The Ritual Hoard from Barrow 1 of the Burial Mound Restumov II in the Rostov Region

Abstract

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.