Сюжеты боспорской монетной чеканки на золотых нашивных бляшках в курганах Северного Причерноморья

Abstract

Well-known is the fact that the images on ancient coins of different poleis must be identified as prototypes of those on golden plaques found in the North Pontic kourgans. For instance, it was Michael Rostovtzeff who believed Bosporan coin typology to be the source for various pictorial schemes of golden burial suit jewellery. Nowadays, it is a kind of an axiom, and according to opinio communis the chronology is strictly defined dating back to the last third of the 4th century BC. Still, locally the very process seems to have started much earlier. The earliest episode of the coin subject adapted to jewellery by a toreutic master dates back to the second quarter of the 5th century BC. Discovered in 1876 golden plaques shaped as lion heads from Nymphaion, find a parallel in Panticapaeum coinage (late 470s — early 450s BC). We trace the chronology of those types of golden plaques that replicate coin patterns. Plaques from the Semibratny Kourgan 6, with a female head represented on them (probable prototype might be found in certain coins from Nymphaion), plaques with satyr’s head (of Panticapaeum coinage); several types of griffin images, such as horned lion-headed griffin that finds its equivalent in the kourgan of Maly Oguz (last third of the 4th century), eagle-headed griffin, and eagle-headed hoofed griffin. The latter type has the only parallel in Panticapaeum silver obols, which are rather rare (ca. 330–327 BC), and thus one may suppose it was an emblem of some Scythian family of high birth, and it was the Panticapaeum mint who borrowed the symbol from barbarian neighbours, not vice versa. We suggest that, in this case, the whole thing must be considered as a vivid example of Greek and Scythian cultural interference. Along with the above-mentioned types, the seldom met Pegasus image is also under consideration, for example, circular plaques from the Bolshaya Bliznitsa kourgan might be compared to the Panticapaeum coins with Pegasus’ protome (327–319 BC).