Scythian Gold From Siberia Said To Predate The Greeks

NY Times ^ | 01-09-2002 | John Varoli

[Sabertooth]

Cool stuff. Thanks blam!

[blam]

Rhyton, Achaemenid, 5th-4th century B.C.
Filippovka, Kurgan 1

[Leroy S. Mort]

What a shame that in a couple thousand years all they'll find in our graves are cheap polyester suits and clip-on ties...

[blam]

"What a shame that in a couple thousand years all they'll find in our graves are cheap polyester suits and clip-on ties..."

They'll also find about 30 years worth of silicon wafers and assorted silicon chips I 'scrapped' over the decades. My scrap will last 100's of thousands of years. I microscopically wrote (etched) notes on some, no kidding. (There is a lot of colorful art work on computer chips that no-one ever sees. Some will require an electron scope to read)

[Spirited]

Yes, indeed. Thanks for the post. I like nails in coffins of conjecture taught as fact.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I remember seeing - think it was a web site - an article on the "extra" etchings on silicon chips.

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[callisto]

I'm interested...just bouncing back and forth from the computer this week.

[Bernard Marx]

Thanks for another great post, blam. As a goldsmith/ lapidary, I'm exceedingly interested in stuff like this. I've kept a brochure (b/w -- where did you find the color?) from the traveling Scythian exhibit around for years. I'm fascinated by their unique designs and technical execution. This is very advanced work and implies some sophisticated metals technology.

Someone pointed out that we now have the means to trace the gold to its source (if the source still exists and is known; many of the ancients exploited gold deposits to exhaustion. As a side note, they used sheepskins to trap heavy gold particles in placer deposits, hence the legend of the Golden Fleece). Similarly, we can learn a lot from the kinds of alloys used as well as the tools and techniques used for fashioning both metals and stones used as adornment.

I keep looking for eastern links to Etruscan gold work. The Etruscans left many mysteries when they were replaced by(or evolved into) the Romans. They arrived in Tuscany, presumably from Asia Minor, sometime around 1,000 bce, with a highly-evolved metalworking and civil engineering technology. Their technique of bonding patterns of tiny gold spheres to objects like vases without use of solder (called "granulation") was lost for centuries and wasn't replicated until around the 1960s. Even so, there are open questions as to how they did it with what we know of their technology.

I've seen examples of granulation in Asian gold work at museums that may pre-date the Etruscans. Have you run across any references to it in your research on the Scythians?

[blam]

Scythian Art

[LostTribe]

>The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian Steppes October 12, 2000–February 4, 2001 Special Exhibition Galleries, 2nd floor

This exhibit title lays down a pretty good trail for that branch of the Celts. (Not bad handiwork for a "scruffy bunch of savages sitting around a desert campfire picking their noses").

The Sarmatians were also Celts, from the Southern Black Sea region as I recall. Was a good article on FR some time ago making the connection.