Horses, Dragons, and Rituals: Three Vessels from Arad County
Horses, Dragons, and Rituals: Three Vessels from Arad County

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to discuss three vessels discovered in Arad County (in Pecica, Arad, and Moroda) that belong to the so-called Sarmatian Period and that are remarkable through their complex decorations, created through burnishing, incision, and perforation. The decorations are probably symbols of an imaginary and of a property system that were known starting with the first half of the first millennium BC among the several Iranians groups. Censers, vessels, and other ceramic items decorated with tamgas, sun symbols, or with horses and riders have analogies in the nomadic environment north and east of the Pontus. However, such items were apparently made in local intra-Carpathian workshops, according to ‘Eastern tastes’ and frequently deposited in female graves.

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