s

head (Plate 11 G). At the back of the head perches another
smaller bird’s head, the scroll of whose beak passed over into
the eye of the larger bird, making the whole a regular puzzle-
picture. The motive is also wrought in iron, most commonly on
sword-hilts (Plate io A), but also on bridle-pieces (Plate io B).
The head on the iron knife from Kiev Government illustrated
on the same plate is peculiar (Plate io C). The outlines are
those of an elk’s head, but the long slit for the mouth and the
cere below the eyes are traits belonging to the bird’s head. It
is a combination of two originally distinct motives.
We possess two masterpieces of Scythian decorative art
devoted to the bird’s head motive. Both are equally perfect,
although the one is a veritable miniature while the other is on a
monumental scale. The first of these is a piece of bone carving
found near Kerch. The whole object, here reproduced in its
natural size, represents plastically a bird’s head (Plate 32 A).
At the back a little beast like a hare with the legs curiously
tucked up has been carved. This animal’s tail is long drawn
out, passes along under the rear edge of the bird’s head, then
turns up and forms the beak’s cere in the guise of the fore¬
quarters of a second hare. In the place of the nostril holes on
the beak yet another little animal’s head has been carved, and its
long ear in the form of a double ridge follows the contour of the
beak. The ingenuity displayed in the invention and execution
of such a complicated little scene fills us with amazement.
The second masterpiece is a pair of bronze pole-tops in the
form of birds’ heads from Ulski Aul in the Kuban district
(Plates 24 and 25). The one is almost smooth, the surface of the
other is richly decorated. The pure contours of the head are
admirable, the great pointed scroll of the beak contrasting with
42
 SCYTHIAN ART

the sharp edge of the long prominent cere below the base of
which the great eye stands out in relief right in the corner of the
figure. Along the projecting fold of the cere, smaller birds’
heads have been represented by parallel lines in relief. On the
more elaborately decorated specimen the scroll of the beak
has also been adorned with such parallel lines in relief. In the
middle of this figure yet another bird’s head has been depicted
facing the opposite way. Below it, the figure of a wild goat in
the already familiar attitude, with head turned back and legs
tucked up, has been moulded in relief. Little bells were once
suspended from the now partly broken loops at the edge. These
two pole-tops are among the finest achievements of Scythian
art in the decorative treatment of organic bodily forms.
A feline beast of prey plays a prominent role in Scythian art.
The representation of this animal must be attributed to southern
influence since neither the panther nor the lion is native to
southern Russia. It is, however, characteristic that occasionally
even in Scythia, but more especially in north-east Russia and
Siberia, other animals, among which the bear, an animal as much
at home in those wooded regions as the elk, distinctly recogniz¬
able appear as the basis of the very same motives which in
Scythia are based upon our feline beast. There are three chief
motives derived from this beast.
The first is as beautifully and brilliantly represented by the
shield blazon enriched with coloured inlays of glass paste and
amber as is the stag on a similar emblem from Kostromskaya
Stanitsa. It is a gem from the rich treasure of Kelermeskaya
Stanitsa, likewise in the Kuban district (Plate 12). The
cat-like beast’s legs slant forward and his head hangs down in
front of his paws.
This motive is common on gold plaques (Plate 11 D). Both

43
 SCYTHIAN ART

borders of the gorytus-plate depicting stags are occupied by-

repetitions of this motive (Plate 2), and a column of similar beasts
adorns the gold plate covering a sword-sheath (Plate 23 A).
The gold plaques from Kharkov Government in the Moscow
Historical Museum are very similar (Plate 11 A). But here the
position of the legs is rather different: the feet are drawn up
closer to the body; the paws and the bush of the tail have grown
into birds’ heads; a small bird’s head perches on the beast’s
lower jaw and a larger one decorates his shoulder.
The beasts often adorning the handles of the graceful Siberian
knives sometimes assume a very similar attitude. These animals
are generally depicted as boars, but bears, too, can often be
distinctly recognized, and this motive was probably the original
one (Plate 39 A & B). The little bear engraved on the elk’s
head from North-east Russia evidently belongs to this family
(Plate 64 F). The characteristic pose of the head is precisely
the same and is just as proper to a bear as is the outstretched
position to elks and stags. So we may reasonably assume that
the whole motive had been originally inspired by a bear.
On each paw of the great beast from Kelermeskaya a little
doubled-up beast is depicted. The same figure is repeated six
times on the surface of the great beast’s tail (Plate 12). It is
the second motive to be discussed. Here it is not as clear and
comprehensible as elsewhere. It comes out most simply and
distinctly on the exquisite gold plaque from Siberia in the Her¬
mitage collection (Plate 45). The beast is curled up into a com¬
plete circle. The head hangs down from the long arched neck
and almost reaches the tail. The shoulder is powerful and stands
out like a great boss. From it the foreleg is extended in an arc
concentric with the curve of the neck. The whole body, too,
is drawn out and bent into a semicircle. The hind-quarter

44
 SCYTHIAN ART

stands out as strongly as the shoulder and thence the hind leg
is extended towards the inner curve of the belly. The tail is
bent round into the middle of the figure between the rump and
the nose; often, however, it occupies only a little space between
the rump and the jowl. It is an unique motive and very con¬
ventionally treated. But incomprehensible though it be at first
sight, it was none the less very popular. In smaller, often rather
degenerate, representations it is common in Siberia and the Kama
district as well as in Scythia (Plates 14 C & D, 43 D and 64 D).
It is to be remarked that it also appears on carved bone (Plate 32
B & C), when the rendering of the eyes, nostrils and paws as
circles closely resembles what we saw on the gold plaque from
Siberia. Perhaps the most beautiful example of this motive is the
great bronze plaque from a grave near Simferopol in the Crimea
(Plate 13). Only the beast’s head is here rather different. It has
an elongated, relatively pointed nose as is often the case with
this theme (cf. Plate 14 D). The paws take the form of birds’
heads and the figure of the wild goat with reverted head is again
depicted in relief on the shoulder. Below it a very stylized
elk’s head has been added to the fore-paw. The horn of the
wild goat and the feline beast’s tail also terminate in birds’
heads.
This motive is again very well represented by the bronze
button from one of the Seven Brothers (Plate 14 B). Here it is
obviously a lion that is intended. The mane is conventionally
rendered by long parallel strokes on the neck; the shoulder is
free of hair. But then the rest of the body to the hind-quarters
is again decorated with radial strokes. We are in doubt whether
they are meant to indicate mane or ribs. In any case the \vay
that the shoulder and the hind-quarters stand out is typical.
With slight modification in the position of the legs the

45
 SCYTHIAN ART

same motive recurs in the circle in the middle of the cruciform

plaque from Olbia (Plate 9). It reappears, quite regular in
composition if a little degenerate, in the Ananyino culture of
North-east Russia (Plate 64 D), and in other probably contem¬
porary remains.
The peculiarities of the third motive are as follows: the
body of the beast which is represented sometimes reclining,
sometimes standing, is depicted in relief side face. The beast’s
neck and head are plastically turned forward to face the spectator.
The finest specimen of this motive is a panther figure of solid
bronze overlaid with gold-foil from the so-called Golden Barrow
near Simferopol in the Crimea (Plate 15 A). The beast’s body
had been adorned with coloured inlays but leaving the shoulders
and hind-quarters plain ; but only the leaf-shaped cells that
received the inlays remain. Two bronze figures from the
Dniepr district also exemplify this motive (Plates 15, B & C).
In both specimens the tail is depicted in the guise of a bird’s
head. It is to be noted that in a grave near Voronezh on the
upper Don a silver reproduction of the same motive was found
which obviously represented a bear. From the Altai in Siberia
comes the carved wooden figure of an ungulate animal which
is represented in precisely the same attitude (Plate 63 B).
Thus in these three motives we can once more observe the identity
of artistic style in Scythia, north-east Russia and Siberia.
That can be as definitely proved with the aid of the motive
derived from the head of a beast of prey. The independent
representation of a lion’s or panther’s head occurs relatively
often in Scythia. The gaping maw discloses the powerful
incisor fangs. The whiskers on the upper lip are seldom over¬
looked. In Scythia the motive is found both in bronze (Plate
16), and on a sadly damaged piece of carved bone in the Moscow
46
 SCYTHIAN ART

Historical Museum. On the other hand, we possess an exquisite

specimen from Siberia. It is a wooden plaque from the Altai
in the Hermitage (Plate 60 G). The stylistic treatment is
admirable with scroll lines round the ear and lower jaw. Cunning
is livelily expressed in the oblique eye, and the structure of the
maw of a ravening beast with the two great incisor fangs in front
and the smaller molars arrayed behind them is happily repro¬
duced. The stylized rendering of the whiskers on the upper lip
is also very marked here; they are indicated by parallel curved
incisions. Although we have no such marked instance of this
feature on purely Scythian objects from south Russia, we must
ascribe this whisker-motive to western influence since it is typical
of the representation of the lion’s jowl in ancient Anatolian art
whence it was taken over by archaic Greek art.
The lion’s or panther’s head viewed full face is another com¬
paratively common motive. In Scythia, in addition to small,
much stylized representations like that on the gold plaque here
illustrated (Plate 11 B), larger examples are also available.
The whiskers are, however, very strongly marked on the gold
plaque. This motive reappears in much the same form in Siberia
(Plate 60 F), and also in the Kama district (Plate 64 C). Then
we meet it again on a larger scale but still transformed by extreme
stylization in horn and wood-carvings from the Altai (Plate
60 D and 62). We shall have occasion to return to these
representations later on.
Besides the panthers’ or lions’ heads we also meet isolated
representations of that sharp-nosed head which we saw on some
of the animals curled up into a circle. Two examples are shown
here from Scythia where this motive is relatively rare (Plate 17
A & B). Characteristic is the long pointed jowl with open maw.
Behind the eye stands an ear; it is generally small but on the

47
 SCYTHIAN ART

second of the heads already manifests a tendency towards decora¬

tive extension. The weird effect of the other head is enhanced
by the representation of a bird’s head on the cheek-bone.
In fact, it is hard to say what animal is actually intended; we
are evidently confronted with a very highly stylized motive.
However, on the exquisite bone spoon from a grave in Orenburg
Government, it is unmistakably a bear that is depicted with such
a head (Plate 31 A). The outlines of the great unwieldy body
with its broad, powerful limbs, are engraved on the back of the
spoon with admirable certainty. Framed within the contours
of the bear’s body another elongated beast is curled up with a
similar pointed head and a long ear. The bear’s head projects
far forward and is carved to form the handle of the spoon.
Unfortunately the upper edge of the head has been broken off
so that the snout looks more pointed than it originally was.
We must complete the picture with a distinct, probably scroll¬
shaped, representation of the nostrils as other examples of the
same head show. Nevertheless, it is clear that we are dealing
with the same motive which here is evidently intended to repre¬
sent a bear’s head. The conformation of the beast’s jaws with
two long incisor fangs in front and half-rounded teeth behind
them is here typical.
This trait is preserved in another bone carving from Orenburg
Government (Plate 31 B), and in the bronze examples from
Scythia (Plate 17 A & B), which have already been further
transformed by stylization. For comparison, let us look again
at the little figure of a bear engraved on the elk’s head from
North-east Russia (Plate 64 F). The outline of the whole beast
is here much more cursorily sketched; still the bear’s head
exhibits an unmistakable similarity to the motive just discussed.
The “ bears ” again on the bronze Siberian knives (Plate 39
48
 SCYTHIAN ART

A & B) have very similar heads. So we may well assume,

despite the astonishment provoked by such a hypothesis, that
this peculiar motive is based upon a representation of the bear.
Of course, this motive is very far from its original condition and
exhibits a constant tendency to contamination with other motives
or to purely ornamental stylization. In Siberia it very often
happens that the snout is drawn out to a sharp point and comes
to resemble a wolf’s head, as for instance in the case of the
double figure on a bronze mirror-handle (Plate 44 A).
Occasionally whiskers are seen on the upper lip and recall the
panther’s or lion’s head. We find this in Scythia on one of the
bronze heads (Plate 17 A), and also in a wood-carving from the
Altai (Plate 60 A). On the latter the volute into which the
nostril has been transformed is very typical; on the second
bronze head from Scythia the nostril is represented in a similar
way (Plate 17 B). On the two heads adorning the guard of a
Siberian dagger (in the Hermitage), with iron hilt and bronze
blade—an unusual combination—the nostrils are in each case
represented as scrolls (Plate 40 B). And we meet the motive
characterized by precisely the same peculiarity in North-east
Russia. Particularly satisfying is the representation on the bronze
axe (Plate 64 A). But just the same traits are exhibited on a
little bronze plaque (Plate 64 B), depicting this head twice,
but this time the lower jaw is omitted in each case so that we get
two heads with two eyes and two nostrils, but only one mouth.
We have dwelt at some length on this motive because in
itself it is rather incomprehensible and at the same time because
it is of importance in connection with the influence exerted by the
Scytho-Siberian repertoire upon other cultures, as we shall later
see. In Scythia it played a comparatively small part and was
soon misunderstood. That is natural since the bear, a forest
D 49
 SCYTHIAN ART

animal, is not met on the steppe, so that the artist lost immediate
contact with his model. It is not, therefore, surprising that in
Scythia boars’ heads appear as well in outlines that recall this
motive (Plate 17 C, D, E). In Siberia, too, as we have already
seen, the bear’s figure when no longer properly understood turned
into a boar. However, the boar was an animal known also to
Greek artists, and it is possible that they have contributed to
the transformation of the motive.
To complete our survey of the motives of the Scythian
animal style several examples of two further motives are grouped
together on the next plates (Plates 18 and 19). They were
fruitfully employed on horse-trappings for the decoration of
frontlets and cheek-pieces. They appear also on other objects,
but not so often. These motives are derived from animals’ feet.
The representations of a hoof with the adjacent fetlock joint
are admirable and in perfect harmony with the best qualities of
the animal style. The feeling for the organic structure of the
animal body fills us with admiration. The figure is clearest on
the bridle-piece, terminating in two opposing hoofs (Plate 18 C).
On the joint, the delicacy and mobility of which are admirably
rendered, the short fetlock is indicated. Below comes the pastern
and right at the end is set the hoof, sharply outlined and grace¬
fully shaped. These three parts are always carefully distinguished,
however stylized the figure may be. Consider now the small
dagger-like object surmounted by a panther’s head (Plate 18 A).
On the back it is provided with a strap-hole so that it must have
been a horse ornament, very likely a frontlet. Here the hoof is
very long drawn out and ends in a regular point. The third
example, likewise a horse’s frontlet, is yet more stylized (Plate
18 B). The representation on the upper part of the object is
obscure; only the little Greek palmette is plain. The lower

5°
 SCYTHIAN ART

part once more forms a hoof. The fetlock joint is here distorted,
but its elongated form is only an exaggeration of what is given
in nature. The fetlock is duplicated and hangs down right to
the hoof.
An instructive evolutionary series is provided by the motive
of the separated hind legs of a leonine beast of prey. We meet
it quite clearly marked both in the representation of the complete
hind-quarters with both legs (Plate 19 A & C), and that of one leg
alone. In addition, highly stylized examples occur such as that
illustrated on the top of the plate to the right (Plate 19 B).
The feet are no longer the paws of a savage beast but plainly the
bird’s talons. The rear claw is turned the opposite way to the
rest, which is natural on birds’ legs but is impossible in the case
X
of paws. We have already observed such hybridization between
two motives, and this particular case we might illustrate by the
example depicted beneath a reclining elk (Plate 4 B). Here,
too, belongs the figure under one of the feline beasts facing the ><
spectator (Plate 15 C); this time it is obviously a bird’s claw.
The last example (Plate 19 D) shows how this motive, like that of
the stags’ antlers, can be resolved into a mere ornament.
The repertoire of Scythian art is not, of course, exhausted
with the examples that we have cited. But they will have been
sufficient to serve as an introduction to the comprehension of
this remarkable style. The exceptional faculty for naturalistic v
reproduction of animal forms has been amply illustrated and
at the same time all the figures bear witness to a great talent for
decorative stylization. These two tendencies are mutually inter¬
woven, and, however contradictory their nature may seem, are
combined to an organic unity in this style which endows all its
creations with a high artistic merit. Of course, a certain amount
of habituation is needed for an insight into the strangely stylized

51
 SCYTHIAN ART

figures. Nevertheless, the more they are studied, the more

impressive they appear. The whole fancifulness of this style
is at bottom only apparent. All the curious combinations of
various animal forms in a single figure are far from being so
fantastic as they seem at first sight. Generally we only find that
individual parts of animals, above all parts important for the
organic structure of the frame, have been ornamented with
figures of other animal forms. In this way joints or shoulder-
blades are especially often emphasized, or the individual branches
of the antlers marked off from the rest. In representations of
heads it is often the cheek-bone that is thus adorned. This pro¬
cedure is therefore only a way of emphasizing such parts of the
body as are constructively significant for the total presentation.
Such fantastic hybrids as the two monsters on Plate 20 are
rare. Below we see a lion with stag’s antlers, the branches of
which are represented by birds’ heads (Plate 20 B). The gold
plaque illustrated above it (Plate 20 A) presents a figure
composed of several heterogeneous elements and betrays ob¬
viously foreign influence to an unusual degree. The monster’s
back ends in a purely Greek swan’s or goose’s head, which shows
us that we have to deal most likely with the work of a Greek
craftsman imitating Scythian style. The paws of the monster
belong to a lion, its head strongly recalls the motive of the
Scythian “ bears’ heads,” but stands half-way between that of
a Greek sea-horse and a Chinese dragon; its wing, again, has
the form of a Scythian bird’s head, with very prominent cere and
a pointed ear. We must also ascribe to foreign influence, this
time Assyrian or Anatolian, though perhaps transmitted through
Greece, the scorpion-like cartilaginous tail of the lion on the
plate decorating a scabbard (Plate 22 A). The fabulous beast
on another scabbard from the Don delta (Plate 22 B), is half
52
 SCYTHIAN ART

made up of the specifically Greek winged griffin with lion’s

paws and bird’s beak. It is not quite clear whence came the
other elements of the figure—the extraordinarily wide fish’s
tail and the snake whose head the griffin is biting; they are not
Scythian, at least, in such a composition.
As we have said, such really fantastic figures are the exception X!
in Scythian art. The latter gives the impression of being
fantastic rather because we are dealing not with a realistic and
naturalistic style, the repertoire of which is inspired by logical
rigorous observation, but with a style that is best described as
impressionistic.
The peculiar direction taken by this style is perhaps most
clearly revealed in the striking circumstance that the Scytho-
Siberian animal style exhibits an inexplicable but far-reaching
affinity with the Minoan-Mycenaean. Nearly all its motives
recur in Minoan-Mycenaean art. The French savant, Salomon
Reinach, was the first to call attention to this resemblance in
his interesting article on the representation of the gallop in the
art of ancient and modern peoples. He shows that the figure
of the so-called “ flying gallop,” in which the animal is repre¬
sented stretched out with its forelegs extended in a line with the
body and its hind legs thrown back correspondingly, is at once
characteristic of Minoan-Mycenaean art and foreign to that of
all other ancient and modern peoples; it only recurs in Scythia,
Siberia and the Far East. He further points out that this motive
is not true to life but nevertheless reproduces in a most effective
manner the impression of swift movement. Now to reproduce
the immediate sense impression, not accurately but in a lively.,
and lifelike way, was the very aim of Scythian art. Unfortu¬
nately it has not been possible to illustrate this motive here. But
the same feature is clearly marked in another motive. Let us

53
 SCYTHIAN ART

examine the Siberian gold and bronze plaques depicting scenes

of fighting animals (e.g. Plates 46, 47 and 55 C). How often
are the animals depicted with the body so twisted that the fore¬
quarters are turned downwards, while the hind-quarters are
turned upwards ! Can the agonized writhings of a wounded
beast or the fury of his assailant be more simply rendered?
And yet the motive is as conventional as one could wish. Indeed,
it is often used apart from all context in individual figures. An
instance is seen in the bronze bit from one grave in the Seven
Brothers which has been fashioned in the form of a lion twisted
in this way (Plate 14 A).
Other motives of the animal style, too, reappear in Minoan
and Mycenaean art. We may cite the animals with hanging
legs and those which are curled almost into a circle. Conversely
the standard motive of the Minoan-Mycenaean lion, often repre¬
sented in the Aegean with reverted head, reappears again in
Scythian and Siberian art.
How are we to explain this far-reaching kinship in aim
between the two artistic schools? It remains on the face of it a
riddle. Immediate relations between Minoan-Mycenaean and
Scytho-Siberian civilizations are unthinkable; the two are too
widely separated in space and time. An interval of some five
hundred years separates them. Nor has the least trace of
Mycenaean influence on South Russia, either during that
civilization’s life or later, yet been discovered. Still, the kinship
between the two provinces of art remains striking and typical
of both of them. Here as there art unites in itself the highest
realism and naturalism of expression with the most rigid decora¬
tive stylization.
The exceptional decorative talent of Scythian art is conspicu¬
ously illustrated in the great ingenuity which the artist displayed

54
 SCYTHIAN ART

in filling up a shape determined by practical ends with animal

figures so as to leave a minimum of empty space. For this
purpose a series of small figures is sometimes grouped together
or alternatively the whole object is fashioned in the shape of an
animal. So, for instance, the frontlets of bridle-trappings are
occasionally shaped like fishes. We have two fine specimens
in gold-leaf from the Barrow of Solokha (Plate 21); from Siberia
comes an analogous frontlet with only this difference, that one
instead of two fishes composes its outline. The two wing-like
pieces belonging to the same bridle are shown by the parallel
flutings to represent ears—compare the stags’ and elks’ heads.
In the same way handles are often fashioned as figures of
animals, as for instance the handles of a gold vase from Siberia
(Plate 58), or the handles of the huge Scythian bronze cauldrons.
On the specimen from Kelermes (Plate 29), here illustrated,
where only one of the two handles has survived, it is a joy to see
how well the stylized horn of the wild goat is adapted to the
practical function of the ornament. In fact, this figure is a
standard type as the handles of the bronze mirror and a bell¬
shaped object from Siberia show (Plate 44 B & C). In like
fashion the round nob-handles affixed to rods in the middle of
the circular bronze mirrors are often decorated with animal
forms. On the mirror from the Samokvasov collection in
Moscow (Plate 30 2), it is once more the reclining wild goat
with reverted head and tucked up legs that forms the handle.
The gold plates from sword-sheaths here illustrated are
excellent examples of this skill in filling up a given object with
animal figures. How perfectly the contours of the two wild
goats on the upper part of the scabbard from Poltava Government
(Plate 23 A) fit the form of the enlargement that receives the
sword’s guards ! How completely the device at the side of the

55
 SCYTHIAN ART

sheath proper that serves to attach it to the sword-belt is covered

over by the stag’s head and its antlers on the gold plate from the
Don delta (Plate 22 B). How admirably the twisted hind¬
quarters of a lion have been adapted to the lower edge of the plate
covering a sheath from the Don district (Plate 22 A). The lion’s
figure has been no less skillfully adjusted ro the shape of the two
projections at. the side of the scabbard-plate from Solokha
(Plate 23 B). Similar lions grasping deers’ heads in their fore-
paws occupy the two upper fields on the sheath; below them

a x.
come two motives inspired by Greek influence—the griffin
with reverted head and notched mane but no wings, and the
panther whose head is turned round to face the spectator quite
in the typical manner of archaic Greek art. Finally, the round
chape is entirely taken up by a lion’s head, viewed full face,
which is frankly degenerate. The upper half of the circle is
occupied by the ears with characteristic parallel flutings and the
fretted mane between them, the lower half beneath the eyes by
the upper lip with the whiskers in the same stylized rendering
as the ear-hair.
In this connection the ornamentation of the upper rims of
sword-sheaths, generally with two birds’ heads, is very instruc¬
tive. The unfortunately damaged heads are reconstructed
on the plate as a scene of lions and a boar; from the Don
district (Plate 22 A). In this position, with the top of the head
downwards, and the curving lines of the beaks sweeping upwards
from either side to meet in the centre, they reproduce the outline
of the heart-shaped guards of the sword-hilt. On the scabbard
from Solokha (Plate 23 B), the position of the heads is again
correct, but they are themselves very sketchily rendered and
almost misunderstood: the eyes are turning into rosettes. The
birds’ heads on the other scabbard from the Don (Plate 22 B)

56
 SCYTHIAN ART

are better shaped, but here they are wrongly placed with the
top of the head upwards. The whole point of decoration with
this motive is thus really lost thereby. The Greek palmette
under the beaks gives us a hint of how this mistake arose. We
noticed previously that the monster at the bottom of this
sheath was also half Greek. It was then no Scyth but a Greek
craftsman living in Scythia who fashioned this object. His
familiarity with Scythian art was great, but yet it is clear that
his genius was alien to the eminently decorative capacity of the
latter art.
However, the finest results in filling up a functionally deter¬
mined shape with animal forms were perhaps achieved by
Siberian art. Almost every specimen provides convincing
proof of this statement. Different as the scene is in every case,
the shape remains perfectly uniform in a series of gold or bronze
plaques with rounded outline and one end always narrower
than the other (Plates 46—51). Unfortunately it is impossible
to determine the precise purpose of such a shape, but most
likely the plaques were belt-clasps. They were almost invariably
manufactured in pairs. Almost without exception both copies
have been preserved of all the plaques in the Hermitage collec¬
tion. They always correspond; that is to say, one piece is the
inverse of the other. It is not quite clear how they should be
combined. On the broader end a spike often projects obliquely
outwards. Still a single plaque with a duplicated scene of a
combat between a tiger and a camel would seem to prove that
such plaques must have been joined with the narrower ends in
contact. For on this double representation, which otherwise
corresponds exactly to the complete repetition of the motive
on other plaques (Plate 49 B), the two animal figures have
grown together so that they have no hind legs, and one animal

57
 SCYTHIAN ART

results, with two heads facing right and left respectively and
four forelegs.
In any case the form of the plaques itself is always retained,
however much the scenes depicted on them may vary. Therein
the artist displays great decorative ingenuity. The little articles
figured on Plate 55 are absolute masterpieces of decorative
invention. The battle between a wolf and a wild goat on the
long object (Plate 55 A), the upper outline of which is formed
by the goat’s horn, is most realistically rendered, despite the
extreme compression of the motive and the violent contortion
of the animals’ bodies. The elk and the tiger (or panther) fill
up the whole round surface of a gold button (Plate 55 C).
How skillfully the motive of the twisted body is used here !
Or examine the nob-shaped buttons, at the bottom of the plate
(Plate 55 F & G), on which the animals themselves are coiled
up into the form of the nob in such a way that the head lies in
the middle of the top. And how inimitable is the decorative
taste whereby the whole bezels of the two rings are fashioned
into animal forms ! In the ring from Siberia in the Hermitage
Collection it is a reclining goat with reverted head (Plate 55 D);
on the other ring (Plate 55 E), that from the treasure of the
Oxus, the bezel is composed of a lion in the attitude of the
flying gallop, with twisted body (note the oblique line of the
spine) and curled up into a circle.
On an equally high level of excellence stands the masterly
clasp of the silver girdle from the Kuban district, an imported
Siberian product (Plate 46 B). With what incredible dexterity
have the splayed hind legs of the mortally wounded horse been
adapted to form the right outline to receive the first plate of the
attached girdle ! At the other end the griffin’s back-turned foot
and the lower edge of his left wing describe the same contour.

58
 SCYTHIAN ART

The girdle plates depict birds with outstretched pinions. The

birds’ talons are indicated at the inner edge of each wing, while
the body and head are wholly filled up with incrustation and have
become geometrical ornaments. In perfect harmony with the
spirit of the whole motive the griffin’s beak embedded in the
horse’s neck forms the spikes of the clasp.
The high decorative capacity of Scythian art is most effectively
displayed in the series of bronze pole-tops (Plates 24—28).
These were used in the funeral ritual, and several of the same
pattern are almost always found in the same grave. Perhaps
they were once fastened like standards to the bier. As the animal
style can express itself in tiny miniatures, so here it turns into a
monumental decorative mode, we might term it a poster style,
full of intense effect and lively, well-nigh startling contours and
divisions of the surface.
What force is expressed in the beaks of the two pole-tops,
shaped as birds’ heads! (Plates 24 and 25). The less ornate
specimen is almost the more impressive with its sparing repetition
of the same motive. What boldness in the stiff pricked-up ears
and the muzzle projecting forwards horizontally of the horse’s
head ! (Plate 26). How splendidly the contours of the griffin’s
beak harmonize with the bulging shape of the great bell (Plate
27). How startling and yet how suggestive on the stag figure is
the maze of lines, almost each of which is resolved into a pro¬
longed, sweeping, pointed ribbon! (Plate 28).
Siberian art also attains the same high plane of massive
impressiveness on some of the exquisite gold plaques. What
unbridled passion, what pathos, what tensity pervades the battle
between lion-griffin and horse, both on the gold plaque and
on the silver girdle-clasp! (Plate 46). How solidly impressive
is the plaque depicting a struggle between a tiger and a fantastic

59
 SCYTHIAN ART

creature with the paws of a beast of prey, a head still recognizable

as the stylized bear and antlers, the branches of which, like the
end of the creature’s tail, are regular birds’ heads (Plate 48).
How nobly designed is the group of the yak and the eagle with
wide pinions and sweeping tail grasped in the jaws of yet a third
long-haired beast (Plate 50). Take the other group of four
animals (Plate 51), the eagle, the huge tiger, the little beast and
the common prize of the contest, the ungulate beast with reverted
bird’s head, in the middle. With how intense a passion is the
whole scene fused !
The most beautiful of all specimens of this type is, however,
the unique torque in the Stroganov collection (Plate 42). It is
alleged to have been found in Perm Government. That is
possible, but in that case it must have been imported; for it is
perhaps the purest product of the Siberian style that we possess.
How stupendous is the effect of the two lions’ figures with
enormous heads and mighty paws. The two beasts crouch
facing one another in wild rage. We almost expect to hear angry
roars and savage growls proceed from the grinning jaws, so
convincingly lifelike is the delineation. But at the same time
the fullest use has again been made of the expansion of the
object towards the middle to fill up the widened face of the torque
with animal figures. And the conformation of the animals is
anything but realistic. On the contrary, they are just made up
of a series of immensely simplified, smooth surfaces in sharp
relief.
At the same time, this object shows us most clearly the tech¬
nical roots of the style. This torque has been cast in bronze.
But the clear-cut, smoothed surfaces of the moulding bespeak
a quite different material medium and a quite different technique.
It was patently by carving with the knife in some soft substance,
60
 SCYTHIAN ART

most probably wood, that the positive for the mould was
originally executed. The oblique bevelled line carved from the
eye to the corner of the mouth and rounded off below has quite
A clearly been cut with a knife. The ear with its out-turned lobes,
the twisted flutings on the paws, the claws bevelled on both sides,
all these features have unmistakably been produced by knife
cuts. The abrupt edge of the mane, the deep-furrowed angle
above the hind paws, the whole smooth treatment of the surfaces
are quite intelligible in such a technique. And how naturally
the preference displayed by the animal style in general as well
as on this torque for ears terminating in a scroll is explained
simply by the habit of carving in wood ! Again, the typical
stylization of the mouth of a beast of prey with the two incisor
fangs in front executed, just like the claws on paws, by two
diverging cuts and with the outlines of the back teeth rounded
off, is explained as a form natural for carving.
We meet the same treatment of the paws as on the torque again
on gold and bronze plaques from Siberia. In the case of tigers,
moreover, the stripes are represented by long sweeping furrows
running down vertically (e.g. Plate 57), evidently executed by
cuts. Russian peasant-craftsmen model bears out of carved
wood in just the same manner to-day. It matters not what
example of the animal style we take up, everywhere we find the
same technical features underlying the stylization; and that quite
irrespective of the material or the technique in which the actual
object has been executed. Whether metal objects of bronze,
silver, gold or iron be cast in the mould formed by wooden
positives or be wrought or stamped into such moulds or finally
hammered out free hand, the stylistic treatment is always con¬
ceived of in terms of carving. Indeed, the same models are
imitated in stone or even in textiles.
 SCYTHIAN ART

Let us re-examine the cast bronze pole-top depicting a stag

(Plate 28). The long ribbons of the antlers with their bevelled
edges are quite obviously carved. The same is true of the three
distinct tufts of the beard hanging down from the chin to the
knee of the uplifted foreleg. The beast’s left ear is executed
by two cuts of purest notch-carving. And the bird’s head on the
shoulder-blade is equally plainly fashioned by the same method
by which each line has been carved into relief by two cuts with
the knife-point, sloping the opposite way in each case.
Just to convince ourselves we will return to study the two
chased gold plates, that with the stag from Kostromskaya
Stanitsa (Plate 1), and that with the panther from Kelermeskaya
Stanitsa (Plate 12). Each separate element in these beasts’
bodies has quite unmistakably been carved out with a knife.
The abrupt edges of the stag’s shoulder-blades, the convexity
of the knee-joint on his hind leg, the angular ridges in the middle
of the antler branches have all been carved. The necks of both
animals with the two carved surfaces falling away like a gabled
roof, the legs of the panther, like the similarly formed legs of the
stag, all these traits leave no room for doubt that the original
upon which the objects were modelled had been carved in wood.
And this model had been a positive, so we must further assume a
negative mould or impression based thereon into which the
massive gold plates in their turn must have been hammered.
The flanged edges round the nostrils and lips are again character¬
istic of carving. And on the little animals curled up into circles
adorning the panther’s paws and tail, the ears, eyes, nostrils and
paws assume a simplified form recalling circles scooped out of
wood. Now we understand the origin of the stylized rendering
of these members as simple circles which is so logically applied
on a larger scale to the gold plate from Siberia (Plate 45). The
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 SCYTHIAN ART

reader should compare this with the original carving on bone

objects from Kelermes and Kerch (Plate 32 B & C).
But we need not rely exclusively on inferences from the shape
of metal objects to prove that the stylization of Scytho-Siberian
art has arisen out of carving. We possess in addition direct
evidence. The wooden backings to which the thin gold plates
of the horse-trappings from Solokha (Plate 21) were fastened,
and those belonging to their Siberian counterparts have survived
in part even to this day. On the originals it is possible to observe
how each separate element Tn the gold plates both of the fishes
and of the ears, had been carved out as a positive on the wooden
backing. The gold plates are merely the gilding beaten firmly
on to the wooden core of the objects.
In a few other cases, too, such wooden backings for gold-
leaf have been preserved. Moreover, we possess a whole series
of carved originals. In Siberia they are generally of wood,
though there are a few specimens in bone or horn. The Scythian
examples are all of bone. Unfortunately, owing to their insignifi¬
cance in comparison with the rich gold finds, little attention has
been paid to these objects. Relatively very little of this highly
interesting material has been published, and it is to be feared
that a good deal has been lost through sheer carelessness. During
the sixties, Prof. Radloff excavated a grave near Katanda, in the
Altai, which had been sunk into a frozen layer of soil and had
therefore preserved in excellent condition many wood-carvings.
We may suppose that the preservation of other specimens from
Siberia is due to similar favourable conditions in the soil. Per¬
haps the absence of this factor is the reason why no artistic
wood-carving has as yet been yielded up by the soil of South
Russia. Only a few wooden vases have been found there.
The finest specimens of this class of object are grouped

63
 SCYTHIAN ART

together here on a few plates (Plates 31-33 and 59-63). In view

of what has been said above, it is, I think, superfluous to describe
each object in detail. The observer can see at once how the
stylized rendering has been conditioned in each case by the
material and the technique employed. Moreover, the motives
are the same as we have discussed individually. It is only neces¬
sary to stress the evident preference for scroll patterns, especially
on the ears, which is so highly developed on the Siberian carving,
and was applied in just the same way to metal work. For com¬
parison the reader might consider the ears on the beasts’ heads
from the hilt of the bronze dagger (Plate 40 A), or the scrolls
encircling the nostrils of the animals’ heads on the guard of the
dagger with iron hilt and bronze blade (Plate 40 B), or those
round the eyes of the birds’ heads on the iron dagger (Plate 40
C). We meet such coincidences at every step. We might for
instance, cite the gold plate from a scabbard from the Don delta
on which the scroll round the boar’s ear is replaced by the bird’s
head with its beak twisted into a scroll (Plate 22 A). Equally
typical of carving is the bevelling that brings out the modelling
of the figures on the carvings. It is especially well marked on
the two profile lions’ heads and the long “ bear’s head ” (Plate
60 E, G & A).
The habit of decorating the birds’ beaks with parallel lines
in relief is explained by the Scythian bone-carvings (Plate 32
A, G & H). This style of ornament is at once comprehensible
in the light of the bone ram’s head with bird’s beak from Kelermes
(Plate 32 G & H). The manner and method of carving into
relief the nostrils and mouths of animals represented with very
fat muzzles is made intelligible by this small piece of carved
bone and by numerous bone bridle-pieces (psalia) (Plates 32 F,
and 33 B & C). It is further instructive to notice how a habitual
64
 SCYTHIAN ART

repetition of this motive can turn the mouth into something like a
a second nostril (Plate 32 D).
It is very significant that, in addition to wood, we meet bone
as the material of the carver. This substance has evidently
been very widely used as well as deer’s horn and elk’s horn—
the elk’s head from North-east Russia is, for instance, carved in
elk’s horn (Plate 64 F). If we take into account the peculiarities
of the animal style we shall come to the conclusion that not wood
but, far more probably, bone or horn was the original and native
material employed by this style. The remarkable skill, technical
as much as artistic, in producing perfect animal figures in a V
small space must have been developed by carving in bone. Only
this material and horn really confine the artist to strictly limited 'yC
surfaces. Wood offers much greater freedom and does not
necessitate that compactness of the outlines and the whole
composition that characterizes every single specimen of the
animal style.
It is very interesting in this connection to consider the technique
of the bronze mirror from the Altai (Plate 41). The represen¬
tation is made in outline and makes an impression as if the lines
were carved, but in reality they are in relief. Probably we have
here to deal with a bronze cast from a form in which the craftsman
in the usual manner of bone-carving ingraved the representation.
It is very interesting, that we also from Scythia have a bronze
mirror, worked in the same technic. This is the mirror in the
Moscow Historical Museum, from the Samokvasov collection,
on which a bird’s head is represented in relief outlines (Plate
30 B).
Only in the light of this intimate relation between the material
underlying the Scytho-Siberian animal style and its repertoire
can we comprehend that curious trait of primitiveness that
E 65
 SCYTHIAN ART

infects all its artistic products. It cannot be a mere coincidence

that this animal style gives us the impression that it has been
invented rather by a nation of hunters than a race of herdsmen,
as Prof. Rostovtseff once remarked. In the same context the
conspicuous, perhaps the originally predominant, part played
by elks and bears as objects of representation also becomes
intelligible. The bones and horns of the animals brought down
by the hunters provide the artists with the material from which
they carved the figures of those animals that furnished the
economic basis of their nation’s culture.
But let us not anticipate. The above remarks are merely
inferences to a remote background. By classical times, Scythia
and Siberia with their rich metallurgical industries have long
outgrown the phase of mere food-gathering culture. Neverthe¬
less the after-effects of the earlier phase of evolution always
exert a profound, we may, indeed, say fundamental influence on
the physiognomy of art, on its styles and on its motives.
The roots of this art must therefore lie in some quite other
soil than those highly developed cultures with which the Scyths
came into contact on their westward march. The civilizations
of Greece and Persia looked back both in Europe and Hither
Asia upon a thousand years of evolution and had long outgrown
the last survivals of the primitive life of hunters. They are two
quite alien and heterogeneous worlds that touch in South Russia
and Transcaspia—on the one hand the Hellenic and Iranian
worlds linked by the common foundation of earlier cultures,
on the other the world of Scytho-Siberian tribes who, rising from
unknown seats in the east, were spreading westward.
How different these civilizations were in essence, shows us
clearly enough the destructive influence which the highly
developed civilizations of Greece and Persia exerted on the native
66
 SCYTHIAN ART

artistic style of the Scytho-Siberian tribes. Greek art, great

though it was from the outset, unrivalled though its creations
will remain in human history, was nevertheless alien and un¬
\ responsiveto the imagery of the animal style. We have already
met an instance of this on the scabbard from the Don delta, on
the upper rim of which the bird’s head motive has been wrongly
applied (Plate 11 B). We may adduce two more instructive
examples: the gold plate depicting a stag from the older grave
at Kul-Oba (Plate 34), is a repetition of the motive from Kos-
tromskaya Stanitsa (Plate 1). But how feeble the whole repre¬
sentation is ! The suggestive modelling of the animal’s body has
been lost, the members are flat and characterless. Look how
casually the small beasts are applied, not in the places significant
for the organic structure of the body but indiscriminately on any
sort of blank surfaces ! And note how the purely Greek treatment
of these motives contrasts with the form of the stag itself. The
most characteristic point, however, is the figure of the dog under
the stag’s neck. To understand the model by which it was
suggested we must compare the gold object from Siberia de¬
picting a combat between a wild goat and a wolf (Plate 55 A).
It is obviously the same motive. But how the exquisite com¬
position has been spoilt—we must be allowed the expression—
by the naturalistic interpretation of the Greek artist !
Or take another example—the two gold ear-pieces from the
horse-trappings from the Zymbalka barrow. The first piece
is a Greek product (Plate 35 A). The Scythian bird’s head has
been transformed by the artist’s naturalistic tendency to a dol¬
phin’s head. He has retained only the scroll of the original
beak. The second piece (Plate 35 B), is a barbaric imitation
of the first. Strictly though the artist has copied his model,
the familiar native shapes break through victoriously. The
67
 SCYTHIAN ART

resemblance to the original bird’s head is clearer. The beak-

mouth with the scrolls is thicker once more and the artist has
modelled the ear according to his wont higher up behind the eye.
The stag from Kul-Oba and the ear-pieces from Zymbolaka
date from the finest epoch of Greek art; some from the Vth, some
perhaps from the beginning of the IVth century b.c. So there
can be no question of an inferior ability in the Greek artist as
compared with the Scyth. It is just that two totally different
universes of conceptions and artistic forms are here in contact.
Only in the archaic period when the decorative element was still
dominant even in Greek art were Greek works at all congenial
to the Scythian. Later, however, Greek art struck out on new
paths. The Hellenic influence on Scythia was, however, so
strong that it saturated the whole country. From the Vth
century we can see how under this predominance of Greek
influence the native animal style withered and decayed. The
degenerate motives of antlers discussed above (Plate 7), which
belong to the Vth or IVth century will serve as examples of
the process. Henceforth the numerous stamped gold plaques
from Scythian graves tend to be decorated with purely Greek
cenes or with native motives transformed into naturalistic
renderings in the Greek manner.
Apart from this disintegrating influence from without,
spontaneous degeneration was attacking the animal style in
its eternal development. But in this case the old motives still
remain recognizable despite all modifications in their forms and,
as before, the stylistic treatment is conditioned by carving. The
gold torque from Stavropol Government (Plate 36 A), displays
two animals the elongated bodies of which would have made
the beast underlying the representation quite unrecognizable,
but that the long-pointed snout reminds us of the “ bears’
68
 SCYTHIAN ART

heads.” The parallel ridges adorning the beast’s body and the
scroll on his hind quarters have, however, obviously been
executed by carving. Precisely the same treatment is exempli¬
fied on the fabulous creature from Siberia(Plate 36 B). The horns
and wings point to Iranian influence; it is here the lion-griffin
of Iranian art that has inspired the motive, but it is executed
quite in the native style. Judging by analogies in other finds,
both objects may belong to the Illrd century b.c.
Other instances of the spontaneous degeneration of the
animal style are offered by the cylindrical arm-coils and torques
of solid gold wire with animal figures at either end. Of the
specimens here illustrated the little bracelet (Plate 57 A) ex¬
hibits two lion figures which, sketchy though the workmanship
be, are still quite pure stylistically. The abrupt edge of the mane
is characteristic. The other armlet, composed of several coils, and
the torque (Plate 57 B & C), are decorated at either end with
animal figures which are excessively elongated and no longer
retain any naturalistic traits, but have become purely con¬
ventional. Close parallels are available from the Volga district
in South Russia. They too should probably be assigned to the
Hellenistic age.
The Iranian influence on Scytho-Siberian art became particu¬
larly marked during the last phase of the animal style’s develop¬
ment. The latest products of this art are overburdened with
polychrome incrustations. Such incrustation was a long estab¬
lished technique in Hither Asia which attained its crowning
development in the art of the Achaemenid Persians. It looks
as if this technique and Achaemenid influence in general made
itself felt earlier and certainly more powerfully to the east in the
direction of Siberia than in the west in Scythia. In any case
Achaemenid products, partly incrusted, have been found not
69
 SCYTHIAN ART

only in Scythia but also in Siberia. Some of the Siberian objects

which are still very pure stylistically, already show such in¬
crustation. As a rule, torquoises supplemented by coral or
cornelian are used for the incrustation. The gold plaque
depicting a combat between a horse and a lion-griffin and the
silver girdle-clasp (Plate 46) show how sparingly such incrusta¬
tion was used at first and how it was originally applied only to
the organically significant parts of the body in the manner of
the animal style. The artist has decorated more generously
but with equal taste the ends of certain torques (Plate 56),
notably the beautiful lions’ figures on which unhappily the gems
are no longer in position (Plate 56 F). The scrolls of the ears
and the carvings on the body are pure products of the typical
animal style.
Approximately the same phase of evolution is represented
by the gold plaque with a bird and a yak (Plate 50), or the
larger one depicting four figures (Plate 51), or again, the bronze
plaque of two steers (Plate 53 A). But the stronger it became
the more the Iranian influence, like the Greek, disintegrated the
native style. The gold plaque with two dragons (Plate 52)
is already studded all over with coloured inlays, and finally the
round gold plate (Plate 54) is so overloaded with torquoises
that at the first glance nothing seems to be left of the animal
forms. Only after closer study do we perceive that a stag is
lying doubled up to a circle in the centre with his antlers spread
out in the middle of the figure. Outside the stag a scene of a
combat between two animals biting each other on the necks and
fore-legs is depicted four times. This is a motive which fre¬
quently appears by itself, as, for instance, on the good specimen
of this class from the Hermitage here figured (Plate 53 B).
From each group of the round gold plaque the eight legs
70
 SCYTHIAN ART

converge upon the central scene. Each paw or hoof—we can no

longer say which it represents—enshrines a turquoise, and these
are set so closely together that the stag in the middle seems to
be encircled by a continuous chain of gems. The fantastic
tendency in the animal style had perhaps been reinforced by
this foreign influence, its decorative powers were scarcely
impared thereby. But the characteristic and effective style of
the original art was completely disintegrated and obliterated.
The objects from the treasure found near Novocherkask
in the Don district belong to the same phase of development.
The scenes on the globular flagon with lid and chain (Plate 37
C), and on the hemispherical pyxis (Plate 37 A), are the same.
On the bottom are birds extending on both sides of the vessels
towards a twice repeated group of a lion biting the back of a
stag. On the pyxis lid a procession of three ungulate animals
is depicted. The way that the legs hang loose with the tips of the
hoofs downwards, just as on the much older bronze mirror from
Siberia (Plate 41), is characteristic here again. The whole surface
of the long sheath (Plate 37 B) is occupied by a series of beasts,
each of which is biting the rump of the one in front. In front
of the foremost beast the rump of yet another is indicated. The
bracelets (Plates 38 B & C) are decorated with a row of
quite unrecognizable beasts, while on the gorget (38 A) we find
the same composition, but with this difference, that animals
facing forwards alternate with bird-headed monsters with re¬
verted heads.
The basis of these motives is therefore still the same as in the
old animal style. At the same time the Iranian element bringing
with it the extravagance of incrustation dictated by the oriental
love of colour has reduced the theme to insipid characterless
figures. The treasure of Novocherkask is probably the richest

71
 SCYTHIAN ART

but by no means the only one in South Russia. This phase,

too, of the animal style is well represented there. It
belongs to a late epoch and is evidently no longer a genuine
Scythian product, but represents the artistic style of the new
invaders from the east, the Sarmatians, although a gradual
transition from the old Scythian style to the new may be observed.
But in any case it is the result of the influence from Iran to which
the whole Scytho-Siberian region had been exposed and which
won the upper hand after the decline of Greek influence,
especially at the opening of the Roman epoch.
Even this late animal style is deeply interesting. It cannot be
denied that aesthetically it possesses a unique attraction. And
in the history of human culture it is of first-rate importance.
From it we may trace threads which lead us right into the founda¬
tions of West European civilization early in the Middle Ages.
That is one side. On the other side it exercised a powerful
influence in the East. It is no accident that much in Persian
art of the Sassanid epoch distinctly recalls the motives and stylis¬
tic mannerisms of this late Scytho-Siberian art. So, for instance,
the figure of the lion represented in the posture of the flying
gallop with an agate cylinder for its body from Novocherkask
(Plate 37 D), in the rendering of the mane and other features
anticipates Sassanid monuments.
Nevertheless, in comparison with the original state of the
animal style, this later phase represents the result of dissolution
under foreign influence. In the course of its evolution the
animal style had lost many of its own peculiar qualities and
absorbed a host of alien elements. The latter include a series
of motives—in the first place the antithetic group and then the
whole class of hybrid monsters whose bodies are composed of
the members of various beasts. They are led by the Iranian
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lion-griffin with wings and often with horns, who now begins
to play a very conspicuous role and becomes the progenitor of the
most diverse variants.
All this is quite strange to the original animal style. All such
motives imply at bottom a certain intellectual content, a subject,
a relation, however loose, with abstract or religious ideas.
That is utterly alien to the nature of the animal style. It is
characteristic that only at a late date, and then extremely seldom,
was man represented. Originally the artist depicted only animals.
The art attained to nothing richer in connotation than scenes of
fighting animals. And even these scenes were depicted, just
like the separate animal forms, through the most realistic
reproduction of the immediate impression produced by nature
without any sort of intellectual elaboration. Even the simplest
type of logically thought-out construction known, geometrical
ornament, appears as something secondary in the animal style,
the result of the degeneration of animal forms. Ornaments
derived from plant-life are equally secondary and partly find
ingress with western, especially Greek, influence, partly arise
spontaneously out of the same process of degeneration.
To adduce just one example of such an interesting and in¬
structive line of evolution, we shall here refer to the Siberian
gold plaques. We have already noticed how regular the form
of one group among them is. These plaques, one end of which
is broader than the other, are very skilfully decorated in such
a way that two animal figures fill up the whole outline. This
system is adopted in its greatest purity on the plaque represen¬
ting a battle between a lion-griffin and a horse (Plate 46 A).
In other cases a horned animal appears at the broader end of the
plaque (Plate 48). The branches of his antlers are represented
under the guise of birds’ heads. This motive was then elaborated

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by itself in decorative fashion until it is only half understood, as,

for instance, on the plaque from Verkhneudinsk in Trans¬
baikalia (Plate 49 A). The motive begins to degenerate and
then is reinterpreted in realistic fashion, and from the one-time
antler a tree arises, as the plaque depicting a tiger and camel
fighting shows (Plate 49 B). Here the representation of the
plant is plainly the result of a long evolution. But originally
this art knew animals, only animals and ever more animals.
Where are we to seek the home of this art, the original root
from which it sprang? That is no easy question to answer. The
process which led to the development of the mature Scythian
and Siberian animal style was, like most historical processes, a
complicated one. The final product was due to the interaction
of many factors. We can only say with certainty that the
animal style was already fully elaborated when the Scyths
brought it to South Russia. Such products as the wonderfully
delicate bone-carving in the form of a bird’s head from Kerch
(Plate 32 A) are among the earliest specimens that we know
at all, and date from a period which must very nearly coincide
with the first appearance of the Scyths in South Russia. This
carved bone was found in company with a Greek vase of the so-
called Milesian-Rhodian style of the best quality, in fact one of
the finest specimen of this class known. This find, therefore,
certainly belongs to the Vllth century b.c. The beautiful repre¬
sentations of animals (Plates 2 and 12), and bone-carvings from
Kelermes (Plate 32 B, D, F, G & H), are approximately con¬
temporary, as is the stag from Kostromskaya Stanitsa (Plate
1). It is scarcely credible that these gems are later than the
beginning of the Vlth century; perhaps they too belong rather
to the Vllth. Hence we must conclude that the Scyths brought
the animal style with them fully formed. Nay, further, quite

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degenerate or, more exactly, over-stylized types already occur

by this date. In one and the same grave at Kerch as the Milesian
vase and the bird’s head, was found the second carved bone
representing an animal curled up into a circle (Plate 32 C).
Here the motive is plainly represented already in a much simpli¬
fied form and is moreover compressed to a triangle. It is obvious
that this type presupposes a long period of evolution.
In South Russia there are no prototypes for the animal
style ; it appears mature abruptly together with the Scyths.
In Siberia, however, we can trace an autochthonous evolution
from the Bronze to the Iron Age throughout which the animal
style was in vogue. Unfortunately Siberian antiquities have
been insufficiently studied and in particular their chronology
is practically unknown. But one circumstance seems to offer
a -certain clew. The nearest analogies, the closest agreements
between Scythian and Siberian antiquities, are those subsisting
between Scythian products of the earliest archaic epoch and works
of the first Iron Age in Siberia. The birds’ heads on the iron
dagger from Siberia (Plate 40 C) may be compared with the
carved bone objects from Kelermes (Plate 32 G). Now the
dagger in question must belong to the very beginning of the
Iron Age, as its complete agreement with the other weapons
illustrated on the same plate shows. Of the latter, one is wholly
of bronze (Plate 40 A), the other of bronze and iron (Plate 40 B),
and on it the still rare and costly substance, iron, is used for
the hilt very characteristically. We could show many of such
correspondences which suggest that the beginning of the
Siberian Iron Age coincides with the archaic period in Scythia,
i.e. that the Iron Age in Siberia opens not later than the Vllth
century b.c. In that case the Bronze Age must lie behind
this date. And in view of the wealth and intensity of the

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bronze-using culture of Siberia, known to us especially from the

Minusinsk region in the Jenessei valley, its evolution cannot
be compressed into a brief space of time.
Is Siberia, then, the original homeland of the animal style?
We might well be tempted to think so. And in the case of
Scythia such a hypothesis would have its own justification.
It is quite possible that the Scythian culture is an offshoot of
the Siberian—in the widest sense of that word. The most
intimate relationship is bespoken not only by the agreement in
artistic style but also by the types of everyday utensils—the
knives and daggers, the mirrors and huge cauldrons and a host
of other articles show the same shapes here as there, and are
typical of this cultural province in the East, while they are utterly
foreign to the civilizations of Hither Asia and Europe. The
reader may compare the objects illustrated on Plates 39 and
10 C, Plates 40 and 23 A, and the other sword-sheath, or, again,
Plates 41 and 30.
But convincing as this relationship is, we cannot yet determine
with certainty the centre of the Siberian culture itself. During
the Bronze Age the valley of the Jenessei, particularly the district
of Minusinsk, was no doubt thickly populated; even to-day its
soil yields up countless bronzes. But the other divisions of
Siberia and the adjoining region of Mongolia are still imper¬
fectly explored. It may well turn out that the Altai, for instance,
was on no inferior level of culture to the Jenessei valley. Indeed,
it seems reasonable to suppose that the real centre of this culture
or the region of its most intensive development should rather
be sought in the immediate neighbourhood of the richest deposits
of metals, both gold and copper. Only one point is clear to-day:
this civilization was in a high degree autonomous and, despite
many influences from the south and west, still grew up along its
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own lines. Scythia and what we know of Siberia in the age of

metals are two trunks sprung from a single root but are already
the fruits of long and rich growth. But the animal style points
back to still older and more primitive roots.
In the mature Stone Age and in the Bronze Age an art was
current in the whole northern territory from Finland across
the Olonetz, the Kama district and the Urals right into Siberia,
which must be connected with the art of the so-called Arctic
Stone Age in Scandinavia and which exhibits the same con¬
spicuous talent for the lifelike reproduction of animal forms as
the mature animal style does later on. In fact, it is always the
same animals that are represented—elks and bears.
From the environs of Krasnoyarsk, that is, from the northern
frontier of the Siberian metal-using culture, comes a find of
exquisite figures of several elks, among them an elk-cow and her
young carved in elk’s horn (Plate 68 A & B). Judging by the
circumstances of its discovery it is likely that this is a work of
the Stone Age. In the central Ural district the peat round the
lake of Shigir (Shigirskoye Osero) has yielded animal figures
carved out of horn (Plate 68 C), the dating of which is unfor¬
tunately not yet established though their antiquity must be
considerable. It is quite conceivable that they, too, belong to
the Stone Age. In the Kama district on the upper course of the
Volga copper daggers belonging to the early Bronze Age have
been found; the hilt of one of them is decorated with an admir¬
ably rendered elk’s head. In North Russia and in Finland
stone weapons manufactured of local Olonetz stone have been
discovered, the ends of which are often adorned with beautiful
and naturalistically shaped elks’ and bears’ heads (Plate 69
B & C). From a peat bog in Finland comes further the remark¬
able find of a wooden spoon (Plate 69 A), which, to judge by the

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marks of working left upon it, was carved with a flint-knife.

It is therefore an authentic product of the Stone Age. The
handle of this spoon again terminates in a bear’s head.
Here, then, we have the primitive cultural stratum from which
the mature animal style must later have arisen. Here in the
uncultivable tracts of northern forest stretching from Scandinavia
to Siberia the primitive tribes of hunters have practised, perhaps
for thousands of years, their astonishing art which is so re¬
markably akin to that of the old Stone Age in France. Here,
too, we find the natural conditions of life under which a very
highly developed technique of carving in horn and bone must
have arisen. We know as yet very little of these early epochs,
and it is all too likely that we shall never acquire an adequate
knowledge of such cultures since the majority of the carvings,
no doubt very numerous, must obviously have vanished without
leaving a trace. We can only hope for lucky accidents like the
two discoveries in the peat just mentioned. Nevertheless, in
my opinion, this primeval connection between the animal
style and the art in vogue in the northern forest tracts is already
clear enough to win recognition. The unique talent for repre¬
sentations of the animal world which persisted till the last phase
of the animal style’s evolution, the constant preference for the
motives of the elk and the bear and the same common technical
basis in bone or wood-carving, betray most distinctly the kinship
of the respective groups.
This may be once more illustrated by comparison of the above-
mentioned old horn-carvings from Siberia and the Ural region
(Plate 68 A—C) with the charming bone-carving of a horse’s
head (Plate 68 D) found in the region of Minusinsk in a grave
of the Bronze Age, containing ordinary Scytho-Siberian bronze
knives and other objects.

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What is still lacking in these early periods is the mature

elaboration of the decorative stylization. That is plainly a
product of the first Iron Age or of the period of transition from
bronze to iron. It is quite conceivable that this fresh spurt
in art as in culture which Siberia then made should be ascribed
to a stimulating impulse from without. Perhaps all these
phenomena are interrelated—the emergence of a new, developed
style, the introduction of iron and the expansion of new ethnic
elements that took to migration in great hordes and in the guise
of the Scyths, perhaps mixed with alien racial constituents,
advanced far westward right across the South Russian steppe
to the Dobrudja and the Hungarian plain. And the fertilizing
cultural influence spread right into North-east Russia where
the Ananyino culture arose, autonomous but related both to
Scythia and Siberia; in it old native elements were no doubt
partly merged. It may be that all these phenomena are due to
the reflex-effects of those great racial and cultural movements
that accompanied the collapse of the old Oriental civilizations
and the birth of the classical world about 1000 b.c.

We know too little as yet to speak positively on this topic;

everything remains in the world of hypothesis. But the analysis
of the animal style seems to prove triumphantly that in the rich
and highly developed civilizations of Siberia as in those of Scythia
and North-east Russia, though it was subsequently saturated
with cultural influences from Greece and Hither Asia, a quite
independent component was present which was neither Greek
nor Iranian but northern, and was fundamental and dominant.
What shall we call this element in ethnic terms ? That is a natural
(

question to ask, but to answer it is hard. In the first place,

Scytho-Siberia culture is still dumb. We know not what language
its authors spoke. Possibly later researches will throw light

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upon this point. For the moment we can but point out that,
even in later times, this same style survived in the northern
tracts of the Kama district, the Urals and Siberia. From these
regions comes a series of monuments which reveals how, after
the decay of the concentrated civilizations of the Scythian epoch,
both in Siberia and North-east Russia, the animal style arose
once more from this unitary primitive stratum and repeated the
same motives in different forms. Partly from Permia and partly
from Siberia come objects of a peculiar dark-coloured alloy
depicting bears in an admirable and highly artistic stylized
rendering (Plate 65). The date and cultural context of such
objects are still obscure, but analogies with Chinese works of the
Han period (Plate 72 A) suggest that they cannot be far removed
from that epoch, round about the beginning of our era.
Probably to a yet later age belongs a class of thin flat bronze
plaques which for the most part have been found in the district
of Perm. In view of analogies to other finds and of isolated
coins, these should most probably be dated between the Vth and
VUIth centuries a.d. It is once more the elk and the bear
that furnish the motives. This time, however, men are intro¬
duced into the picture. On the simplest and obviously oldest
specimen a rider with a disproportionately big human head may
be seen mounted on the elk (Plate 66 A). The elks’ heads in
front and behind are plainly just reminiscences of the stylized
elk’s antlers such as we meet on Scythian products. Later on,
the figure of this rider is often duplicated, fantastically elaborated
and crossed with the elks’ heads in the most diverse fashions
(Plate 66 B). In general the later developments exhibit the
impulse to a fanciful reduplication of the motive. Instead of
the elk another elongated animal often appears on which the
rider is sitting or standing and in which the “ bear ” is still
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recognizable (Plate 67 A). This beast tends to be subordinated

to the rider till at last in several cases only fantastic human
figures are left (Plate 67 D). That another motive, too, of the
old animal style persisted, that of the beast curled up into a
circle, is shown by several, generally round, plates depicting
bears (Plate 67 B & C). So we have here a new branch from the
old trunk.
This series of documents comes down almost into historical
times. Unfortunately, however, we cannot yet say definitely
whether the forerunners of the Russian colonists, the various
Finnish tribes, were already living in these regions at this early
epoch. So we have no sure grounds for connecting this late
A
animal style with the Finno-Ugrians and thus obtaining a clew
to the nationality of the animal style as a whole. On that question
we are still left in the dark. Later researches on this material
will no doubt enable us to judge definitely whether the ascription
of the Scyths to the Finno-Ugrian race, often suggested as a
hypothesis in the past, is justified or not in respect to a part at
least of the population of Scythia.
We must leave the question of the attribution of the Scyths
and their relatives to a definite race open, and content ourselves
with the statement that the animal style survived in its old native
haunts almost into historical times. The same trunk which had
put forth the splendid blossoms of the golden Scythian and
Siberian cultures is not yet quite dead, and before its final
decay still sends forth a few humble, almost miserable shoots
which still bear the same leaves as the green and lusty boughs
of former days. It is an unitary lengthy evolution lasting
probably thousands of years which we can watch. It is the
growth and decay of a great and independent branch of the
human race.
F 8l
 SCYTHIAN ART

Something imperishable sprang from this branch. The

cultural work accomplished by the Scyths in co-operation with
elements from Greece and Hither Asia constitutes the foundation
of civilization in those regions right down to our own day. It is
no accident that the first organized Russian State after the great
migrations, the realm of Kiev, arose in just that region where
even in Scythian times a strong and populous centre of culture
had existed. And the influence experienced by diverse peoples
on the soil of South Russia and then carried with them in their
westward wanderings at the time of the migrations of peoples
became a weighty element in the rise of West European civiliza¬
tion in the early Middle Ages.
Nowhere, however, is the enormous importance of this
peculiar centre of civilization so evidently and unmistakably
traceable as in its expansion eastward, in its influence on the
ancient culture of China.
It is hard to find one’s way through the little known and
little studied monuments of China before the beginning of our
era. The very chronology of these monuments is far from
satisfactorily established. Chinese tradition itself which offers
a detailed chronology reaching back to the mythical days of
gods and giants is useless. But to any one who is familiar with
the Scytho-Siberian animal style it is most striking how the
majority, I am tempted to say all, of the documents yet known
from the earliest period of China’s culture are intimately related
to the types of the animal style.
In the first place we may assert that a regular importation
of Siberian products to China took place. From China, prin¬
cipally, indeed, from the northern frontier provinces and
Mongolia, come bronze and gold articles that agree so exactly
with Siberian products that we must inevitably regard them as
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pure Siberian manufactures imported into China. Thus the

bronze plaque in the Stoclet collection, depicting a combat be¬
tween a tiger and a horse (Plate 47), is both in shape and decor¬
ation so purely Siberian that it must be Siberian product even
though it were found in China. The manner in which the tiger’s
striped hide and his paws, the contortion of the horse’s body,
and the oblique line of his spine are rendered, leaves no room
for doubt on this point. And this is far from being the sole
example of its kind found in China. There are quite well-
attested finds of Siberian works on Chinese soil. So a bronze
plaque representing a horse in the same attitude with twisted
body, now in the Metropolitan Museum at New York, was
discovered in a Chinese grave; yet it displays purely Siberian
stylistic characters.
The plaque in question was said to have been found together
with another bronze plaque decorated with a similar motive,
treated in a different style. The latter plaque is one of the
products from China that are most closely connected with
Siberia, but are nevertheless patently native Chinese creations.
On it is represented an ungulate animal’s struggle with two bears
(Plate 70 B). Better to understand the highly stylized repre¬
sentation we may compare it with another bronze plaque from
the Stoclet collection (Plate 70 A). Both objects are reproduced
together on our plate. It is clear that we have the same motive
in each case. On the plaque from the Stoclet collection the
dependence on Siberia is self-evident. The plaque represents a
horse in the attitude with twisted body; the fluted lines along
his spine just like the spinal lines on Siberian works are always
organically true. .The forelegs are touching with their hoofs the
lower rim of the plaque; the hind feet reach the upper rim and
the right upper corner. Two bears have fallen upon the animal

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and are biting his shoulder and hind leg. Only the head and
fore paws of the bear in front are visible; the smaller bear’s
figure is completely delineated on the right end of the plate.
His head recalls vividly the exquisite figures of bears from North¬
east Russia (Plate 65). The bigger bear’s head is more stylized
and that in precisely the same way as in Siberia, for instance, on
the gold plaque representing a combat between a tiger and a
horned “ bear ” (Plate 48). His nostril is twisted into a scroll.
Just as purely Siberian at bottom is the rendering of the horse’s
head. His muzzle terminates in a bird’s beak. If we compare
this work with the gold plaque from Transbaikalia (Plate 49 A),
or the wood-carving from the Altai (Plate 61), where the stylistic
treatment is precisely the same, we cannot help admitting that
we are here dealing with the same hybrid motive as on the bone-
carving from Kelermes (Plate 32 G & H), or the iron knife
from the Dniepr district (Plate 10 C). The artist’s predilection
for representing beasts’ muzzles as very broad, a habit best
explained as due to the influence of the common figures of elks,
leads to the further stylization of the motive into a purely
conventional hybridization with another equally familiar motive,
the bird’s head—a hybrid apparently purely stylistic and free
from any intellectual implications. It is a type which could only
arise within the sphere of Scytho-Siberian art. The motive
of birds’ heads on the border of the bronze plaque in the Stoclet
collection springs from the same source: they were originally
the branches of antlers. So the representation on this object in
all its details betrays Siberian influence. Only the stylistic
treatment is different. Much in it is already far removed from
the Siberian original as, for instance, the birds’ heads. The whole
may well be a Chinese imitation.
The details of the same scene on the plaque in the Metropolitan

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Museum have been still further modified (Plate 70 B). The

whole has become far more ornamental. So the horse’s hind
legs have been suppressed; only the scroll on the hind shank
has been retained. The bigger bear’s head is turned right
round to face the spectator and has been much transformed
by stylization. The birds’ heads have lost all interconnection,
and in place of antlers ornamental curved ribbons have been
introduced into the picture without any context. Nevertheless,
an exact analogy from Siberian material can be cited. Compare
our object with the gold ornament in form of a head of a Skiga-
antelope from the Turgai district in Transcaspia (Plate 55 B).
The parallel ribs on the nose are the same on both objects. And
the way in which the horns grow on the gold antelope’s head is
just the same as on the horse’s head of the bronze plaque in the
Stoclet collection (Plate 70 A). The dependence of such works
upon Siberia is too striking to be disputed. Modern science
ascribed them to the Han dynasty, i.e. between the Ilnd century
b.c. and the Illrd a.d.

As far as we can judge at present such indebtedness to Siberia

can be detected in nearly all Chinese bronzes of this age, and also
on other artistic products such as nephrite articles.
It would take us too far to discuss this subject in greater
detail here. We must limit ourselves to these examples. But
not only products attributed to the Han dynasty but also works
unanimously assigned by contemporary authorities to the pre¬
ceding era of the Chou dynasty (1122-250 b.c.), betray in a
surprising degree the influence of types of the animal style.
How this phenomenon is to be explained is a matter for special
and comprehensive researches which can only be undertaken by
professional students of the Chinese material. Here we can go
no further than to point out such agreements.

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In the earliest art of China the motive of the Tao-tieh played

a prominent part. This symbol of the Storm God was repre¬
sented under the guise of a very geometrical full-face lion’s
mask (Plate 71). Closely related are the representations of the
tiger, the symbol of the West. If, now, we compare such Tao-
tieh symbols with the wooden plaque from the Altai district
in the Hermitage, representing a full-face lion’s head, recogniz¬
able though highly stylized (Plate 60 D), or with the wooden
boss from the grave at Katanda, also in the Altai (Plate 62), we
perceive at once that the latter provide the prototypes for the
Chinese Tao-tieh masks. From what other quarter could the
regular stylization of the ears with scrolls be derived ? From the
West eastwards from Greece or Hither Asia we can, partly on
other examples, follow step by step as we progress towards
China the gradual degeneration of the motive of the whiskers
on the upper lip.
The head of the Tao-tieh mask vividly recalls the head of
the Chinese dragon. Genetically the dragon, too, belongs to
the same series of evolution. But he exhibits other aspects
which we can define more precisely. On some Siberian plaques
figures occur which come very close to the Chinese dragon.
We may discuss two such. On a gold plaque in the Hermitage
collection a combat between three animals is depicted (Plate 52
A). In the centre a feline beast lies hard on the ground with
his head thrown back. He is being attacked on either side by
fabulous creatures. On the left stands the horned “ bear ”
whom we already know, on the right a griffin, with bird’s head—
therefore a Greek variant of this mythical animal. The sym¬
metrical heraldic grouping of the composition deserves attention.
On the other gold plaque (Plate 52 B), likewise in the Hermitage
collection, only two beasts are facing one another in a quite

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heraldic opposition. In this arrangement the influence from

Hither Asia is yet more plainly revealed than on the other plaque.
At the same time in this case it is no longer the Greek but the
Iranian griffin with horns that is figured. But the motive has
been much changed. The monsters’ bodies are greatly elon¬
gated. They follow the outer edges of the plaque downwards
and then sweep upwards with gracefully curved necks to the
centre of the scene, where a plant, obviously a reminiscence of
the sacred tree of early Mesopotamian art, is depicted. And the
griffins’ heads are no longer lions’ heads, but much rather
recall the stylized Scytho-Siberian “ bears’ heads.” As a whole,
however, the figures are almost perfect Chinese dragons. That
cannot be a coincidence. If the reader compares our creatures
with Chinese representations of the dragons, especially with
certain early specimens (Plate 72 A & C), he will inevitably be
convinced that the Chinese dragon really grew out of the same
elements—the Iranian horned lion-griffin, and the Scytho-
Siberian “ bear ”—probably not without the collaboration of
Greek influences. We have already touched upon this problem
in discussing the gold plaque from the Seven Brothers depicting
the remarkable hybrid monster (Plate 20 A). Closely related
figures arose from the same elements in the hands of Greek and
Chinese artists.
Only one example more we will add here to show the
dependence of ancient Chinese art on Scytho-Siberian motives.
The jade ring (Plate 72 B) clearly imitates both in the whole
composition as in the forms of the head the purely Scytho-
Siberian motives of the beast curled up into a circle and the
scrolls on the nostril and the ear. In the Chinese representation
the legs of the beast are lost, but on the right places the shoulder
and the hind-quarter remain in form of something like a shield.

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We must be content to illustrate the immense scope of

the influence from Siberia on early China with these few
examples, which are nevertheless perhaps the most suggestive.
Much remains extremely enigmatic in the whole question. In
particular it is obscure how Chinese art of the Chou dynasty
could be exposed to this influence since it must be supposed,
if they are rightly dated, that the objects in question are
partly at least older than the best epoch of the animal style
in Siberia.
The mutual relations between China and the centre of the
mature animal style seem to be thus constituted. However the
riddles attaching thereto may be solved, it is already clear that
the Scytho-Siberian animal style, the oldest home of which is,
as we saw, to be sought in high northern latitudes, while its
mature phase was most probably elaborated somewhere near the
Altai, exerted an absolutely fundamental influence on the whole
physiognomy of art in the Far East. Even to-day China and
Japan and even partly Buddhist India draw the inspiration for
their art from those streams that, in the Scythian period, flowed
from Central Asia in diverse directions southwards, eastwards
and westwards. But art and its style are only the forms in which
the total culture of a human community finds expression, and
so we must assume that this influence from Central Asia was not
restricted to the sphere of art. Although we possess a mass of
indications that this assumption is well grounded, this is not the
place to discuss it.
But to one to whom the forms of representational art speak no
less clearly than the written word, what he beholds with his eyes
is no less convincing and impressive than what he reads in an
historical record. Both alike are reflections of real life. And so,
I hope, the student will be enabled by the documents assembled
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in this little book to re-create for himself the growth and decline,
the blossoming and forced expansion, the suffocation through
the overpowering influence of superior cultures, and the slow,
tragic lonely decay of a world which, strange and enigmatic as
it is, none the less possesses a unique fascination.

89
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Note.—An asterisk indicates objects not previously published.

When not otherwise stated all the objects illustrated are preserved
in the Hermitage at Leningrad and are reproduced in natural
size. The dating of the objects found in Scythia is based upon
my own unpublished studies and often differs from what was
hitherto accepted. I can only say that I have a good reason
in each case. The dating of Siberian antiquities has been
inadequately studied; I therefore give an attribution to the
Bronze or Iron Age respectively. It may be assumed that all
objects from the collection of Peter the Great belong to the latter.

Plate i. Ornament from a shield (?); chased gold; about \

natural size; Kuban district; Kostromskaya Stanitsa;
VII—Vlth century b.c. ; C.R., 1897, p. 13, Fig. 46 ; Minns,
p. 226, Fig. 129; Ebert, p. 140, Fig. 58.

Plate 2. Plate from a gorytus; stamped gold; about Kuban

district; Kelermeskaya Stanitsa; Vllth—Vlth century b.c. ;
Archaoligischer Atizeiger, 1905, I, p. 57, Fig. I.

Plate 3. *A. Plate from the rim of a wooden vase, stamped gold;
about |; Dniepr district, Gov. Ekaterinoslav, village of
Dubovaya, near Verkhn’edn’eprovsk(?); Vth century b.c.;

Moscow Historical Museum; Inv. No. 38157.

B. Plate from the rim of a wooden vase, stamped gold; about

§; Crimea, Ak-Mechet, near Eupatoria; Vlth-Vth century
b.c.; T.K.R., II, p. 284, Fig. 249.

C & H. Gold plaques ornamenting garments, stamped.

F & G. Dniepr district, Solokha barrow Tauric Gov., near

Melitopol; Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1913—15, p. 108, Fig.
178 ; p. 114, Fig. 186.
9i
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

*D. Donetz district, Gov. Kharkov; Vlth century b.c.;

Moscow Historical Museum.

E. Kuban district, Ulski Aul; Vllth—Vlth century b.c.;

found 1908 ; C.R., 1908, p. 118, Fig. 166.

*C. Kuban district; purchased in Maikop, 1908; Vlth-Vth

century b.c.; C.R., 1908, p. 181.

H. Kuban district, barrows of the Small Seven Brothers in

the Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c. ; C.R., 1880,
p. 97, Plate IV, 12.

Plate 4. Ornamental plaques from horse-trappings, cast bronze.

A & C. Kuban district, barrows of the Seven Brothers in the
Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1876,
pp. 135—6, No. 7 and No. 8 text-figure; Minns, p. 214,
Fig. 115.

B. Dniepr district, Gov. Kiev, near Chigirin; Vlth—Vth

century b.c.; B.C.A., XIV, p. 27, Fig 67.

Plate 5. Ornamental plaques from horse-trappings, cast

bronze.

A, C & D. Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin;

Vlth-Vth century b.c.; C—Kiev Museum; B.C.A.,
XIV, p. 15, Fig. 33; B.C.A., XX, p. 7, Fig. 5; B.C.A.,
XIV, p. 26, Fig. 59.

B. Kuban district, barrows of the Small Seven Brothers in the

Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c.; Rostovtseff,
p. 196, Fig. 22 A.
92
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 6. Ornamental plaques (A, B & D), and ornament in the

round (C), from horse-trappings, cast bronze.

A & G. Kuban district, barrows of the Seven Brothers in the

Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c. ; C.R., 1877,
p. 14, text-figure No. 9; C.R., 1876, p. 126, text-figure
No. 59; T.K.R., III, p. 517, Fig. 476; I, p. 50, Fig. 58.

B & D. Kuban district, barrows of the Small Seven Brothers

in the Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c.; C.R.,
1878-9, pp. vii—viii.

Plate 7. A. Girdle plate or horse’s frontlet, open-work bronze ;

about \; Kuban district, bought; I Vth century b.c. (?);
C.R., 1906, p. 129, Fig. 186.

B & C. Ornamental plates from bridges, open-work bronze;

about -§; Kuban district, Elizavetinskaya Stanitsa; Vth—
IVth century b.c.; Rostovtseff, p. 196, Fig. 22, H— I;
C.R., 1913-15, p. 178 seq.
D. Pole-top, open-work bronze; about |; Kuban district,
purchased; IVth century b.c.; C.R., 1900, p. 37, Figs.
96-7.

Plate 8. Ornaments from horse-trappings; cast bronze.

A. Kuban district, barrows of the Seven Brothers in the Kuban
delta; first half of Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1876, p. 126,
No. 60 text-figure; Minns, p. 209, Fig. 109.

B & C. Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth-

Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1903, p. 118; B.C.A., XIV,
pp. 16-17, Fig- 39-
*D. Kuban district, purchased; Vlth century b.c; Moscow

Historical Museum; C.R., 1903, p. 169.

93
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 9. Girdle plate, cast bronze; mouth of the Dniepr,

necropolis of Olbia; Vlth century b.c.; M.A.R., XXXIV,
Plate 12, Fig. 1, 3.

Plate 10. A. Sword-hilt, hammered (?) iron; about §; Dniepr

district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth-Vth century b.c.;

B. C.A., XIV, p. 62, Fig. 10.

*B. Bridle-piece, hammered iron; about §; Kuban district,

Ulski Aul; Vllth-VIth century b.c.; C.R., 1909-10,
p. 148.

C. Knife, hammered iron; about §; Dniepr district, Kiev

Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth—Vth century b.c. ; B.C.A., XIV,
p. 21, Fig. 52.

Platen. A-F. Gold plaques for sewing on garments, stamped.

*A & F. Donetz district, Kharkov Gov.; Vlth century b.c.;

Moscow Historical Museum.

B, C & E. Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth—

Vth century b.c.; B.C.A., XIV, p. 20, Figs. 50, 47 and
48.

D. Kuban district, Ulski Aul; Vllth—Vlth century b.c.;

C. R., 1908, p. 118, Figs. 168a and 168b.

G & H. Plates from the handles of wooden vessels, chased

gold; about Crimea, Ak-Mechet, near Eupatoria;
Vlth—Vth century b.c.; T.K.R., II, p. 285, Fig. 250.

*H. About f; Dniepr district, Solokha barrow, Tauric Gov.,

near Melitopol; Vth century b.c. ; C.R., 1913— 15, p. 120,
Fig. 193 (side view).

94
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 12. Ornament from a shield (?); chased gold; eye and
nostril inlaid with enamel and ear with amber; about ^;
Kuban district, Kelermeskaya Stanitsa; Vllth-VIth century
b.c.; Rostovtseff, Plate IX, Fig. i ; Ebert, p. 116, Fig. 43.

Plate 13. Ornament, cast bronze; Crimea; found by Kulakovski,

near Simferopol; Vllth-VIth century b.c.; C.R., 1895,
p. 17, Fig. 32, and p. 118, Fig. 292.

Plate 14. A. Bridle-piece, cast bronze; Kuban district, barrows

of the Seven Brothers in the Kuban delta; first half of Vth
century b.c.; C.R., 1876, p. 134, No. 3 text-figure.
B. Ornamental boss from horse-trappings, cast bronze; from
the same grave; first half of the Vth century b.c.; C.R.,
1877, p. 13, No. 6; Minns, p. 217, Fig. 115.

C. Ornament from horse-trappings (?), cast bronze, Dniepr

district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth—Vth century b.c.;
Kiev Museum; B.C.A., XIV, p. 6, Fig. 6.
D. Ornament from horse-trappings (?), cast bronze; Kuban
district, purchased; Vlth—Vth century b.c.; Moscow
Historical Museum; C.R., 1903, p. 169, Fig. 328.

Plate 15. A. Ornament of unknown use, cast bronze, overlaid

with gold-leaf. The middle of the body is encircled with
cloisons of gold wire once containing coloured inlays;
about f; Crimea, from the “Golden Barrow,” near
Simferopol; Vllth—Vlth century b.c.; C.R., 1890, p. 6,
Fig- 3-
B & C. Ornaments from horse-trappings; cast bronze;
Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin ; Vlth—Vth century
b.c.; B.C.A., XIV, pp. 15 and 27, Figs. 31 and 64.
95
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 16. Ornamental plaques from horse-trappings, cast

bronze.

B & C. Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chirgirin, Vlth-Vth

century b.c.; B.C.A., XIV, pp. 12 and 15, Figs. 23 and 32.
*A & D. Slightly reduced; Crimea, barrow, near Eltegen,
on the Straits of Kerch, i.e. from the necropolis of the
Greek colony of Nymphaeum; first half of Vth century b.c.

Plate 17. Ornaments from horse-trappings, cast bronze.

A. Kuban district, purchased; Vlth-Vth century b.c.;

Moscow Historical Museum; C.R., 1903, p. 169, Fig. 327.

B. Kuban district, Stanitsa Elizavetinskaya; Vth-IVth cen¬
tury b.c. ; Rostovtseff, p. 196, Fig. 22 D.

*C. Taman Peninsula, Kuban delta; first half of Vth century b.c.

D. Barrows of the Seven Brothers in the Kuban delta; first

half of Vth C.R., 1876, p. 136, No. 9
century b.c.;

text-figure; Minns, p. 124, Fig. 115; T.K.R., I, p. 51,

Fig. 62.

*E. Crimea, barrows near Eltegen, on the Straits of Kerch

(necropolis of Nymphaeum) ; first half of Vth century b.c. ;

C.R., 1877, p. 232, No. 7.

Plate 18. A & B. Frontlets from horse-trappings, cast bronze;

Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; Vlth-Vth
century b.c.; (B is in Kiev Museum); B.C.A., XIV,
p. 11, Fig. 13 ; B.C.A., p. 7, Fig. 4.
C. Bridle-piece, cast bronze; Dniepr district, Keiv Gov., near
Chigirin; Vlth-Vth century b.c.; B.C.A., XIV, p. 10,
Fig. 12.
96
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 19. Ornaments from horse-trappings; slightly reduced.

*A & C. Cast bronze; Crimea, near Kerch; first half of Vth
century b.c.
*B. Cast bronze; Eltegen on the Straits of Kerch (necrop¬
olis of Nymphaeum); Vth century b.c.
D. Gold plate, hammered out on the object; Chmyrev
Barrow, Tauric Gov., Dniepr region; Vth-IVth century
b.c.; C.R.y 1898, p. 29, Fig. 36.

Plate 20. Gold plates from the rims of wooden vessels (?);
chased gold.
A. Kuban district, barrows of the Seven Brothers in the Kuban
delta; first half of Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1877, p. 17,
Plate I, 8; Minns, p. 211, Fig. ill; Rostovtseff, Plate
XIII, A; T.K.R., II, p. 275, Fig. 245.
*B. Don district, Stanitsa Elizavetovskaya, in the Don delta;
Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1909-10, p. 145.

Plate 21. Horse-trappings—frontlet and cheek- or ear-pieces;

gold beaten on wooden backing; about §; Dniepr district,
Solokha barrow, Tauric Gov., near Melitopol; Vth
century b.c. ; C.R., 1912, pp. 46 and 47, Figs. 65, 63, 64;
Ebert, pp. 129-30.

Plate 22. Plates from sword-sheaths, chased gold.

A. Don district, Stanitsa Elizavetovskaya, in the Don delta;
Vth century b.c.; about Minns, p. 270, Fig. 186;
Ebert, p. 166, Fig. 65.
B. Same site; Vth century b.c.; about C.R., 1909-10,
p. 145, Fig. 210.
G 97
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 23. Plates from sword-sheaths, chased gold; about

A. Dniepr district, Poltava Gov.; Vlth century b.c. ; Kiev
Museum; Khanenko, Antiquities of the Dniepr district
(Russian) III, Plate 45, No. 461; Rostovtseff, Plate VIII,
Fig- 3-
B. Dniepr district, Solokha barrow, Tauric Gov., near
Melitopol; Vth century b.c.; C.R., 1913-15, p. 108, Fig.
180; Ebert, p. 132.

Plates 24 and 25. Pole-tops, cast bronze; about Kuban

district, Ulski Aul; Vllth-VIth century b.c. ; Rostovtseff,
Plate X A; Ebert, p. 154, Fig. 62; , XXXIV,
Plate 12, Figs. 4, 6.

Plate 26. Pole-top, cast bronze; about f; Kuban district,

Kelermeskaya Stanitsa; Vllth—Vlth century b.c.; C.i?.,
1904, p. 8 8, Fig. 139; Rostovtseff, Plate X C.

Plate 27. Pole-top, cast and hammered bronze; about

Kuban district, Kelermeskaya Stanitsa; Vllth—Vlth century
b.c. ; Rostovtseff, Plate X B.

Plate 28. Pole-top, cast bronze; about f; Dniepr district,

Tauric Gov., near Melitopol; Vth century b.c.; B.C.A.,
XIX, p. no, Figs. 70 and 72; C.R., 1898, p. 80, Figs.
143 and 144.

*Plate 29. Cauldron hammered—the handles cast and riveted

on. Only one of the two handles is preserved. About
l\ Kuban district, Kelermeskaya Stanitsa; Vllth-VIth
century b.c.
98
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

*Plate 30. Mirrors, cast bronze; about ^; Dniepr district,

dug up by Samokvasov in Gov. Poltava; Vlth-Vth century
b.c. ; Moscow Historical Museum; Cat. Nos. 1739 and
1722.

Plate 31. A. Spoon, carved bone, with ornaments partly

engraved. The upper part of the snout has been broken
off. Orenburg Gov.; Vlth-Vth century b.c.; Moscow
Historical Museum; Rostovtseff in M.A.R., XXXVII,
Plate VII, 1.
B. Object of uncertain use, carved bone; Orenburg Gov.;
uncertain time. (The object is of interest for comparison
with the bear’s figure on the spoon where the head is very
similar. The body is only schematically rendered); C.R.,
1894, p. 38, Fig. 42.

Plate 32. Carved bone ornaments from horse-trappings, except

A and C, which are of unknown use.
*A & C. Crimea, Temir Gora, near Kerch; Vllth century
b.c. (found with a jug of Milesian-Rhodian style. Cf.
C.R., 1870-1, p. XX, Plate IV).
B, D & F—H. Kuban district, Kelermeskaya Stanitsa;
Vllth—Vlth century b.c.; C.R., 1904, p. 91, Figs. 146—7,
PP- 93-4, Figs. 159-60.
*E. Dniepr district, Kiev Gov., near Chirigin; Vlth—Vth
century b.c.; Moscow Historical Museum; Inv. No.
18913.

Plate 33. A. Comb, carved bone; about Dniepr district,

Poltava Gov.; Vlth century b.c., Kiev Museum; Khanenko,
II, Plate XXXI, No. 511.
99
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

B. Bridle-pieces, carved bone; about f; Dniepr district,

Kiev Gov., near Chigirin; B.C.A., XVII, p. 87, Fig. 13.
C. Bridle-pieces, carved bone; about |; Poltava Gov.;
Vlth-Vth century b.c. ; Kiev Museum; Khanenko, III,
Plate 50, No, 530.

Plate 34. Ornament from shield (?), chased gold; about

Crimea, Kul Oba barrow near Kerch; beginning of the
Vth century b.c.; A.B.C., Plate XXVI, 1 ; Minns, p. 203,
Fig. 98 ; T.K.R., II, p. 308, Fig. 268 ; Ebert, p. 137.

Plate 35. Ear-pieces, or cheek-pieces from horse-trappings,

chased gold; A, slightly reduced; B, about §; Dniepr
district, Tsymbalk barrow, Tauric Gov.; first half of
IVth century b.c.; T.K.R., II, p. 270, Fig. 242; Ebert,
P- 145-

Plate 36. A. Torque, cast and hammered gold; about \;

Kuban district, Stavropol Gov., Village of Kazinskoye;
Illrd century b.c. (?); C.R., 1909-10, p. 221, Figs. 255 a
and b; M.A.R., XXXIV, Plate VIII, 4.
B. Ornament, cast gold; about §; Siberia, collection of
Peter the Great; T.K.R., III, p. 400, Fig. 364.

Plate 37, A-C. Ornaments, cast (?) gold with coloured inlays of
torquoise and coral; Don district, Treasure of Novocher-
kask; 1st century b.c. to 1st century a.d. (?)
A. Pyxis with lid; B, long sheath; C, bottle with lid and
chains ending in beads; about §; Minns, p. 234, Figs.
140-1 ; Rostovtseff, Plate XXVI, 3 and 4; T.K.R., Ill,
pp. 492 f., Figs. 445-75 and p. 79^, Fig. 753-
100
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

D. Ornament of onyx with ends of chased thin gold-leaf;

about §; same find; Rostovtseff, Plate XXVI, 2; T.K.R.,
HI, p. 493, Fig. 449.

Plate 38. Torque and bracelets, cast and hammered gold with
coloured inlays of torquoise and coral; about ^; Don
district, Treasure of Novocherkask; 1st century b.c. to 1st
century a.d. (?); T.K.R., III, pp. 491 f., Figs. 443-4;
Minns, p. 234, Fig. 139.

*Plate 39. Knives, cast bronze ; about f; Siberia, Minussinsk

region, from stray finds classical Bronze Age (Nos. A and
E new acquisitions of the Hermitage, and Nos. 2-4 from
the Radloff collection).

Plate 40. A. Dagger, cast bronze; Siberia; end of the Bronze

Age; Minussinsk Museum; Tallgren, p. 40, Fig. 41.
(Wrongly said by Tallgren to be in possession of Prince
Kassatkyne).
B. Dagger, cast and hammered; iron hilt and bronze blade;
Siberia, beginning of the Iron Age; C.R., 1901, p. 143,
Fig. 258.
C. Dagger, cast and hammered (?) iron; first Iron Age;
Siberia, Lopatin collection, Leningrad Arch. Academy;
M.A.R., V, Plate XIV, Fig. 9 ( - Radloff “ Siberian
Antiquities”); Minns, p. 242, Fig. 150.

Plate 41. Mirror, cast bronze; about f; Siberia; end of

Bronze Age or first Iron Age; Aspelin, Antiquites du Nord
Finno-Ougrien, p. 71, Fig. 323.
101
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 42. Torque, cast bronze; about f; Perm Gov. (?),

Siberian import; first Siberian Iron Age; Aspelin, op. cit.,
P- :35> Fig- 573-

Plate 43. A. Battle-axe, cast bronze; Siberia, Minussinsk

region; end of Bronze or beginning of Iron Age (?),
Minussinsk Museum; Martin, Plate 7, 1.
B—E. Ornamental plates of unknown use, cast bronze;
Siberia; Bronze Age and beginning of Iron Age (?).
No. B from the Radloff collection, Nos. C—E, purchased by
Adrianov in the neighbourhood of Minussinsk (No E,
illustrated in T.K.R., III, p. 366, Fig. 325).

Plate 44. A & C. Mirrors, cast bronze; about Siberia,

district of Minussinsk; first Iron Age (?): A, in Minus¬
sinsk Museum, C, Hedman collection; Tallgren, Collec¬
tion Tovostine, p. 57, Fig. 59 and Plate VIII, 4; Ebert,
p. 169, Fig. 67; Martin, op. cit., Plate 30, 11.
B. Pole-top (?), cast bronze; about \; Siberia, Minussinsk
district; Bronze Age or beginning of Iron Age (?); M.A.R.,
XV, p. 126.

Plate 45. Ornamental plate, cast gold, eyes, nostrils, ear, claws
and tail once set off with coloured inlays; Siberia; from
the collection of Peter the Great; Minns, pp. 274, Fig. 194;
T.K.R., III, p. 398, Fig. 362.

Plate 46. A. Ornamental plate from a girdle-clasp, cast gold,

once ornamented with coloured inlays; Siberian; from the
collection of Peter the Great; two corresponding pieces,
about §; Minns, p. 276, Fig. 198; T.K.R., Ill, p. 391,
Fig. 351 ; Rostovtseff, Plate XXV, Fig 2.
102
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

B. Girdle with clasp and scales, cast (?) and finished off with
the chisel (?), gilded silver, inlaid with carnelian; about
§; Kuban district, purchased ; Siberian import; M.A.R.,
XXXVII, Plate VIII, i ; Rostovtseff, Plate XXV, Fig. i.

Plate 47. Ornamental plate, cast (?) bronze; China (?),

Siberian import; Stoclet collection, Brussels; Chinese Art,
Bronzes, Plate 11 C.

Plates 48-52. Ornamental plates from girdle-clasps, cast gold;

on the back imprints of woven fabrics perhaps owing to
the use of textile stuff, it forming the back of the moulds;
Siberia; collection of Peter the Great save for Plate 49
A, which in 1844 was bought in Verkhneudinsk in Trans¬
baikalia; 50—52 have been inlaid with colours, torquoise
and coral (?). All specimens exist in pairs save for 49 A,
a single example, and 49 B, represented by several pairs.
Plates 48 and 51 B are about f natural size. Plate 52
about §. Plate 48 = T.K.R., Ill, p. 390, Fig. 350; Plate
49 A=ib., p. 389, Fig. 348; Minns, p. 275, Fig. 197;
Plate 49 B=ib., Fig. 355; Plate 50=ib.. Fig. 354; Minns,
p. 276, Fig. 199; Plate $i=ib., Fig. 353; Plate 52 A =
Fig- 345; Plate S2 B=zA, Fig. 346.

Plate 53. Ornamental plates from girdle-clasps, cast bronze;

Siberia, district of Minussinsk, stray finds: A=T.K.R.,
Ill, p. 401, Fig. 366 B*

Plate 54. Ornamental plate of unknown use, chased gold,

inlaid with torquoise; rather less than natural size; two
specimens, Siberia, collection of Peter the Great. Ch. de
Linos. L'orjevrerie cloisonnee. Paris 1878. Plate 12,
Fig. 2.
103
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 55. *A. Ornament of unknown use (two views), cast gold;
Siberia; collection of Peter the Great.

B. Similar object (side view), chased gold; Turgai district,

Transcaspia; C.R., 1901, p. 142, Fig. 256.

*D. Finger-ring (two views), chased (?) gold, the ends

hammered together; Siberia; collection of Peter the
Great.
C. Ornamental button, chased gold; Siberia; collection of
Peter the Great; T.K.R., III, p. 398, Fig. 361.
E. Finger-ring, chased gold, the ends united by hammering
(?), once inlaid with colours; the Treasure of the Oxus;
British Museum; Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus,
No. hi; Minns, l.c., p. 255, Fig. 175.

*F—G. Ornamental buttons, cast gold; Siberia; collection

of Peter the Great.

Plate 56. A-F. Ornamentation of the ends of torques and

one complete torque, chased gold, with coloured inlays
now only represented by torquoises on A. A, about \;
D and E, about f; Siberia; collection of Peter the
Great; A and E — T.K.R., III, pp. 384 f, Figs. 340-1;
B, C, D—*
F. End of a torque, cast hollow (?), gold; once inlaid with
colours; Siberia; collection of Peter the Great; T.K.R.
HI, p. 383, Fig. 339; Minns, p. 272, Fig. 191.

*Plate 57. A & C. Bracelets and B collar, gold wire with (?)
hammered ends; C, about B, about |; A, slightly
reduced; Siberia; collection of Peter the Great.
104
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 58. Vase with two handles, hammered, the handles

cast and attached by rivets; about §; Siberia; collection
of Peter the Great; Smirnoff, Plate VI, 19.

Plate 59. Ornamental plate of unknown use, carved wood;

about |; Siberia, Altai; Frolov collection ; Minns, p. 251,
Fig. 172.

Plate 60. Ornamental plaques and ornaments of unknown

use, carved.
B & C. Bone; about \\ Siberia, Altai; Frolov collection;
Minns, p. 251, Fig. 172.
A. Wood, slightly reduced; Siberia, Altai, Grave near
Katanda, excavated by Radloff in 1865; Moscow Historical
Museum; J.R.A.I., LV, Plate XIII, Figs. 2, 5.
E. Wood; about |; Siberia; from the Pogodin collection in
the Moscow Historical Museum. The Antiquaries Journal,
VI, No 4, p. 412, Fig. 5.
D, Horn, F, G, Wood; about ^; Siberia; from the Frolov
collection; Minns, p. 251, Fig. 172.

Plate 61. Ornamental plate of unknown use, carved wood;

about f; Siberia, the Altai, Grave near Katanda; Radloff,
1865; Moscow Historical Museum; T.K.R., III, p. 375,
Fig. 328; J.R.A.I., LV, Plate XIV, Fig. 1.

Plate 62. Ornamental boss of unknown use, carved wood;

about |; from the same Grave; Moscow Historical
Museum; J.R.A.I., LV, Plate XI.

io5
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 63. Animal figures of unknown use, carved wood;

about |; from the same Grave. On the head of each,
four holes (not only two as our illustrations suggest) have
been bored clearly for ears and horns. The creatures are
evidently hybrids of the same sort as those shown on
Plates 49 A and 70 A. The saddle has also been indicated
on the standing beast. Equine features predominate. The
back of the recumbent animal is flattened especially on the
shoulders; Moscow Historical Museum; J.R.A.I., LV,
Plate XII.

Plate 64. A. Battle-axe, cast bronze; about \; Pinega,

Archangel Gov., Ananyino culture; from the Uvarov col¬
lection, now in the Moscow Historical Museum; A. M.
Tallgren, “ Djurhuvudyxor av brons fran ostra Ryssland,”
Finski Museum, 1913, p. 33, Fig. 2; Aspelin, p. 60, Fig.
240; T.K.R., III, p. 435, Fig. 390.

B & C. Ornamental plaques, cast bronze; Kotlovka and

Ananyino, Viatka Gov.; Ananyino culture; Museum of
Anthropological Institute, Moscow; Tallgren, SMTA,
XXXI, p. 173, Fig. 120, 14.

D. Ornamental plate, cast bronze; about f; Ananyino,

Viatka Gov.; Ananyino culture; Anthropological and
Ethnographical Museum of the Academy of Sciences,
Leningrad; Tallgren, op. tit, p. 13, Fig. 14, Grave XXIII;
Minns, p. 258, Fig. 180.

E. Knife-hilt, cast bronze; Kotlovka, Viatka Gov.; Ananyino

culture; Museum of the Anthropological Institute, Mos¬
cow; Aspelin, op. tit, p. 209, Fig. 422; cf. Tallgren, op.
tit., p. 43, Fig. 44, 2.

106
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

F. Knife-hilt (?), carved horn; about §; Viatka Gov.,

Ananyino period (?); Moscow Historical Museum;
Materials for the Archaeology of the Eastern Governments of
Russia (Russian), I, Plate VIII, 3.

Plate 65. *A. Girdle-clasp (?), cast, dark-coloured alloy of

bronze; about §. The spike had been restored in antiquity,
and primitive animal figures scratched on the bear’s
shoulder. Perm Gov.; Pyanobor period=Han dynasty
(?); Museum of Anthropological Institute, Moscow.

B & C. Ornamental plates of unknown use, cast, dark-coloured

bronze alloy; about ; Perm Gov.; from the Stroganov
collection, Pyanobor period=Han dynasty (?); cf. Aspelin,
p. 135, Fig. 569. Zapiski (=Transactions) of the Russian
Archaeological Society, Russian and Slavonic section, VIII,
p. 130, Figs. 378, 380.

Plates 66 and 67. Ornamental plates of unknown use, cast,

leaden bronze alloy; a little less than natural size; Perm
Gov.; Lomovatov period = late Sassanian epoch (?);
C.R., 1909, p. 116-19, Figs. 258, 259, 265. Analogous
objects illustrated by Minns and Rostovtseff, where are
given references to Spitsyn’s Russian standard works on
these antiquities

Plate 68. Carved animals and heads.

A & B. Elk’s horn; about \\ Siberia, Jenessei district,
village of Basaikha, near Krasnoyarsk; neolithic (?);
Anthropological and Ethnographical Museum of the
Academy of Sciences, Leningrad; J. Savenkov: Sur
les restes de /’epoche neolithique, Congres internationale
d’arch^ologie, Moscou, 1892. Tome II, p. 323 seq.
107
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

*C. Horn; about Ural district, Shigirskoye Osero, Ekater¬

inburg Gov.; neolithic (?).

*D. Bone; little less than natural size; Siberia, Minussinsk

district; Bronze Age.

Plate 69. B-C. Ceremonial weapons of stone; neolithic.

B. Battle-axe with bear’s head for butt; Antrea, Carelia,
Finnland; National Museum, Helsingfors; SMTA, XXVI,
p. 260, Fig. 2.

C. Elk’s head perforated for hafting; Hvittis, Satakunta,

Finnland; National Museum, Helsingfors; Fornvannen,
1911, p. 156, Fig. 3.

A. Spoon with bear’s head for handle, carved wood; neolithic;

Loukaa, Tawastland, Finnland; National Museum, Hel¬
singfors; SMTA, XXVI, pp. 264 f., Fig. 6.

Plate 70. Ornamental plates from girdle-clasps; cast bronze,

gilded.

A. Stoclet collection, Brussels; Chinese Art, Bronzes, Plate

11 B.

B. Metropolitan Museum, New York; from a Chinese Grave

of the Han dynasty; Rostovtseff, Plate XXXI, 2. Bulletin
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 1918, 135 f.

Plate 71. A. Chinese bronze vase, style of the Chou dynasty;

Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Albert J. Koop,
Early Chinese Bronzes, Plate 10 A.

B. Chinese bronze vase; style of the Chou dynasty; collec¬

tion of Mr. Gejo Masao; Chinese Art, Bronzes, Plate 2 A.

108
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 72. A. Ornament on the corner of some object, bronze

inlaid with silver; Chinese; style of the Han dynasty (?);
Stoclet collection, Brussels; Chinese Art, Bronzes, Plate
10 B.
B. Ring with ornamentation in the form of the beast curled
up into a circle; jade; Chinese; Han period (?); Mr. O. C.
Raphael’s collection; Chinese Art, Jades, Plate 1 C.
C. Ornamental plaque, open-work, white nephrite (?), slightly
reduced. (Two dragons or griffins with horned birds’
heads confronted above: the coils of their bodies follow
the edges of the plaque’s ends and their tails are inter¬
twined in the middle of the lower register.) Chinese,
Han period. From the finds brought back by the Koslov
Expedition to Mongolia in 1924, now at the Academy of
Archaeology and Ethnology, Leningrad. Comptes rendus des
expeditions pour 1'exploration du Nord de la Mongolie (russian),
Leningrad, 1925, G. Boroffka, Fig. 15. Burlington Maga¬
zine, April, 1926. W. Perceval Yetts, Discoveries of the
Kozlov Expedition, Fig. 4.

Plates 73 and 74. Details of a large carpet, woven wool, with

multicolour applique work in purple, brown and white.
The outlines are stitched over with a cord. The scene is
embroidered with various patterns; about \; native
Scytho-Siberian work, betraying Greek influence; found
with Chinese imports of the Han period during the ex¬
cavations of the Kozlov Expedition to Mongolia in 1924.
Now in the Academy of Archaeology and Ethnology,
Leningrad.
Plate 73. Griffin and elk. Boroffka, l.c., Fig. 2, Yetts,
Plate II, C.
109
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

Plate 74. Yak and horned feline monster. Boroffka, l.c.,

Fig. 3, Yetts l.c., Plate II D.
With the bronze on Plate 72 A, and the nephrite plaque
on Plate 72 B, may be compared the Siberian gold plaques
figured on Plate 52 A & B. There can be no doubt that
the figure of the highly stylized winged dragon on the
Chinese bronze and the birds’ heads of the dragon on the
nephrite plaque go back to the same prototypes—the
Iranian winged lion-griffin and the Greek eagle-griffin
respectively—as the figures on the Siberian objects.
Plate 72 B should further be compared with the Scythian
and Siberian representations of the same motive exemplified
on Plates 13, 14, 45, etc. The manner in which the two
bezels of the jade ring are expanded in the places corre¬
sponding to the shoulders and hips demonstrates the Chinese
artist’s indebtedness to Scytho-Siberian models.
That the scenes of combat between beasts on the carpet
from Mongolia, Plates 73 and 74, are native Scytho-
Siberian work is proved by their agreement in individual
motives with those on Scytho-Siberian objects. The griffin,
for instance, may be compared with those on the girdle from
the Kuban district (Plate 46), and on the gold plaque
depicting an eagle-griffin and a yak (Plate 50). The
incrustation of variegated stones on the gold is imitated
on the carpet by sewing on variantly coloured threads.
The striped bunches of hair on the tail and on the legs of the
yak here coincide exactly in shape with those on the bronze
plaque (Plate 53 A). In like manner the way in which
the branches of the feline beast’s horns as well as his tail
and elongated snout terminate in birds’ heads is thoroughly
Siberian in style. Parallels are furnished by Plates 48
110
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES

and 49 A. At the same time the plan of the scene of combat

between elk and griffin and the attitude of the yak, charging
head-down, are typically Greek. In Greek art such
compositions were in vogue from the archaic period
onwards. On the other hand, they are strange to the Scytho-
Siberian animal style proper. So these fragments furnish
us with convincing proof that classical Greek art had
exerted its influence even in Central Asia, right to the
borders of the Gobi Desert.

111
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 DATE DUE
DATE DE RETOUR

CkD ' • f

FEB 1 5 2003

CARR MCLEAN 38-296

 N 5899 S3 B6 1967
P°r^yka- Gnooni lottifov
Scyth an art, / by Gr^ or < 8 010101 000

63 oil;
TRENT UNIVE

.S3B6 1967
N5899
Origorit xosifwlch
Borovka
Scytkian art