Археология евразийских степей (Feb 2022)
Gold Temporal Pendants with Openwork Beads as a Link Between Two Mound Burial Grounds of East Ciscaucasia (Lvovsky Pervyi-2; Palasa-Syrt)
Abstract
For the first time in historiography, the author involves into scientific discourse data on two pairs of unique art products – gold temporal pendants with beads of an openwork shape in order to address the problematic issues of ethnic-cultural processes in East Ciscaucasia in the era of the Great Peoples’ Migration. The peculiarity of these items is due to a number of factors: 1) their presence in the grave goods of the burial mounds of East Ciscaucasia of different regions: Lvovsky Pervyi-2 on the river Sulak and Palasa-Syrt on the river Rubas; 2) uniformity of design and identity of manufacturing technology; 3) lack of any analogues. The problematic issues concern the presence on the items of two different burial grounds of the same restoration work in terms of content and the peculiarity of sets, which include both a whole copy of pendants and a truncated version that has undergone restoration. The aim of the study is to identify the content of the restoration works and the significance of their features in order to establish links between the population of two regions. The design and technological methods of producing temporal pendants testify to the complete identity and high level of mastery of the craftsman. An analysis of the restoration work, on the other hand, has revealed a low quality of workmanship. The complete identity of two pairs of gold temporal pendants with traces of the same type of restoration work testifies to the fact that the population of the Sulak and Rubas regions of East Ciscaucasia lived there at the same time, and to the inconsistency of existing versions of the mass or partial resettlement of tribes that lived in the lower reaches of the river Sulak (Northern Dagestan), in the lower reaches of the river Rubas (Southern Dagestan) at the end of the 4th – first half of the 5th century.
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