НОВЫЕ НАХОДКИ С ИЗОБРАЖЕНИЕМ МЕДВЕДЯ ИЗ КИПЧАКОВСКОГО АРХЕОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО КОМПЛЕКСА (ЛЕСОСТЕПНОЕ ПРЕДУРАЛЬЕ)

Abstract

The Kipchakovo archaeological site complex encompasses several monuments located in the northwestern part of the Republic of Bashkortostan. It is believed to be one of the earliest archaeological centers of the Pyany Bor cul-ture. Therefore, the artifacts discovered on its territory serve as valuable illustrative material reflecting the process of emergence and formation of the Pyany Bor cultural traditions. One of those is the tradition of using bear images in the folk costume. Thearticle analyzes two recent finds of metal garment elements with bear images from the Kip-chakovo settlement and the Kipchakovo burial ground. The first artifact –a bronze onlay with protomes of two bears –wasfound by chance on the territory of the Kipchakovo settlement. The second one –a bronze buckle with the full-figured image of a bear –comes from one closed assemblage of the Kipchakovo burial ground. The onlay has close parallels with some antiquities of the Kara-Abyz culture dated to the 3dand 2ndcenturies BC, while the buckle looks similar to a number of finds, which make up the Pyany Bor and Kara-Abyz archaeological assemblages at the turn of the eras. The authors statethat bear images depicted on both finds represent the same line of animal art development in the aforementioned cultures and belong to a large group of bear images that could be further divided into two sub-groups (early and late) based on some typological variations. An intermediate stage between these subgroups is rep-resented by a belt hook with the image of three bears from the Kipchakovo burial ground. The early type of bear im-ages was formed in the Kara-Abyz culture during the 3dand 2ndcenturies BC under the influence of the Scythian-Sarmatian animal style. The late type started to appear at the turn of the eras and became widespread in the Pyany Bor culture. However, it was genetically linked with the early one. The authors also emphasize the exceptional role of the Shipovo and Kipchakovo archaeological site complexes in the described processes of the bear images trans-formations