Bronze Basin from the Kurgan No. 1 of the Group “Bogomol’nye Peski I” in the Lower Volga Region

Abstract

The article dwells on the find of the bronze basin in the burial no. 5 of the kurgan no. 1 of the group “Bogomol’nye peski I” near the village of Nikolskoye, Enotaevsky District, Astrakhan Region. A belt-set of gold with turquoise inlays found in the region of the pelvic bones of a 40–45-year-old warrior, an iron dagger in a wooden scabbard with round-shaped iron overlays covered with gold foil and with turquoise inlays, and other finds allowed the author of the excavations to attribute the burial to the 1st–2nd centuries AD. It is obvious that the buried warrior belonged to the nomadic elite. A bronze basin, standing almost vertically, was leaning against the northern side of the grave-pit at its bottom. The analysis has shown that the basin belongs to a rare variant, till now unknown in Sarmatia. The closest parallel of its edge with a rim bent outwards and decorated with a band of Ionian kymation is a basin from the prince’s burial in Hoby on the island of Lolland in Denmark, usually dated in the first half of the 1st century AD. The peculiarities of the rosette design at the bottom of the basin associate it with a Tassinari S2300 type basin from Pompeii and some bronze paterae of the Eggers 154 / Nuber D type (Hagenow), which also indicates a probable dating no later than the first half or the middle of the 1st century AD. The basin demonstrates clear signs of deliberate damage. Not only the foot-ring and handles were lost, but the body itself was punched in several places in the form of wedge-shaped holes from the blows of a knife or dagger (?), which are very close in shape to the holes on the silver phalerae and the bowl of the Parthian circle of the second half of the 2nd – first half of the 1st century BC from the Trans-Volga region.