“New” Scythian Complex of the 3rd Century BC on the Right Bank of the Lower Dniester Region
Abstract
The article deals with the new attribution of the materials from barrow 20, excavated in 1975 near Semenovka village on the right bank of the Dniester liman, Belgorod-Dnesterovsky district, Odessa region, Ukraine. The only burial of this barrow was still considered as the monument of Babino culture (aka Multi-Cordoned Ware culture) of the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. The ceramic and metal artifacts found under the barrow were considered during the study of the material culture of the Scythians of the last third of the 1st millennium BC. The thorough analysis of the stratigraphy, planigraphy, funeral rite and artifacts showed that barrow 20 near Semenovka village was built instantaneously, and in fact it is Scythian. A cenotaph was the main complex of the barrow. It came with not only the armament items (iron-socketed arrowheads, spearheads and sockets of spears), horse harness (bronze frontlet with axe-shaped blade and a hook, bronze ringed beads, iron bits and iron snaffle ring, iron round pendants), glass cup, remains of the funeral feast as a ceramic breakage (Rhodes, Sinop, Cos, Cnidus amphorae, two pottery jars and molded vessel), but also with the burial of a dependent person lying crouched on his left side, his head in the eastern sector, in the catacomb. Depth of the fixing of these findings corresponded to the level of the ancient horizon on which the two-sided mainland ejected from the burial construction. Based on the Rhodes amphora marked with the eponym Άγήσιππος of - manufacturer - Έπίγονος 1, the barrow dates back to the last third or last quarter of the 3rd century BC.
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