About Women’s Clothing with Decorated Sleeves from the Filippovka I Kurgan Cemetery

Abstract

During the archaeological study of the Filippovka I kurgan cemetery, several burial complexes were revealed containing items related to women’s clothing. The article analyzes the burials where these items were found intact – burial 2 of kurgan 1 and burial 4 of kurgan 4. As a result of comparing the types of sewn-on elements and their positioning in the burial, a certain similarity between the complexes was found, so it’s possible to draw a conclusion about the general appearance of the female clothing from the kurgan cemetery. In addition to the gold stripes made in the animal style, fragments of beaded embroidery decorating the sleeves of one of the clothing elements were found in burial 2 of kurgan 1. Protomes of deer marching in a row were depicted using regular and small beads of different materials on the sleeves. The article contains a description of the best preserved figures. Also, the first explorer of the cemetery A. Kh. Pshenichnyuk discovered in kurgan 1 a cache with a large number of gold patches on clothes as well as other items made of precious metals. Typological and stylistic similarity with patches from the burials examined allowed the authors of the article to make an assumption about the similarity between clothing from the cache and the burials. Specific features of the early Sarmatian animal style appear in the gold patches of clothing and the lining of wooden bowls from the Filippovka I kurgan cemetery. This allows us to assume that the entire set of implements with the Philippian animal style was made by order and matching the taste of the early nomads.

Keywords

• animal style
• filippovka i kurgan cemetery
• clothing reconstruction
• southern urals
• early nomads
• gold stripes
• decorated sleeves