СОПРОВОЖДАЮЩИЕ ЗАХОРОНЕНИЯ КОНЕЙ ВО ВХОДНЫХ ЯМАХ КАТАКОМБ И ПОДБОЕВ СТЕПНОЙ СКИФИИ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ V – IV ВВ. ДО Н.Э.

Abstract

The paper analyzes a total of 43 Scythian burials of the Northern Black Sea region dating back to late 5th - 3rd quarter of the 4th centuries BC with an accompanying burial of a horse or horses in the entrance pits of the catacombs and undercuts, or their replacements in the form of a horse bridle in the same areas, with due account of the anthropological defi nitions and dating of the complexes. It has been established that the accompanying burials of horses in the entrance pits of the Scythian catacombs at barrows and burial grounds are a reliable indicator of male burials, and in the case of burials in a catacomb with two entrance pits, additional male burials. In contrast to the accompanying horse burials in separate pits, which became widespread in Scythia during the 5th century BC, (and widely spread since the mid-5th century BC), the rite of burying horses in the entrance pits only appeared at the end of the 5th century. BC and was relatively widespread in the 2-3rd quarters of the 4th century BC. For this time period, such burials have mainly been discovered in the Lower Dnieper region and are only partially spread in the Dnieper-Danube interfl uve. For the 3rd-2nd centuries BC such burials have mainly been discovered in the Lower Dniester region and in signifi cantly smaller numbers in the Crimea, whereas there are no such burials in the Lower Dnieper region. Later, this tradition only preserved in the Late Scythian culture of the Crimea in the period from the 2nd – 1st centuries BC until the 3rd-4th centuries AD. They become especially widespread and diverse in the 1st-4th centuries AD.