Pages: 203-211

The paper publishes some new and summarizes earlier known evidences demonstrating the presence of the Sarmatians in the North Black Sea Region and Crimea in the 3^rd cent. B. C. The new evidence includes: the Attic black lacquer plate from the excavations on acropolis of Panticapaeum with a spell against the Sarmatians cast as late as the end of the 4^th cent. B.C.; some traces of abandoning — under Scythian pressure — of the military settlement in the rearward area of Uzunlar Wall and, in similar conditions, of the elite manors of Bondarenkovo Vostochnoie and Manitra on the border of the current city of Kerch; the discovery of Sarmatian kurgans of the 4^th cent. B.C. on the Mid Don. The earlier evidence includes: accounts about Sarmatian attacks on the Chersonesos territory in the decrees of Chersonesos ΙOSPE I2 343 & 353; an image of a Sarmatian — cataphractarian on the Nymphaeum fresco at the end of the first quarter of the 3^rd cent. B.C.; finds of Bosporan coins and hoards with these coins in Khoresm and Dzungaria in the stratum of the 2^nd half of the 3^rd cent. B.C.; the fact that the chorae of all of the Hellenic polises in the North Black Sea Region and Crimea were constricted in the 1^st—2^nd quarters of the 3^rd B.C. All of these evidences prove that the military and political situation in the North Black Sea steppes had changed at the end of 225—230s B.C. due to the Sarmatian raids. They oppressed the Scythians who, in their turn, oppressed the Greeks.

Keywords: North Black Sea Region, Bosporus, Crimea, Mid Don region, 4th—3rd cc. BC, Sarmatians, Scythians, Hellenes, graffiti, inscriptions, kurgans, attack, invasion

Information about author:

Fedor Shelov-Kovedyaev (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences
E-mail: [email protected]