I think it is fair to say that all those who enter here, must +rep. tone, for he has created most of the amazing models and skins you see here.
There are many things we owe the Sarmatians. They are reputed to have conceived one of the things we take for granted in horse riding today. Guess what that is...
The eastern Sarmatians, the Iazyges, sent 5.000 horse armed troops to defend England as heavy horsemen, soldiers of the Roman empire. One of the
Romans who served in England was from the Artorius gens.
The full metal clad troopers, would be called "dragons" according to some historians. Hence the "draco" banner they would carry into battle, shaped like a present day windsock found in Airfields.
They had legends of swords coming out of the ground and would honor a fallen warrior by either burying his sword with him or throwing the sword in the nearest body of water, be it a lake, a river or a ravine-even as this is more celtic in origin than anything else, see below.
Arthur's last name was "Pendragon". Cavalry troops of the 17th century would be called "dragoons".
More about
King Arthur
There has been found celtic medieval armor in S. scotland and N. England which bears remarkable similarities to known Sarmatian finds of what was Western Sarmatia and now is W. Ukraine.
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There have been many to claim and counter claim about who King Arthur was and what his relation to Artorius Castus would have been if one was at all.
What we know for a fact is that about 5500 Sarmatians were sent to N. Brittain by Marcus Aurelius around 175 CE to serve as socii. Something akin to later day "Limitaneii" or "Akritae" as they would be called later in Eastern Roman Empire. We also know that in 240 they are referred to as "Alae sarmatorum" or something in or around 240 CE. This means that they retained their Sarmatian identity even as they mingled with the local population and took local Celt women as wives. As explained earlier, if one could characterize them, the greatest characterization one could give them is Proto-knights. They would probably have taken their own horses with them, seeing that the Celt varieties of the time and place were rather small, more akin to ponies than anything else. If you would have 5500 heavily armed horsemen (at least some of them) in a foreign country, living off the land, how would you call them? Ptolemaioi and Seleucids would call them "Katoikoi" for residents, or "Klerouchoi" for cleruchs. In the medieval times, they would go by a different
name.
It stands to reason that the name "Artorius" would have been retained by some of them, as they would have named their male children after their leaders, especially those they would deem worthy of such praise. I believe all of them became Christians, as everyone else at that time, but they did retain some of their Sarmatian traditions. Some of those might have been in Constantine's army when he set off to become Roman Emperor. The majority who would remain in Brittain, would sooner or later become earls or barons even
Kings.
Then, later on as Romano-British became independent (and immediately started squabbling among themselves, leading to Ango-Saxons gaining power over them) who better than to lead an army than the descendants of those Sarmatians? Who better than the descendants of mounted heavy horsemen to become Knights themselves and form a "primus inter pares" arrangement known as the round table? Do we know for sure if some of the practices of these warriors aren't in fact due to the Sarmatian link? Would "Rise a Knight" be an initiation rite from them? We know that according to Xenophon, a Persian was required to ride well, shoot well with his bow and tell the truth. Isn't there a connection somewhere, especially if we take into account that Sarmatians were an Iranian people, as can be indicated by their living offspring, the Ossetians?
Some more info on their probable language,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytho-Sarmatian
There is no doubt that what we know of today is the legend that history sometimes becomes. I do believe however that what we now know is based on a real story that when repeated over and over, would become much greater in scope or depth than the original events and have some celtic admixtures thrown in (Celts would always throw weapons in lakes or rivers, see all the celtic finds in them). In the Arthurian legend, the lady of the lake would grab the sword that Arthur threw in which is a deffinite celtic element, if there ever was one.
I wish I could write more, but this is where my own contribution has to end. I do hope that the link of King Arthur and his knights is looked into more as well as the Sarmatian link researched further. I do believe there is a treasure trove there, waiting to be discovered. Maybe as exciting as the magnificent units Tone has created.
It is important to note, once again that this is history we are discussing here, and this has no bearing on any political situation of the present day.
Some Sarmatians settled in present day France, hence the name "Alan" or "Alain", which used to signify one Sarmatian (or Alan as they would be called sometimes)
Other Sarmatians who exist today, direct descendants of Iazyges, a Sarmatian subtribe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jassic_people
Here is how scientists have reconstructed how IndoEuropeans began...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis
Map of Indo European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000
BC according to the Kurgan model. The Anatolian migration (indicated with a dotted arrow) could have taken place either across the Caucasus or across the Balkans. The
magenta area corresponds to the assumed
Urheimat (
Samara culture,
Sredny Stog culture). The
red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC, and the
orange area by 1000 BC.
It is interesting to know that "Sarmatian" according to one linguistic reconstruction could mean "old ones" and if we judge by the map above, it certainly sounds that way, with Sarmatia being the hub from which almost all IndoEuropean expansion began.
Ossetian tombs, direct descendants of the Kurgans ALL IndoEuropean peoples used to build as far back as 2600 BCE or even earlier.