Abzakovo hoard of the Bronze Age in the Bashkir Trans-Urals

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the results of the study of a hoard of bronze sickles discovered in 1970 in Bai-maksky District of Bashkortostan. Originally, it comprised 13 items, but as of today three of them have got lost, and the collection numbers to only 10 sickles reposited in the National Museum of the Republic of Bashkortostan. It stands out that the items are lacking clear traces of use. Over the past 50 years, materials of the complex have not received sufficient coverage in the scientific literature, despite the rarity of this category of finds for the South Urals region in general, and for the territory of Bashkortostan in particular. This paper constitutes the first publica-tion which combines and refines information about the hoard available in the scientific literature; it also provides a description of each item with updated and further detailed data on their parameters (length, width, thickness, bending height, etc.). In addition, the paper introduces in the scientific discourse photographic images of the bronze objects of the complex, which have been absent until now, instead of rather schematic drawings. Revisi-ting the materials of the hoard allowed it to observe that the data which was available in the literature had some inaccuracies, associated primarily with the parameters of the objects, the study of which helped clarify and extend the information on the description of the sickles remaining to date. The analysis of the material shows that the considered set of reaping tools has some analogies originating from the Bronze Age sites of the Trans-Urals, both from similar hoards and from settlements, cultural identity of which is determined quite clearly and is attributed by researchers to the Alakul antiquities. For this reason, the origins of the Abzakovo hoard are also associated with the representatives of traditions of the Alakul archaeological culture.