Archaeological evidence and the text of the Strategikon show that it was only in the late sixth century AD that the Roman-Byzantine military adopted the stirrup. It is now widely argued that the Avars, who settled in the Carpathian basin in the sixth century, played a key role in introducing iron stirrups to the Roman-Byzantine world. However, the evidence to support this assertion is limited. Although hundreds of stirrups have been found in Avar graves in the Carpathian basin, very few stirrups of sixth- or seventh-century date are known from the Roman-Byzantine empire - no more than seven - and only two of these are of definitively Avar type. The text of the Strategikon, sometimes argued to support this Avar source, can be interpreted differently, as indeed can the archaeological evidence. While the debate about the Roman-Byzantine adoption of the stirrup has focused mostly on finds from the Balkans, two early stirrups are known from Asia Minor, from Pergamon and Sardis. This paper presents a third, previously unpublished stirrup, from a seventh-century deposit at Aphrodisias in Caria; this is the first stirrup found in Asia Minor from a datable context. Here we present this find and its context, and use it to reconsider the model of solely Avar stirrup transmission that has dominated scholarship to date. So varied are the early stirrups that multiple sources of influence, Avar and other, and even a degree of experimentation, seem more likely to underpin the Roman-Byzantine adoption of this technology.

中文翻译：

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罗马拜占庭再次采用马镫：七世纪春药的新发现

考古证据和文本策略表明只有在公元六世纪后期，罗马-拜占庭军队才采用马镫。现在人们普遍认为，六世纪定居在喀尔巴阡盆地的阿瓦尔人在将铁马镫引入罗马-拜占庭世界方面发挥了关键作用。然而，支持这一说法的证据有限。尽管在喀尔巴阡盆地的阿瓦尔坟墓中发现了数百个马镫，但罗马-拜占庭帝国已知的六世纪或七世纪的马镫却很少——不超过七个——其中只有两个是明确的阿瓦尔类型. 的文本战略，有时争论支持这个 Avar 来源，可以有不同的解释，考古证据也确实如此。虽然关于罗马 - 拜占庭采用马镫的争论主要集中在巴尔干半岛的发现上，但在小亚细亚，佩加蒙和萨迪斯发现了两个早期的马镫。本文介绍了第三个以前未发表的马镫，来自卡里亚的春药的 7 世纪矿床；这是在可数据背景下在小亚细亚发现的第一个马镫。在这里，我们介绍了这一发现及其背景，并用它来重新考虑迄今为止主导学术研究的仅 Avar 马镫传动模型。早期的马镫如此多样，以至于多种影响来源，Avar 和其他，甚至是一定程度的实验，似乎更有可能支持罗马-拜占庭对这项技术的采用。