Introduction. In 2007 the archaeological expedition of the State Autonomic Cultural Facility of Rostov Region “The Don Heritage” excavated burial ground Krasny IV in Aksay district of Rostov Region. In the mound of barrow No. 13 a bronze rod-shaped frontlet plate with a hook, a bronze lunula-shaped harness pendant, six bronze bridle roundels, a bone cheek-piece, and iron fragments of the, most likely, bits have been discovered. Methods and materials. In the study the standard methods of archaeological analysis are used: comparative-typological, the method of analogies, chronological, and cartographic ones. The materials are the discovered artifacts. Analysis. According to the conditions of location and composition, the assemblage from barrow No. 13 can be identified as a ritual deposit. Such assemblages are known in special literature as “hoards”, “strange assemblages” or “votive hoards”. They have been found in mounds of barrows or in natural hills without traces of human burials. Usually they consist of cauldrons or situlae (often the rest items are put into them), bridle sets with peculiar frontlet plate with a hook, silver and bronze phalerae, helmets of Western types, weapons (most often spear- and arrowheads), expensive and socially prestigious items (silver and glassware, jewelry). The presence of all these items in the ritual deposit is not necessary. These sites are concentrated in geographically opposite regions: the basins of the Southern Bug, Dniester and Prut and in the east of European Sarmatia – in the AzovDonbass, Don and Kuban basins, the Lower Volga basin and North Caucasus. Results. Close parallels to the frontlet plate, bronze lunula-shaped pendant, and bridle roundels were found in the South Bug basin (Marievka), the Dniester and Prut interfluve (Brãviceni), Romania (Zimnicea), the North Caucasus (Prochnookopskaya, Geymanovsky, Giaginskaya), the Don and Volga interfluve (Kachalinskaya). All of these sites are identified as ritual deposits of the late 2nd – 1st centuries BC. The assemblage from barrow No. 13 should be dated to the same time. The ritual deposits of Eastern Europe could be divided into two chronologically different groups. The sites of the early group (3rd – early 2nd century BC) have appeared in the North Caucasus and concentrated in the North-Western Pontic region. It is assumed that they belong to the Хsaiai, Saudaratai and Thissamatai mentioned in the Olbian decree in honor of Protogenes. The sites of the late group (the late 2nd – 1st centuries BC) in the Northern Pontic Region, the Don basin, the North Caucasus and adjacent territories belong, most likely, to the Sarmatians.
The paper presents the ritual complex, which was found during the excavation of barrow 1 of the burial mound Restumov II on the left bank of the river Severskiy Donets in the Rostov region in 2001. The complex consisted of a bronze cauldron with the following items: bits, rod-shaped cheek-pieces with flattened endings, phalerae with remnants of golden plating, three-bladed iron arrowheads with long petioles, a circular buckle with movable latch, a fragment of a mirror, spoon-shaped pendants-tips of belts, a fragment of an iron sleeve with a bronze ring. The complex was located in the eastern part of the barrow at a depth of about 1.5 m. The ritual hoard of the burial mound Restumov II can be dated back to the 2nd-1st centuries BC. Threebladed arrowheads with long faceted stalks allow specifying the date of the complex to the first half-the mid 2nd century BC. The predominance of items peculiar of the Early Sarmatian culture of the Lower Don region in the complex allows the authors to suggest that the hoard was buried by Sarmatians. This can proved by the presence of spoonshaped pendants and arrows with long faceted petioles, which were used only by the Sarmatians in the Northern Black Sea region and neighboring regions and practically do not occur in any other ethno-cultural context. However, the absence of such complexes in the ancestral home of the Early Sarmatians, in the Southern Trans-Urals and the Ural region, indicates that the tradition of ritual hoards is not Sarmatian in origin. Probably, Sarmatians borrowed the custom of burial of ritual hoards of horse equipment and weapons from their neighboursthe Kuban meots, or from the cultures of Central Europe and the Northern Balkans.
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