Suchergebnisse

The changes triggered by the emergence of the Xiongnu state, which occupied a dominant position in Central Asia at the end of the 1st millennium BC, radically influenced the fate of the nomadic and settled agricultural world. By this time, the process of transformation of traditional institutions of Xiongnu society had been basically completed and a rather complex management system with an extensive hierarchical structure had been formed. The seals were one of the symbols of the new system. Being a confirmation of social status seals were in circulation by the Xiongnu society up to its complete degradation. More than forty years ago, a bronze seal of the Xiongnu was found during the archaeological excavations of the Duryony settlement in Trans-Baikal region. This find still remains unique. In the publications focused on it, the main attention was paid to the style and composition of the carved image, as well as issues related to the appearance of seals among the Xiongnu and the role assigned to them in public life. In this study, the seal from the Duryony settlement is considered in the context of the results of large-scale archaeological studies of the complexes of the Xiongnu elite, carried out in Mongolia and Trans-Baikal area in the early 2000s. The observations made allow us to argue that the seal could belong to one of the representatives of the clan nobility buried in the Tsaramskaya valley, who ruled remote territories on the northern borders of the Xiongnu state, or someone from their entourage.

The article continues the studies of the series of cult pendants and crafts from the Upper Paleolithic site of Malta, dated 23–19 kya. The article uses materials from the Malta collections of the State Hermitage Museum. The author considers rod-shaped crafts, buckles and pendants in the form of "eight" as a particular abstract form of Paleolithic art. Analyzing the art objects of Malta, the author classifies figurines and handicrafts as belonging to a stylized manner of depiction. Image stylization being one of the techniques of artistic abstraction is not an initial generalization and convention resulted from the peculiarities of our perception, but rather from a symbolic system of the mythological genre, revised and recorded by means of symbolic codes. A special role in symbolic symbols is given to ornamental elements those create separate structures of symbols and decorative compositions. Any selected ornamental elements (modules) in various combinations can carry different semantic loadings. In this respect it is important to analyze the use of ornamental patterns and their correlation with specific kinds of craft items and decorations. The author notes that the preservation of the material and traces of biogenic effects on objects during their staying in soil horizons (manganese dendrites, traces of plant roots an microorganisms) give a strong distortion of decorative elements.

This article deals with one manuscript in the archive of The State Hermitage museum. It is entitled "Catalogo della cospicua collezione de'Vasi antichi Italo-greci, de' vetri, delle terre cotte e de' bronzi di proprieta del Sig. Cav. Pizzati". The piece has been written ca 1833 by the outstanding Neapolitan antiquarian and connoisseur Raffaele Gargiulo. The author of present article considers the entries on the Corinthian and Italo-Corinthian vases. These texts give us an idea, how the pieces of this kind have been described and interpreted during the early period of its collecting and study.

The article summarizes the materials of an elite burial discovered in Tuva in 2022. Grave 9 was the first burial, which was be explored under the ground structure of the Chinge-Tey I mound. A chamber with a transverse ceiling and a wooden floor was preserved at a depth of more than 4 m. It was not touched by robbers. A clay layer was founded between the crushed logs. A young man was buried here in the funeral pose typical for the Aldy-Bel culture. Despite of the total destruction of all organic materials thanks for the location of the golden items, it was possible to trace the decor and size of the man's funeral suit and status items (pectoral, earring, and comb). The presence of a set of bronze arrowheads preserved part of the leather quiver, which were decorated with the gold overlays. There were found an iron weapon with golden appliqués and a whetstone in the burial. The most unexpected find was a completely preserved glass bowl. This object indicates some cultural relations with the distant western regions of the steppe belt and the centers of civilization. A preliminary analysis of the material allows us to date the grave to the middle of the 6th century BC — the time of transformation of the early Scythian Period traditions.

Rakushechny Yar site, located in the Lower Don basin, is a multilayered floodplain settlement with a series of buried soils, where Neolithic-Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultural layers have been investigated. Dates with a wide calibration interval for materials from excavation # 1 obtained from total organic content of ceramics, food crust, and charcoal previously demonstrated the length of the Early Neolithic period ranging from the mid 7th millennium BC to the end of the 6th millennium cal BC. The new data allowed us to significantly adjust chronology of the site. A new series of dating based on animal bones from the Early Neolithic layers concentrate within a narrow chronological interval of a few decades around 5600 cal BC. This suggests that burying of archaeological remains was very rapid, and sand interlayers which separated them do not form significant temporal hiatuses. The archaeological layers are distributed within restricted surfaces and correspond to different episodes of coastal zone inhabitation. The variation in the number, thickness and character of the archaeological layers points to repeated episodes of inhabitation during Early Neolithic. The time when the Early Neolithic strata might have been closed differs at various parts – from the 5th mill to the 4th millennium cal BC (based on OSL and AMS dates). The contradictions that existed between the individual dates can be explained either by the reservoir effect (for food crust dating) or by the correlation of the dating from different sections, where layers were not deposited at the same time. It is complicated to determine the rate of deposition of Early Neolithic cultural strata, which may have occurred in a single season or possibly over a longer period of time. The series of dates obtained indicate successive occupation of the site. The change in the pattern of coastal inhabitation from small-scale households' areas with shell paved platforms and pits to dwelling complexes with clay pavement floors and clay-covered walls/roofs occurred over a very short time. This may explain the homogenous nature of the Early Neolithic material culture and the production of a certain set of clay vessels, stone, bone industry, and shell tools.

It is the first full publication of the whole stock of finds from the ruins of the
Church of the Savior in Staraya Ladoga (N. E. Brandenburg, 1886—1887), rare in
composition and significance, which has been kept in the State Historical Museum for
more than a hundred years. The finds were discovered on the floor under the collapsed
arches in the central part of the temple, the construction of which dates back to the
middle of the 12 th — the first half of the 13 th century, the estimated time of
destruction is the 16th century. It included intact chandeliers and two candlesticks, as
well as jewelry. The latter, as it was possible to establish, were elements of the
precious decoration of the icon, which enhanced the sacred expressiveness of a
especially revered icon, but also of the architectural space of the temple. An analysis
of these materials showed that this ensemble of church decoration items was formed
mainly in the 13 th—14 th centuries and remained there until the time of the collapse of
the temple.