Yay! Received a boxfull of information from Rowan of Sherwood about steppes peoples, who got it from someone who's a Laurel on the basis of their research on their Sarmatian persona. Who'da thunk you could get a Laurel for that, let alone that anyone else would ever want to be a Sarmatian?! ;)

Box is full of several books, several xeroxes of books, and about a foot-high pile of loose xeroxes. Fortunately these have numbers scribbled on them which indicate which book they're from. Unfortunately I don't have a master list and there are almost a hundred books they've culled from. Also unfortunately some are in the Cyrillic alphabet, some in one of the Asian languages, and some in French. Fortunately I recognize some of the books due to already having them. I'll sort them out eventually, and note it all down here.

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Books list

This will take a while, but no time like the present. First a list of the books I know of. I'll match books to numbers once I figure them out.

• The Sarmatians by T. Sulimirski

• The Sarmatians 600BC - AD450 by R. Brzezinski & M. Mielczarek (Osprey Publishing)

• The Scythians 700 - 300BC by Dr. E. V. Cernenko (Osprey Publishing)

• Mounted Archers of the Steppe 600BC - AD1300 by Antony Karasulas (Osprey Publishing)

• The Ancient Civilization of Southern Siberia: An Archaeological Adventure by Mikhail P. Gryaznov

• Art of the Steppes by Karl Jettmar

• Scythian Gold by Ellen D. Reeder (Walters Art Gallery / The San Antonio Museum of Art)

• The Land and Wildlife of Eurasia by François Bourlière & the Editors of LIFE (Life Nature Library)

• From the Lands of the Scythians: Ancient Treasures from the Museums of the U.S.S.R. 3000BC - 100BC by The Metropolitan Museum of Art / The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

• Frozen Tombs of Siberia: the Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen by Sergei I. Rudenko (translated, xerox)

• The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia: A Study in the Ecology of Belief by Esther Jacobson (from: Studies in the History of Religions vol. LV, xerox)

• The Scythians by Tamara Talbot Rice (from Ancient Peoples & Places, xerox)

• also have a xerox of Sulimirski's The Sarmatians if anyone wants it.

Xeroxed bits of books

Most of these are numbered for reference (as mentioned above) and are just a few pages; some are not. As I discover the titles I'll add them to the above list. Information will be seeded in to where it works best. Should I start a cross-linking database sometime for this?

Stuff on the steppes folk

title unknown by the pi Russian author

Cyrillic; author's name looks vaguely like the Greek symbol for pi, followed by "au(squiggle)m(with an overbar)reuka." One page of photos of decorated beads, and several pages of beautiful drawings of all elk patterned grave goods (pgs 197 - 203). Also two pages of text which I think give information on the little drawings. Ask Rimma's family for translation, maybe?

title unknown by Penusuozhgie (horrible approximation of Cyrillic alphabet)

Pretty sure this is Scythian (at least) stuff.

Photo of what looks like a curving wall pediment or bowl with a seated, veiled lady holding a small vessel. Tree on left, horse skull (?) on stick on right. Mounted bearded male rider approaches on right, holding a rhyton (?) aloft in greeting (?).

Pg. 42: a staff top for a big stick -- it spreads out into 4 branches with dangling chains and bells on the end of the chains. The branches and central spike have animals all over them.

Pg. 99: three little plaques of veiled, seated women with supplicants (?). All the plaques seem pretty small. Are two of the women holding mirrors? Goddesses, seers?

Pg. 117: open-work gold (?) decoration in half-oval shape, with band of more decorative work below. Was this sewn onto clothing? The half-oval could have been on the front of a hat perhaps? It shows a deer, a tree, a falcon near the ground, and a hunting rider with gorytus and brandishing a bow -- could be female. Lots of twisty ornate details.

title unknown by Rostov

Plate XXVIII: Wall paintings in two graves at Kerch: 1 - 11 C AD. Darned if the top wall painting (now destroyed, according to the text) doesn't look like riders returning to a ger, complete with gorytus hanging in a tree on the left, and a big throne-like chair (or something big framed by two uprights and a crossbar at the top) on the right of the ger!

Non-steppes

Possible titles are what I find on pages, and it's my guess they're really chapter titles, not book titles. Still, every bit of data helps in tracking the books down.

Tacitus - Annals (Penguin Classics)

A list of Roman emperors, some Eastern monarchs, key to place-names, and a map

title unknown by "Charriere"

Two xeroxes of single stone statues of women; one shows "pg. 184." Handwritten notes: "Petcheneg / stone - on mounds ... 12th C / N. Black Sea Coast" and the other: "stone - woman w/vessel / 10th C AD Volga steppe"

Possible title: The Later Roman Empire by A. Marcellinus

Xerox of a map of "The Danube, Italy, and Thrace," pgs. 502 - 503

Possible title: Romans on the Rhine by Mackendrick

Xeroxed page 108; photo of a very decorated woman's shoe found in Saalburg, from the 2nd C ADE?

Possible title: The finds from the pre-Hadrianic forts by (possible) Vindolanda

I'm pretty sure that's a chapter title. The xeroxes cover photos of shoe types, textiles, writing tablets, rings, pins, beads, and enameled bronze belt attachments found in Roman forts of the time. Pg. 125 shows a wooden bath-house shoe, which looks darned close to a nice Birkenstock flip-flop. ;)