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HOME :
Near Eastern Art :
Scythian Art : Gilt Bronze Zoomorphic Buckle Inlaid with Turquoise
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Gilt Bronze Zoomorphic Buckle Inlaid with Turquoise - OS.239
Origin: Central Asia
Circa: 600
BC
to 400
BC
Dimensions:
1.45" (3.7cm) high
x 2.75" (7.0cm) wide
Collection: Near Eastern Art
Style: Scythian
Medium: Bronze, Turquoise
Additional Information: f
£3,500.00
Location: Great Britain
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| Description |
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The Scythians were a semi-nomadic Central
Asian group who originated in Iran but
roamed
across much of the Ukraine, Russia and the
Pontic Steppe from about 1000 BC through
the
period of classical antiquity. They are known
historically from Greek records, and
archaeologically on the basis of their
extravagantly ornate metalwork in burial
mounds
from above Greece all the way to Central
Asia.
They appear in the historical sources of other
peoples – including the Assyrians, who they
tried
to invade in 770 BC, and the Persians, who
tried
to return the favour in 512 BC – but have left
no
written evidence of their own. Socially they
are
hard to assess, given the fairly mobile nature
of
their way of life, although there is epigraphic
and
graphic evidence of their appearance and
some of
their customs. Inevitably, their funeral
behaviour
is well understood, while much of their
technology seems in fact to have been
acquired
or commissioned from settled communities.
Their main period of prosperity was in the
second half of the first millennium BC, fading
away in the face of competition from the
Sarmantians and the Celts, then attacks by
the
Goths, at the turn of the millennium.
Herodotus mentions a “Royal Dahae” which
was
the ruling elite of the Scythian forces, and
which
might well have existed if the riches of the
burial
mounds are any indication. Local governance
was
carried out by elites with control over local
armies, who were sometimes hired out as
mercenaries – especially archers – to more
sedentary groups. They were by all accounts
a
martial and fierce people, much associated
with
noble barbarism, where women fought
alongside
men (seemingly with similar status) and both
sexes were regularly tattooed with
zoomorphic
designs that also appear in their artwork. As
a
mobile way of life was not conducive to
metalworking or other craft/art pursuits, most
Scythian masterworks – of which there are an
inordinate number – were designed by the
Scythians but actually made by the Greeks.
These
include jewellery, horse harnesses and
weapons,
and include a large proportion of works in
gold,
which they highly valued and viewed as a
status
symbol. It is from the imagery on these items
that the Scythians gain their glamorous if
sanguineous reputation, although later works
demonstrate that they had started to adopt
Greek
clothing and customs. Zoomorphic and
anthropomorphic imagery abounds,
combined
with more mundane themes (milking cattle)
and
some geometric motifs.
- (OS.239)
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