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THE BURIED TREASURES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE OF SOUTH SIBERIA

A. Borodovskiy

Abstract

The afore-mentioned buried cache is one of the most interesting and informative archaeological and historical sources. It contains the complex of articles intentionally hidden into the ground after the appointed process of its collecting. Investigation of such finds is one of the actual problems in the world and home archaeology. On the territory of South Siberia the buried treasures (or the so-called «caches») appeared as long ago as the Mesolithic Epoch. However, they contained complexes of various kinds of articles and were widespread in the Metals Epoch, especially in the period of the Early Iron Age. On the vast spaces, from the Middle Yenisey River to the Upper Ob River, quite a number of hidden treasures have been discovered. Among them –the Iyus and Kosogolsk caches, Znamensk, Novoobintsevsk, Burbinsk and a series ofthe other ones. It must be also noted that in burial places of the Early Iron Age of this region similar articles are found relatively seldom and at best in one or two specimens. Such similarity in complexes of articles of quite a number of caches of South Siberia is stipulated by a number of factors. Among the latter – epoch-making discoveries, social and cultural significance, as well as ritual symbolism of the articles which formed the collection of the examined cache. Some varieties of bronze-ware form a part of the Iyus cache. The other part of articles from the same collection (the cauldron, mirrors, upper and lower coverings), as well as from other analogous complexes applies to the so-called «Tagar bronzes». In the first half of the Ist millennium B.C., in the Middle Yenisey Valley, within the limits of existence of the Tagar Culture, the powerful bronze-casting centre was formed. Of high quality Tagar bronzes (cauldrons, knives, daggers, pendants, mirrors) in the Early Iron Age were widely spread all over the territory of Siberia, including the northern taiga areas. However, in the main, concentration of such bronze articles was the greatest one only in the basin of the Chulym River and that was the consequence of existence here in antiquity of the natural exchange of commodities way which bound different territories from the Middle Yenisey to the Upper Ob River. But considerable number of metallic articles of the Iyus cache is represented by the Hun artistic bronzes. Judging by the results of spectral analysis of the Kosogolsk cache, this ware was made of local raw on the base of copying the original Hun specimens. For this reason carrying out analyses of chemical composition of metal of the Iyus cache is a special and extremely important theme of the independent researches. In connection with this one ought to pay attention to the silver article in collection of the Iyus cache. It is a semi-spherical silver plate. Such articles were current till the IInd century B.C.–the Ist century A.D.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2014/b31/s9.052

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