The article is devoted to the attribution of a bronze statuette of a naked man with a rounded object in a raised right hand, found in the Late Sarmatian female burial of Valovyy-I burial-ground, dating not earlier than the second half of...
moreThe article is devoted to the attribution of a bronze statuette of a naked man with a rounded object in a raised right hand, found in the Late Sarmatian female burial of Valovyy-I burial-ground, dating not
earlier than the second half of the 2nd century AD, in the vicinity of ancient Tanais in the Lower Don region. This is the only reliable case I know of a find of a bronze figurine in the burials of the early nomads of Eurasia, in which imported anthropomorphic figurines are extremely rare. The
analysis of the statuette has shown that, contrary to the opinion of the publishers, it has nothing to do with the items of bronze plastic of the Greek Hellenistic or Roman imperial circle. In the absence
of exact analogies, the greatest closeness to it is found by Italic figurines of the 5th — 3rd centuries BC. How the figurine in question could found its way into the Late Sarmatian burial on the Lower Don — a question that is not easy to give a definite answer. We can only point out that among the
various bronze and silver statuettes found in the sanctuary on the Gurzuf Pass in the mountainous Crimea, one is attributed by us as Italic and dates from the Hellenistic period. The handicraft repair of the figure from the Valovyy-I burial-ground, which is not characteristic for the Greco-Roman metalwork, gives reason to believe that it could exist in a nomadic milieu for a long time. An attempt is made to interpret the fact of a find not just imported, but very ancient at the time of burial (at least 500 years), object in a nomadic burial, to explain this phenomenon and to determine the function of the statuette by the nomads.
