Бронзовый жезл-булава из первого Kараванского кургана раннескифской поры (Yкраинская левобережная лесостепь)
Bronze mace from the 1st Karavan barrow of early Scythian time (Ukrainian Left -Bank Forest-steppe)

Summary/Abstract: Almost three decades ago (1993), 2 burial mounds near the village of Karavan on the outskirts of the town of Lyubotin, Kharkiv region (Seversky Donetsk basin) were robbed, and subsequently to a certain extent investigated by archaeologists. Both of them belong to the era of the Scythian archaic. Among the funerary goods left after the robbery, the items of the West Asian appearance are of particular importance. Among them there is a mace with a bronze pommel from the 1st Karavan barrow, unique for the territory of Eastern Europe. Interest in this artifact does not fade up to this day. This product is usually connected to the items of Luristan production, although its Assyrian origin is not excluded. The article examines analogies to this product, including maces originating from the territory of Iran and their images on Assyrian reliefs, for example, in Northern Syria. The most similar, although not identical, maces are known in Eastern Kurdistan (modern northwestern Iran) – at the Hasanlu settlement, chronological horizon IV and the Dinkha-tepe burial ground, chronological horizon II. Unfortunately, they do not have a strait date and cannot be a reliable chrono-indicators. However, according to the accompanying finds, the 1st Karavan kurgan can be attributed to the second half of the 7th century BC. The presence of these imports in the Karavan barrows of the archaic era convincingly testifies to the participation of their owners in the Near Asian Scythian campaigns.

• Details
• Contents