Differences of Art between the Western and Eastern sections

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DIFFERENCES IN (1) STYLE, (2) TECHNIQUE AND (3) CHARACTER OF ART BETWEEN THE WESTERN AND EASTERN SECTIONS—In this section an attempt has been made to delineate the differences in style, technique and character between the western and eastern sections of the Scythian/Saka art. The Scythian/Saka art of the western and eastern sections (or vice versa), despite their differences, can be regarded as a single great phenomenon. But a detailed churning of the archaeological data reveals that the primary motifs of the Scythian nomadic animal art, originated from the eastern section. Therefore, the problem arises of equating artifacts of the western section and later art of the eastern section with the parent art form. Apart from this fundamental criteria of chronology, some other factors are to be considered. The vast stretch of Scythian/Saka art from the Danube to the borders of China comprising the western and eastern boundaries of the western and eastern sections had to encounter the art of other great civilizations at different moments of time. The literary sources of different nationalities had much to say about this.

142 Thus, inspite of being a single great phenomenon, this art had definite regional innovations and the tenacity of the original (core) animal art style, inspite of its peripheral blending never gave the feeling of being exhausted. The sojourn of the Scythian art between the two sections is a wonderful history of the evolution, growth and development of the nomadic animal art forms. The broad terms- "Scythian", "Sauromation", "Sarmatian", and "Saka"-have emerged to characterize the material culture of the Eurasian nomads. These terms were derived from the descriptions of ancient authors, none of them nomads, and who utilized these labels to convey a variety of meanings. They were employed both as general references to the horse-riding peoples and as specific tribal, cultural, and geographical designations. Archaeological evidences more or less suggested a tripartized society of herder-cultivators, warriors warriors and priests. and priests. Archaeological investigations have led to the further definition of these terms as markers of particular aspects of cultural groups that flourished at a particular time, or displayed individuating genetic or linguistic traits. Certain stylistic features both differentiate the nomadic arts of the Pontic steppes, the Caucasus, the Don-Volga-Urals, the southern Siberia, Central Asia, and China and also interrelate them within a broad cultural continuum. This

143 unity has been conveyed by the use of the terms "animal style" and "Scytho-Siberian animal style." The deer is probably the most common motif in the so-called animalstyle art of the steppe nomads. The deer motif in the Scythian art is generally associated with the reinder which is native to northern Siberia and the forest steppes as far west as Eastern Europe. The early Scythian gold reindeer (Plate 84) from Chilikta, in eastern Kazakhstan, 1 and the gold deer (Plate 63) from the royal Scythian burial at Kostromskaia,2 in the Caucasus, for instance, have a typically Scythain folded pose. Both have a balanced composition and smooth gold surfaces. The Kazakhstan deer plaque dated in the second half of the eighth century B.C.- the first half of the seventh century B.C., was hammered over a mould in low relief. Its large antlers have one branch to the front and four to the rear, and they bear a more naturalistic rendering. This was a characteristic of the eastern region, than the more stylized depictions of stags in the Scythian art of the Pontic steppes. The Kostromskaia deer plaque dated in the end of the seventh century B.C. is typical of the Scythian artistic tradition of combining realism and abstraction, and complemented by additional I ornamental antlers, which appear as a row of rhythmically repeated SGol.De.Eur., PL. 170. ² Ibid., Pl. 140.

144 spirals. The musculature of the neck is emphasized, definitely more than its Kazakhstan counterpart. The famous Kelermes deer plaque (Plate 50)¹ from a gorytus (dated in the second half of the seventh century B.C.) was a formalized version (in stance and modulation of the anatomical parts) of the Chilikta deer. The Filippovka deer dated in the fourth century B.C. have top-heavy antlers and bodies covered with decorations. Its stylistic affinity lay to the east, in the Altai Mountains, where the earlier kurgans (eighth to seventh centuries B.C.) of Bashadar, Tuekta and Pazyryk yielded objects with similar over all ornaments on bodies of animals. Such ornamentations may have arisen, in part, from the ease with which decorative spirals can be produced in wood carving. This decorative tradition was common on the eastern steppes not only in wood carving, but also in gold-work (as in the stag-shaped gold belt ornaments from the Issyk Kurgan, in eastern Kazakhstan, dated in the fourth century B.C.). Although the monstrous Issyk stags (Plates 85-86) are in a folded pose, their bodies are decorated with incisions and spirals, and there are spiral ornaments beneath the chins.2 The carved horn belt plaque (Plate 76) in the shape of a horse, from Sagly-Bazhi II, in Tuva,³ shows the same elaborately decorated surfaces as the Filippovka deer. A gold belt plaque (Plate 119) said to have been found 1 Ibid., Pl.142. ² Ibid., p.7, Figs.4,5. 3 Ibid., Pl. 197.

145 at Verkhneudinsk (modern Ulan-Ude), east of Lake Baikal, in Mongolia,¹ probably represents the eastern most extension of the style. The bird's heads on the antlers of the five deer² placed in the corridor of the Filippovka tomb may symbolize an aspect of a tribal deity, the bird of prey. Similar birds of prey were found on the headdress decorations, and a gold epaulet from Ziwiye (late eighth to seventh century B.C.) in the Near East. But the antler-with-bird's-head motifs widely used in the western section during the fourth century B.C. were more aggressive in appearance. Beginning in the sixth century B.C., the repertoire of images in the art of the Altai expanded to include mythical creatures, such as the griffin. In no other ancient culture does the griffin motif appear in such a multiplicity of renderings. The Altai artists treated the griffin (Plate 89) in an original way. The tuft feathers were delineated with relief lines and the eyes were either round or almond-shaped. The curling beak was worked in relief, and the ear, leaf-shaped with a spiral at the base. 3 But the griffins of the western section were more formidable in appearance and were more slender and agile in form (as depicted in the detail of two griffins savaging a horse from the lower frieze of the Tolstaya Mogila pectoral). 1 Ibid., PL 210. 2 ² Ibid., p. 14. 3 Ibid., PL.177.

146 The stylized zoomorphic style, which laid the foundation for the Scythian art, gradually became dominant in the fifth and fourth century B.C. New subject-matter began to infiltrate the Scythian art during this period. From the Sarmatians, the Scythians borrowed the image of the wolf, and from the nomads of southern Siberia the image of the elk. Zhurovka, in the Dnepropetrovsk region, testifies to this development. A plaque from Zhurovka exhibits two non-antlered elk's heads (Plate 120) with ears and snouts touching each other. The wooden plaque (Plate 93) from Tuekta, in the Altai,2 is comparable to the Zhurovka ornament but it is one hundred years older. In the fourth century B.C. the dominant art form was exquisitely designed decorative objects in which ornamentation was more important than representation. The animal figures lost their former threedimensionality and became flat and oversimplified. Relief was replaced by engraving. Some bridle decorations (Plate 121) were in the form of flowers made from birds' heads.³ In many cases the image of the animal vanished 'Ibid., Pl.155. 2 ² Ibid., Pl. 183. 3 Ibid., Pl. 152.

147 among the intricate spirals (Plate 122). Thus the animal style, having forfeited its elegant simplicity, gained something new in both the sections. The eastern section, which had originally started with decorative compositions in its animal style, was not that fast in changing the dynamic animal style to a new phase. In the western section, the changes into rhythmical forms and original, exuberant decorative compositions were apparent from the fourth century B.C. onwards. In Scythian art, we find small representations of beasts juxtaposed upon spaces on the bodies of large figures like the Kul-Oba deer (Plate 64), 2 dated in the fifth century B.C., and the Kelermes panther (Plate 62)³ (dated in the seventh century B.C.) This style is rare in the Scythian art of the eastern section. In the western section, the narrative traits were more significant. Many objects in the western section have narrative scenes, which have been analyzed by scholars as depictions of Scythian myths. The nomadic art of both the sections strove after a decorative compactness; however, the organic animal form is the original element in the eastern section. Here the purely ornamented shapes are secondary and generally arises out of the Ibid., Pl. 154. *V.Schiltz, op.cit., p. 159, Pl.116. Ibid., pp.20,21, P 1.8.

148 degeneration of animal forms which we may call transmutation. The compactness lost much of its significance in the eastern section, where animal art was a tool for ornamentation in the micro. The macro aspect in the west lost much of its relevance, as there were further changes in mediums. Significantly, gold was not much used. The narrative aspect, as seen from vessels of silver gilt found at Chastyye Mogily and Solokha, has not been seen in the eastern section. Objects from the Solokha barrow revealed the disappearance of archaic elements and there was somehow a vital Hellenization of virtually all the motifs. The panther is altogether replaced by the lion, the eagle by the griffin. Horses and boars appear with deer as prey; all are treated with the same idealized realism apparent in the handling of the predators. Graceful tendrils interwoven with flowers emerge as significant ornamental motifs. They and the birds and insects that adorn them represent the closest Scythian art comes to a deliberate reference to a landscape. Most important, however, is the appearance of human representation: idealized, vigorous, and apparently narrative in import. A careful reading of the style and technology of many of the best objects in the western section of the Scythian art indicates a merging of the Hellenic with Scythian elements and an application of Hellenized

149 techniques to Scythianized subjects (Plate 198).1 In addition, the best of Scythian art is characterized by a number of qualities that cannot be duplicated, as they are integrated and presented, in any other arena of gold-work in the ancient world. Of these qualities, in the first instance, mention requires to be made of monumentality in effect, not in weight or size. This monumentality is well demonstrated by the Kelermes griffinheaded pole top(Plate 6), 2 bridle ornaments(Plates 123-124), also from Kelermes,³ a torque with spiralled rope from Solokha, 4 and the massive spiralled-rope bracelet (Plate 41) with sphinx terminals, from Kul-Oba.5 Another distinctive quality is a particular manner of preserving a plain, gold surface, and of using the smooth surface to emphasize the power of an animal or the drama of an animal confrontation. Both these characteristics derived basically from the nomadic tradition of bone and wood carving. Within that tradition, the plain surfaces of the organic materials were favoured as expressive aspects of the object or image, as well as a sign of delight in the material itself.6 At Scythian sites, where organic materials do not survive well, it is well- known that when bronze and gold works of art were cast, the craftsmen used the lost wax method involving wooden 2 1 The Art of The Scythians, p.66. Scythian Art, Pl. 15. 3 Ibid., Pls.4,5. 4 Ibid., Pls. 122,123. 5 Ibid., Pl. 182. 6 The Art of The Scythians p.67.

150 models. Wooden matrices were also widely used for metal repousse work. R. M. Minasyan believes that the whole of Scythian decorative metal work had been very much influenced by carving technique, echoes of which can be traced in the most famous examples of Scythian animal style metal artifacts. This understanding of the particular plastic qualities of wood, and the delight in that material, are beautifully expressed in carved wooden objects from the sixth century burials at Tuekta, and in objects from fifth and fourth century burials at Pazyryk. But, in the eastern section, the monumentality was not that apparent. In the western section the most powerful expressions of this intensity and of the manner in which posture and surface lent themselves to the expression of monumentality include the Kostromskaya stag and the Kelermes panther. This monumentality conferred on the images an almost heraldic appearance which was lacking in the eastern section. Thus what had started in bone, wood or iron at Altai (along with the dominance of the applique design) was later transformed into a 'heraldic' style. Also, in the western section the understanding of the power of empty areas and the spacing of figures were more developed, as in the spacing of ¹R.S.Minasyan, 'The Origin of the Distinctive Features of the Animal Style', Archaeological Collection from the State Hermitage Museum, Issue 29, 1988; Issue 30, 1990, pp.74, 75.

151 figures on the Kul-Oba vessel (Plates 9-12),¹ the Chertomlyk amphora (Plate 16),2 in the Solokha comb (Plate 43)³ and the spacing of animals on the Bolshaya Bliznitsa pectoral(Plate 32).4 In the later Saka/Scythian art, the respect for monumental and simple forms was somehow threatened, if not overwhelmed by, elaborations. To illustrate the loss of the early monumentality and a subsequent emphasis on stilled, tense forms we may point to the Kul-Oba phiale.5 In it, the only Scythian element (aside from its find site), are the rather caricatured images of Scythian males, caught between the flourishes of Gorgon-Medusas, boar heads and bees. Significantly, the cauldrons of the western section (whether they had any magico-religious purpose is uncertain) lost much of their significance. They were hardly found in Saka burials. Thus, archaeologically, one common cultural substratum has led to diverse yet common features, with a scope for new innovations. The animal style followed remarkably different lines of development according to the areas concerned. While the Scythian art passed from stylized linear figures to others which were much more elaborate and complex and finally 'V.Schiltz, op.cit., pp. 173-175, Pls. 125-127. 2 Ibid., p. 195, Pl.144. 3 Ibid., p.414, Pl.359. 4 Ibid., pp.384-385, PL 310. Scythian Art, Pls. 164,165.

152 produced works that show traces of Greek realism, on the other hand, the art of the Siberian area passed from rigid forms, in which the volumetric structure is dominant, to others, rendered in almost geometric schemes i.e., animals twisted into the shape of a circle with legs forming an openwork circle or contorted in a horizontal S (some of which are of nomadic origin and others, Chinese). From stereometric forms they passed to linear stylizations, often in openwork, with colour values attained through the application of enamels, precious stones, and glass paste. Notwithstanding the stylization, the form of the animal was never completely obscured, and the nomads rejected the indistinct and monstrous zoomorphic forms. "Although the clothing plaques found in Scythian burials tend to be representational, one does find examples of more geometric renderings".1 Clothing plaques from the eastern section have a much more detailed geometrical rendering as at Issyk. In case of ornaments, the eastern section examples are more simple in technique. Precious-metal techniques had originated in the east, but on the ornaments of the western section, the surfaces of particular examples The Art of The Scythians p.165.

153 were an amalgamation of braided threads, notched threads, granulation and even tiny, sheet-gold figures. Individually, these elements can be traced in the eastern section. What happened in the west was the use of all these elements to emphasize the meticulous working of the gold (as in the boar shaped pendants), rather than functioning to border a broadly modelled image.1 The simplest technique of working gold, that of hammering, was used by both the Scythians' Asian predecessors and by settled peoples of the ancient Orient and Greece. Nonetheless, heavy hammered gold is usually ascribed to Near Eastern craftsmanship. Cast gold, particularly in its massive form, has been associated with Achaemenid traditions. An interesting Achaemenid vase(Plate 125)2 has been found from the kurgan of Filippovka. It has made use of both gold and silver. Gold is inlaid in horizontal strips around the silver body. Where cast gold occurs in the Scythian art, it is ascribed either to that tradition or to its working by Greek craftsmen. It is noteworthy to consider whether Achaemenising or Hellenizing gave a new lease of life to the Scythian art. "The refined techniques of filigree and granulation are almost always assumed to be indicators of Greek craftsmanship, even if the workshop in question is believed to have been somewhere in the Bosporus. By contrast, indicators of a rough technique, revealed so frequently on the objects or in ¹ Ibid., p.68. 2 ² The Golden Deer of Eurasia, Pl. 19.

154 the area of seams and joins, are seen as indicators of a non-Greek 1 craftsmanship, i.e. of a barbarian' source". Embedding in gold of coloured substances, usually turquoises, first became popular in those parts of Scytho-Siberian areas adjoining the Persian frontier and then passed into west Siberia and South Russia. Earlier the Scythians did not use this technique to a great extent. The Sarmatians, however, made extensive use, in not only embedding the stones, but also setting them in cloisons. The great development of orfevrerie cloisonee took place in Achaemenid Persia. The Scytho-Siberian objects in the Oxus Treasure form a link between the gold-smith's craft of Achaemenid Persia and that of western Siberia. The relations between the makers of the Oxus ornaments, both with Persian and Sarmatian culture and those between the Sarmatians and the early Teutonic tribes in Europe, expresses the impressive extent and unity of the ancient Scythic art. Among the Scythians, the bracelets were usually formed from a twisted or smooth gold. rope terminating in a modelled element. In the western section the 'The Art of The Scythians, p.71.

155 bracelets are rounded, while those of the eastern section are characteristically bow-shaped.1 The ancient Near Eastern tradition of overlaying objects made from baser materials with gold sheets or foil 2 was continued by Hellenistic gold workers. The twisted rope bracelets from Bolshaya Bliznitsa and Kul Oba are made from gold over bronze plaits. A gold neck ornament (Plate 126)³ from the Siberian collection of Peter I, dated in the fifth to fourth century B.C., is significantly different from the neck ornaments of the western section. This ornament is made of three smooth tubes and is divided by hinges into two unequal parts. This division of a large front and a smaller back is a peculiarity of the eastern section. The animal figures, attached to the upper tube, are hollow and made from two halves soldered together and are similar to others both from Siberia and from Central Asia. Between the tubes are two ornamental strips with rhomboid and circular hollows (again a Saka/Scythian characteristic) for turquoise and coral inlays. 1 Ibid., p.109. 2 R.Higgins, op. cit., pp.33,34. 3 The Golden Deer of Eurasia, Pl.208.

156 Cylindrical beads with gold caps (Plate 127)¹ are unique to the eastern section. Gold caps were used on handles of utility objects and found from the barrows of the western section. Granulation on the weapons gold caps created beautiful triangular forms. These forms were transmitted on ornaments found from the eastern section including India, as will be seen below. Although zoomorphic images dominated the Scythian art, depictions of people are also not unknown. Representations of mounted horsemen are a special category. These were usually found on metal utility objects, or ornaments belonging to both the eastern and western sections. But the representation of mounted horsemen on colourful felt rugs (Plate 128) was a characteristic of the eastern section as found from kurgan 5 at Pazyryk.2 In the eastern section, comparatively, there are lesser female images than the western section. Scythian males are represented in what appear to be straightforward relationship with animals: riding horses, shooting rabbits, or milking animals and preparing their skins. By contrast, when women in Scythian art are associated with animals, the animals are either fantastic, such as griffins or hippocampi; or fearful, such as lions or 1 Ibid., Pl. 17. ² Ibid., p. 14, Fig.14.

157 snakes; or the human female becomes fused with snakes or birds. Whether they take the form of Gorgon-Medusas, Mistresses of Animals, sphinxes, battling Amazons, the human aspects of the female images shift our attention to the realms of death, the underworld, and monstrous generations. The materials drawn from the burials of the eastern section contemporary to the Pontic burials of the Scythians in the western section, appear to confirm, that human imagery had virtually no place within the subject-matter of early nomadic art. Just as a comparison between materials from the Saka, Pazyryk, and Tagar traditions with analogous materials from the Scythians leads to the inescapable conclusion that the style and subjects of the latter derive from the culture that spawned the former, so the rock carvings of northern Central Asia Asia promise promise to offer increasingly useful materials for understanding the origins and possibly the meaning of Scythian visual imagery. The panels from the Altai region with anthropomorphic imagery and the traces of an ancient pre-Turkic epic tradition¹ in Inner Asia, suggest that it is not necessary to construct complex mythic traditions from a variety of Indo-Iranian traditions. We must take into account the fact that the Scythians came into the northern Pontic region as foreigners with their own strong traditions of belief, ornament and ritual. As they moved ¹The Art of The Scythians, p.77.

158 westward out of Central Asia, whether on a southern or northern route around the Caspian Sea, those traditions were invariably modified. Elements were added, lost, or merged into new forms. What results, therefore, is essentially a process of creativity. Ultimately, the cultural authority of any part of the Scythian art must be derived from the combination of elements it represents like the object type, style, function, the technical aspects of its fabrication, all weaving together to form a distinctive whole. Therefore, each object in the Saka/Scythian repertoire go well beyond simplistic designations as 'Greek' or 'barbarian'. It may therefore be surmised that 1. The Scythian/Saka art originated in the eastern section, then traversed to the western section. Cross currents are there but isolated developments are also there. The eastern section had its own evolution, developments and continuity with its detours. 2. With the later Sakas and later Scythians we find the formation of "states" as in Bactria or India, which were capable of dealing more or less effectively with the nations by which they were threatened or with whom they traded. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the very formation of "statehood" brought an end to the distinctive early nomadic way of life by the 1 st century B.C. but art forms, obviously continued.

159 3. This continuation of art forms oscillated between the 'animal style' and the 'nomadic animal style' and the relationship between these two were quite astute. The style, technique and character of art of the Saka/Scythian artifacts in the borderlands of India and India itself have been discussed in the next two chapters.