Jewelry, Accessories, and Decorative Elements of Women’s Funeral Costume of the First Half of the 6th Century BCE in the Territory of Forest-Steppe Scythia

Abstract

Among the antiquities of the archaic period of Forest-Steppe Scythia, a group of elite burials of women, possibly endowed with priestly functions during their lifetime, stands out. Until recently, only two unrobbed burial complexes were known to contain the main burials of women of high social rank, in whose graves golden costume elements were found—primarily expressive details of headdresses. The barrows (kurgans) were discovered at the end of the 19th century when amateur excavations were actively carried out on the right bank of the Dnipro. As a result of research conducted by the author at the Skorobir necropolis (in the area of the Bilsk fortified settlement, on the left bank of the Dnipro), two similar graves were recently discovered, which provided new material that significantly expanded the known geographical distribution of this phenomenon. The materials are closely analogous to the previously discovered elite female burials of the Middle Dnipro (barrow 100 near the village of Syniavka, barrow 35 near the village of Bobrytsa) and allow us to highlight a number of stable elements of the funeral costume of noble women and the sets of objects that complemented them. In this article, we consider the social and cultural significance of female attire in elite burials and delimit the chronological framework of this previously understudied phenomenon within the first half of the 6th century BCE. The new finds offer unprecedented insight into the form and meaning of one type of female headdress which researchers have tried to reconstruct for over a century.

Keywords

• North Black Sea area
• Forest-Steppe Scythia
• right and left tributaries of the Dnipro River
• Skorobir necropolis
• women’s elite burials
• elements of funeral costume and accessories