Sarmatian Cavalry

[bachmat66]

Salve,

Here are a few other books on the subject, most dealing with pre-Sarmatian as well. Several give the "big picture" background, particularly where the culture came from and how it flourished across the steppes:

Brzezinki & Mielczarek, The Sarmatians
Jettmar, Art of the Steppes
Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
Kelekna, The Horse in Human History
Aruz, Alekseev, et al, The Golden Deer of Eurasia

also the old guys:
Herodotus
Amianus Marcellinus
Tacitus

Books devoted to Sarmatians and Alans/Massagetae are too few, and I doubt the trend will change until the public (and students) realize that ealry steppe cultures gave us more relevant and lasting traditions than the Romans did.

well,
actually only Russian book by Simonenko and Mielczarek's one are relevant here to the question of swords (Golden Deer does not deal with swords in depth). There are other books in Russian that treat this subject in depth - and plenty of those - Simonenko is quite recent, that is why I gave this title.
Kalekna book is not a good one - she devotes 5 pages to the Sarmatians , better is Sidnell book, there is a bit more there if I remember correctly (but just to compare with Kalekna, not for the mertis of both etc)
But Steppe Nomads of the Bronze and Iron age is very relevant, Prehistory of Silk Road and Sulimirski's The Sarmatians are very relevant, Ilkka Syvännes book The Age of Hippotaxotai (he has recently published a very interesting article on Goths in Desperta Fero) . Perhaps this book: König Chlodwig war kein Franke: Frankreichs und Deutschlands sarmatische Wurzeln by Reinhard Schmoeckel might be relevant to the issue of influence of steppe People on the European history and civilization,
Friend of mine, avid historical ridding fan, ecuyer, and Napoleonic recenactor wrote a very intersting article on Sarmatian horsemanship and use of kontos, challenging the older Simonenko article, however his article has not been published yet.
this article by S. M. Perevalov - The Sarmatian Lance and the Sarmatian Horse-Riding Posture is very interesting (Russian version accessible on the net)
Writings by M. Rostovtzeff are still very interesting, both on the Scythians and Sarmatians. also this article on Oralt plaques could be http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/mode.html
some other articles http://www.pontos.dk/publications/books/...gradov.pdf
http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/12746846
this one is on the Bosporan kingdom and their military http://iimk.nw.ru/rus/download/goroncharovskii.pdf
http://www.xlegio.ru/ancient-armies/mili...ies-issue/
also look at this page - swords if you scroll http://historicalchroniclesarenotforgott..._6873.html