Folia archeologica 53.

István Vida: Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Hungary, Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Vol. III. Moesia Inferior, Supplement 1, Nicopolis ad Istrum

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.T. YABLONSKY Fig. 10. Vessel and bronze lamp from grave 5, in situ 10. ábra. Ezüst és aranylemezzel fedett kettős facsésze és bronz mécses az 5. sírban, in situ Archaeological study of Sarmatians was started relatively recently, only at the beginning of the 20

t

h century. M.I. Rostovtsev, an outstanding Russian historian, became the first (1918) who identified a group of archaeological sites (barrow cemeteries) of the South Ural with historical Sarmatians. Contrary to ancient authors, Rostovtsev did not connect the origin of Sarmatians with Herodotus' Sauromatae. B.N. Grakov, the founder of the Soviet Sarmatian research was on different opinion. Already in 1947 he had separated four consequent stadia of the development of the Sarmatian culture and marked the earliest phase as Sauromatian.

9 K.F. Smirnov (1964), a leading Soviet sarmatologist represented a similar opinion, that was reflected in the title of his basic work. However, even today there are several supporters of M.I. Rostovtsev's opinion. Here we have to take into consideration the ideas of such specialists as E.A. Grantovskij and D.S. Raevskij, who solved this question on the basis of ethnonimic materials

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0 and concluded that ethnic names „Sauromatians" and „Sarmatians" are of different origin. Despite of different points of view on the question of Sarmatian ethnogenesis, all the specialists-archaeologists agree that Sarmatian proto-homeland, the origin of their long centuries old culture was in the South Ural steppes and forest steppe of the Eastern Ural. This is the territory where the earliest cemeteries of Sarmatian type come from. Among such sites we must classify the barrows of Filippovka dated by A.H. Pshenichniuk, the pioneer of their scientific research, not later than the S GRAKOV 1947. GRANTOVSKIJ, RAEVSKIJ 1984.