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From the Editors of the Series
This volume ushers in a new series of
monographs devoted to the publication of Scythian and
Sarmatian burial-mounds. It is impossible to over-estimate
the importance of these sites: they constitute our main
source of information regarding the history and culture
of the ancient nomads of the Eurasian steppes. Mikhail
Rostovtsev in his day was already referring to the need
to bring out a Corpus of these sites. Since then, a good
deal of work has already been carried out: a considerable
range of books has been published devoted to the publication
of both the famous élite burial-mounds (Solokha, Chertomlyk,
Tolstaya Mogila, the Kelermes burial-mounds et al.) and
also the more modest burial-mound necropoleis for the
common population. Yet the number of excavated burial-mounds
of the Scythians and Sarmatians is constantly growing,
thanks to the intensive excavations currently being undertaken
in the Ukraine and southern Russia. Despite the slower
pace of this research in the last decades stemming from
the sharp drop in financial support, the investigation
of burial-mounds is still going on and yielding new interesting
results. The publication of such results, however, all
too often fails to keep up with the excavations themselves:
many important sites have languished unpublished for decades
or are only being published in part in the form of short
reports in the academic literature or even in exhibition
catalogues, in which attention is focused only on the
most eye-catching ‘museum’ objects. Even some of the most
famous ‘royal’ burial-mounds excavated as long ago as
the 19th or early-20th century (the Aleksandropol, Oguz
and Kozel burial-mounds) have not been published in full,
not to mention the numerous, no less important (although
sometimes less sensational) sites, which have been excavated
in recent decades.
We hope, that this new series will go at least some way
towards rectifying the situation outlined above. It will
include new publications of Scythian and Sarmatian burial-mounds
regardless of when they were excavated. The term “Corpus”
indicates the endeavour to bring within the framework
of this series the largest possible number of publications
of burial-mound sites executed in keeping with requirements
common to the series as a whole. These are first and foremost
the comprehensive nature of each publication (which must
include all available information on the site to be published)
and its high academic standards. The series cannot, of
course, claim to become a “Corpus” in the full sense of
the word, i.e. to publish all the burial-mounds. It will
not, for instance, include burial-mounds, which have already
been published thoroughly and to a sufficiently high academic
standard (for example, the above-mentioned Kelermes burial-grounds
or Chertomlyk) or those which are due to be published
in the future outside the confines of this series.
Insofar as the aims of this new series coincide to a considerable
degree with those of the series Steppenvölker Eurasiens,
which we started bringing out in 1997, we have decided
to publish this Corpus of Scythian and Sarmatian Burial-mounds
as a sub-section of the former series. As before, the
original series will continue to publish works outside
the framework of the Corpus, for instance publications
not connected with burial-mounds or books which are not
publications of a specific site (burial-mound or group
of burial-mounds).
This bringing together of Scythian and Sarmatian burial-mounds
in a series would naturally not have been possible without
collaboration between specialists from a variety of countries
and academic institutions. In order to co-ordinate their
efforts, a consultative committee for the series is being
organized, made up of representatives of various countries
and academic institutions, where research is being carried
out in the field of Scythian and Sarmatian archaeology.
The archaeology of the East European steppes, which for
a long time was the monopoly of the former Soviet Union,
has increasingly begun to attract the attention of Western
scholars. Yet the achievements of Russian-speaking academics,
including those which are of interest to scholars representing
related disciplines (such as Classical Archaeology and
the Archaeology of the Near East) are to date only rarely
accessible for their Western colleagues because of the
language barrier. For this reason the books in this new
series will be published in two versions — one in Russian
and one in a West-European language — for the most part
English, but possibly in German or French.
The increasingly international character of research into
Eurasian archaeology is reflected in the broader range
of publishers bringing out the “Corpus”. The German Archaeological
Institute and the Centre for the Comparative Study of
Ancient Civilizations, Russian Academy of Sciences — former
publishers of the series Steppenvölker Eurasiens — are
now joined by the Institute for Research into the Ancient
World and the Middle Ages «Ausonius» in Bordeaux. Furthermore,
the whole project is developing under the aegis of the
International Union of Academies, which underlines its
international character still more strongly. We hope that
this series, which begins with the publication of one
of the most important sites of the earliest period in
the evolution of Scythian culture, will develop successfully
and become a convenient and familiar tool for specialists
working in the sphere of Ancient History and Archaeology,
not only in the Eurasian steppes, but also in the regions
adjoining them.
A. Ivantchik, H. Parzinger
Volumes of the series
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