Barrow 5 of the «Sluiceway» group on the left bank of the Lower Dniester and Scythian cenotaphs of the North-West Black Sea Region

Abstract

The paper publishes and analyzes the Scythian barrow 5 of the Sluiceway group of barrows located near Glinoe village, Slobodzeya District, on the left bank of the Lower Dniester. The mound was erected at the turn of the 4th-3rd centuries BC and contained eight Scythian funeral structures, three of which were cenotaphs. Only 14 such symbolic graves are known in the North-West Black Sea region. In addition to the three graves published in the present work, there is Balabany 6/1, Semyonovka 20, Kochkovatoe 48/4, Volovarskata Mogila 1 and 2, Glinoe 40/1, Glinoe/Sluiceway 6/3, 6/4, 8/1 and 8/4, Glinoe/Garden 7/3. They were made in the second half of the 4th-2nd centuries BC. A significant number of childrens cenotaphs (8), allows us to assume that they were all made by settled Scythians. The use of some of the complexes (4 cases) as cenotaphs can be impugned. At the same time, there are no doubts about the existence of real cenotaphs (under-barrow complexes, with or without funeral structures) intended for symbolic internment of people (10 cases), whose bodies could not be betrayed to earth for any reasons.