Looking at the Evidence of Local Jewelry Production in Scythia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is interesting, particularly because there has been so little attention paid to Scythian art, outside of Russian and Ukrainian sources.  Thus this paper represents a positive contribution to Scythian/Greek scholarship. My concerns are as follows:

The author's goal as stated in the Abstract is to review relevant archaeological evidence....in order to assess the "high level" of Scythian goldsmithing.... However, in the introduction, the  purpose is described as an analysis of the evidence for the activity of Scythian gold workers. Those are two different intentions. In the conclusion (section 4), the author is concerned with yet a third problem: how objects made by Greeks came to be included in Scythian burial assemblages. In closing, the author turns weakly to what I had thought would be the main concern: production of Scythian materials by the Scythians themselves.

I would urge the author to organize the material and discussion more clearly around one specific goal: the demonstration that local, Scythian craftsmen were responsible for much of the Scythian gold work.

In order to argue for Scythian workmanship, the author  should want to refer to a number of burials and assemblages  unfamiliar to the non-Scythian specialist. That material would strongly support the author's argument, demonstrating that the elaborate use of gold plaques, and their manufacture, were already  established traditions of the Scythian's predecessors and "cousins" to the east as far as South Siberia. The gold foil images from the plundered burial of Chiliktin, in Eastern Kazakhstan (Chernikov 1964) demonstrate the advanced use of gold foil and matrices at a time earlier than most of the major Scythian barrows. Similarly early materials were found near the Mayemir kurgan in the Altai Republic (Rudenko 1960). The individual buried in the Saka burial at Issyk (Akishev 1978) demonstrates the spectacular wealth of gold plaques with which the Scythian period nomads were frequently arraigned at death.

The author is extremely modest in his/her goals, focusing rather narrowly on gold plaques. But a larger argument is in order. In order to argue for Scythian craftsmanship of not only gold plaques but, more significantly, of solid gold objects, the author must turn to the finds in the early Scythian period burial at Arzhan 2. In the spectacular material recovered from that uniquely unplundered burial were many objects of cast gold, as well as objects ornamented with a variety of precious metal techniques, including fine wire, granulation, and metal inlay. This material, found together with many objects of wood and bronze, demonstrates conclusively that the early Scythians of South Siberia were already master gold workers...before the great period of Scythian burials in the Black Sea region.

Arzhan 2 is the only unplundered burial that is both early in the Scythian period and scientifically excavated. It strongly supports the probability that the even earlier burial in eastern Tuvy, Arzhan 1, and a totally destroyed burial, Arzhan 5, were equally rich in material remains.

I urge the author to consult the fine publication of Arzhan 2 by Chugunov, Parzinger, and Nagler 2010. I would also urge the writer to reconsider the question of Scythian workmanship in light of all the earlier materials I have mentioned from the eastern Kazakhstan-South Siberian nomadic world. I believe that with the incorporation of this material, the author would build a much stronger case for the importance of Scythian (as opposed to Greek) workmanship in materials recovered from Scythian burials.

A small correction: P. 6, end of 1st paragraph-the Pazyryk burials in the Altai mountains should be identified as Pazyryk, not Saka.

The English is generally quite good. I would suggest a more careful use of punctuation...and does the author want to refer to Barbarians (p. 2) or "barbarians," or maybe best....Scythians?

P. 11, 1st paragraph: change "timber" to "wood".

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

I am convinced by the points you make. As a suggestion I think it could be helpful to insert a sentence and reference to the Scythian goldsmithing craft of Early Iron Age Tuva, which also shows sophistication (and no Greeks around). This could even strengthen your point.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The author declares that the article "analyze the evidence of jewelry production by local goldsmiths" in the Scythian time in the Northern Black Sea area.

However, the article contains not a single new fact and idea, everything that concerns the methods of goldsmiths' jewelry production has been repeatedly and more meaningfully announced in the literature. In essence, here the long-standing opinions on the subject are stated and the author chooses the one he likes. No new arguments by the author are given here. But most importantly, the author is unaware of or deliberately ignores a significant part of the research on the subject conducted by the Ukrainian Scythologists.

Thus, the summary of matrix finds and their interpretations was covered in a series of works by Sergei Skoryi. Apparently, when the author in Note 1 writes that he does not consider it possible to use the undocumented data from their private collections, he means these particular works, but it is worth bearing in mind that in addition to the publication of such items, these works also have historiographical and analytical sections, including lists of matrices and punches found in the Northern Pontic and in the Mediterranean.

Regarding "the bronze products were covered with gold and about carved wooden matrices", an entire chapter devoted to the gold articles with a wooden base, including a detailed description and analysis of items from Solokha, which the author focuses on, and items from other kurgans, about which the author knows nothing, is presented in the book on the Gaimanova Mogila (Bidzila, Polin 2012, 455-457). In the same book the "bronze products were covered with gold" is summarized and analyzed. Also in this monograph the issue of the wooden covers of gorits, "protective pillow" and "mastic", etc., is discussed in detail  (Bidzilya, Polin 2012, 457- 461).

So when the author writes that "Thus, at least for now, I suspect that Scythian rather than Hellenic artisans tended to use wooden matrices", he should first familiarize himself with the works of experts and their conclusions. For example, in the book by Bidzili and Polin, based on a large selection of finds, the following conclusion is drawn: "Thus, reliable data on the manufacture of gold coverings for bridle adornments, Scythian sword sheath covers, and handles of wooden bowls by pressing a cover in gold leaf over a pre-cut relief of a wooden base that subsequently remained there for eternity are very rare and are limited in time to the end of the 5th to the first half of the 4th BCE. One may consider this technique to be Scythian (Bidzilya, Polin 2012: 460-461).  Also, much attention is paid to this topic in the series of works by M. Traister.

he author discusses "Sources of gold and silver in Scythia", but is ignorant of the fact that the origin of Scythian gold is a special section in the monograph by B. Mozolevsky and S. Polin 2005.

A comparison of the factual and analytical part of the material on this topic in the works of these authors and in the reviewed article shows that the review is merely an abstract of rather poor content.

The trivial conclusion drawn by the author that something made in a simple technique - locally produced - was made by the author on scarce (4 samples) factual material without any analysis whatsoever. The author says that he could have given many examples, but the length of the article does not allow. Apparently, this is the right place to start - to provide an array of the alleged local articles, to properly analyze it and to draw the conclusion about the Scythian jewellery manufacture on the basis of the evidentiary base. But even in this case, it should be noted that the works devoted only to the different types of plaques found in the Scythian burials of the Northern Pontic, with the appropriate analysis of the number and types of stamps used by the masters to manufacture them, are rather numerous. 

Nor does the author understand the distinction between the Scythian Archaic culture represented predominantly in the Ukrainian steppe and Northern Caucasus, and the Scythian Classic time culture occupying the steppe part of the Northern Pontic area. Correspondingly, the ways of arrival and methods of manufacture of gold articles in the Forest -steppe /Northern Caucasus in Archaic time and in the steppe in the 6th-4th centuries BCE - differed.  So referring to the objects found on the hillforts of the Scythian (time (!) Ukrainian Forest -steppe as Scythian, it should be understood that we are talking about the opposite of the Scythian way of life (sedentary life) and economy.

Also, for example, the reference to Terenozhkin and Terenozhkin 1983 (Illinska and Terenozhkin, 1983, p. 62, p. 67 -page 4) on the craftsmen kept by the Scythian kings is not correct - in this generalized work there is no study on this subject, but there are other studies which treat this topic otherwise on the extensive material (Galanina, Kissel’, Minasyan et al.) Similarly, it is strange to see reference to the same generalizing work of Illinska and Terenozhkin, 1983, p. 161, pp. 188-189 - on the hillfort Kamenskoye, taking into account that there is a special study devoted to the hillfort Kamenskoye (Gavriluk 2013).

The list of remarks could be continued, but what has been said is more than enough.

The study does not reach the required quality standard of art journal. I would recommend the rejection of a manuscript.

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

This is a valuable, well-researched contribution to an important and under-studied topic. A great deal of evidence is condensed into a fairly concise paper, and the results are certainly compelling.

My main suggestion concerns organization and clarity, especially on pp. 3-6. This section does not seem to set up the discussions which follow (and they are quite clear). Nowhere are the categories of material (e.g. Instruments found in Scythia, Punches, etc.) mentioned, making for an abrupt transition. Nor is it entirely clear why the author discusses the material he/she does on these pages, since, by the author's own admission, the attributions to Scythians are somewhat subjective. I would suggest thinking more clearly about how this section can set up those that follow. Also, 'instruments' seems to be misleading here; I suggest 'tools' instead.

I am confused about the comment on casting on p. 3. Does this mean that Scythian gold objects were cast? If so, that would be an important technical distinction. But the topic is not returned to elsewhere in the paper so its relevance is unclear.

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

I think that the study would be even better if the author turned to the materials of the Scythian time from Siberia and Central Asia. The article briefly mentions the finds in Pazyryk, but there are also studies related to gold deposits, the study of toreutics. There are similar conclusions, although the arguments in this article are stronger.

Author Response

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