Show here your Sarmatian warrior impression

[Alanus]

Personally, I do not like crossing boundaries without evidence of such appearing in two (or more) zones. The Orlat plaque I would certainly place in the eastern Central Asia sphere, although Orlat itself is just north of Samarqand. A loooooooooong distance from Europe. Occasionally, Chinese influences were found in Europe but I wouldn't assume it the norm.

When talking about combination scale and lamellar armour in Central Asia, they are often combined as a scale bib covering the chest, and lamellar abdomen armour with skirt - this is common in Sogdiana and Xinjiang, although at a much later date than what you are doing. Although, you may recall an armour in Simonenko's book which had a chest protector of very small scales and an abdomen guard of larger plates stitched to a leather backing? Similar to the Dura Europos armoured lancer.

What does Simonenko say about the second blurry illustration? I see lamellar, and lamellar-banded armour - typical of the early Turks in the 6th - 9th Centuries in the Altai region. The banded-lamellar armour covering his shoulders appears in Japan and Xinjiang, but does not appear further west in this period. I'm unsure if the banded rerebraces/spaulders of the Kushano-Sasanians and 4th-?5th Century Sasanians were laced or riveted.

As for the Orlat Battle Plaque - to me it quite clearly shows lamellar of the Niya variety (2nd -3rd Century) laced in a fashion almost identical to the charioteers on the Terracotta Army much earlier. Some of the riders may be wearing early varieties of Central Asian plate armour - similar to Arsacid, Sasanian, Korean, and most famously, Japanese "tanko" armours.

I suggest that "no island is an island." Things were not so geographically restricted as you might think. The Eastern influence on the area where the Sarmatians first emerge in Western history (northern Caspian-Pontic) is clearly there. That's why the Chinese dragon ended up on the Welsh national flag. It's why the Asian "dragon and pearl" was depicted on the Equites Taifali Iunior's shields. And it's why Type 1 Late Sarmatian swords had jade furnishings chipped from the mines of the Takla Makan. Almost any scholar knows Sarmatians originated in the EAST. Not just late Sarmatians, but all Sarmatians... including their weapons and armor. At Zubov and Filipovka, even Middle Sarmatian skulls displayed a 30% Asian admixture. The warriors depicted on the Orlat plaque were the same people that were buried in the Kuban peninsula. The plaque dates between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD, exactly when such items as "Hunnic" bows with long syahs, and the Chinese-styled two-handed swords start showing up in the Bosphorus.

About the fuzzy illustration in my above post, this is what Simonenko says, "[Lamellar] armour, very similar to the ones found in the Kuban river region [just east of the Crimea], came from the graves of the Sargatskaya culture (fig. 95), Hsing-nu, Kang-hu, and Xsiang-bei graves. They were also present among the armours' details of the settled neighbors in Bactria and China... Most likely, at that time there was a common model of the lamellar armour, with specific features for the different neighboring groups... Lamellar from the [north Pontic] Sarmatian graves constitute one more link of a chain connecting the origin of the Sarmatians with Inner Asia."

The Sargats were mentioned above by Simonenko, and perhaps earliest by Herodotus who called them the "Issedones." They controlled the Isset River region, a tributary of the Tobal, and were in all probability the developers of the socalled "Hunnic" bow. Their elite rode as cataphracts, and here is a reconstruction of their armor, again not very helpful:

[attachment=9791]Sargatskayaculturehorseman.jpg[/attachment]


I really don't care about the number of holes in each of my lamellar plates, because I'm not sending this armor back to a maker who's evidently no longer in business. I'll just wear it as is with a few modifications.

You mentioned that the last two images were "hardly representative of the western steppes." Of course they're not. The Roxolani, Aorsi, Sirices, and Alans-- aka, the Sarmatians-- came from the EASTERN steppes, "a loooong distance from Europe" as you phrased it. Nevertheless, the Eurasian steppe was a vast corridor, full of information, invention, and tactics, that moved west from the borders of China to France, Britain, and even North Africa.