Modes and ways of cultural interaction of the nomads of Asian Sarmatia. imported objects in Sarmatian contexts dating from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Friederike Fless
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology ; Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 268468965

The German-Russian project in frames of the Agreement between the DFG and RGNF headed by M. Treister and B.A. Raev has the aim to present systematically the imported objects as part of the burial contexts from the Asian Sarmatia. The ancient term Asian Sarmatia includes a territory from the estuary of the Don River to the Urals and the steppes of West Kazakhstan. In the period from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD the nomads living in this territory, who were called Sarmatians by the ancient authors, had contacts with the late Hellenistic Kingdoms, with Imperium Romanum, with the Bosporan Kingdom in the North Black Sea area, and also with the Parthian Empire, the Central Asia and China of the Han-Dynasty. The finds from more than 160 burial complexes, which include the objects of various provenances, building an important part of the material culture of the Sarmatians, allow this conclusion. However, the aim of the present study is not only to investigate these artefacts chronologically, chorologically and to find out their origin as well to identify the means of their selection and use, as well as the creation of their imitations. The project is rather focused on the analysis of the origin of objects from the standpoint of the forms and ways of interaction of the nomads of the Asian Sarmatia with the above mentioned neighboring states as well as along the Silk Road and the Fur-Route. Trade and gifts together with plunder in wartime are proven to belong to the forms and ways of appropriation of foreign objects. The changes in these processes in space and time will be traced through systematic mapping of the distribution of these items and the possible correlations with historical changes reported by the written sources will be proved. The peculiarity of the approach of this project is that it will not, as was usually the case, concentrate on one material type, one region of the investigated territory or one area of origin of the objects, such as the Roman Empire. The point is to reconstruct the complex networks of interaction of the Sarmatian groups. This task cannot be solved by the two scholars alone, but only with an international team, bringing the expertise of natural sciences, history and archaeology in the project with the results summing in a two-volume monograph, both in Russian and in German version. Basing on the extensive preparatory works by M. Treister and B.A. Raev the objects should be first of all documented on the modern scholar level in a catalogue including the thorough archive study of their contexts, and afterwards analyzed and discussed by the group of specialists for the different materials and regions. For this purpose it is also planned to discuss and at the same time to make first public the results of these analyses in frames of an international workshop which will thus promote the scientific exchange in the current tense situation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Russia
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Boris Raev