Inscribed Ceremonial Dagger from a Princely Sarmatian Burial near the Village of Kosika in the Lower Volga Region

Abstract

Abstract The paper is devoted to the cross-guard of the fragmentary dagger found in 1984 in the princely nomad burial near the village of Kosika in the Lower Volga area, belonging to the type of ceremonial daggers which were widespread in Eurasia in the 1st century BC-1st century AD and which became one of the insignia of power as testified by the finds in the princely nomadic burials and depictions on the royal figures on the stelae from Commagene. The dated (year 238) dotted inscription preserved on the gold overlay of the cross-guard found by one of the authors in 2015 and completely cleaned from the iron oxides in 2017 contains an indication of the craftsmen and the weight of gold, confirmed by the eklogistes, which means estimated on the highest state level. The inscription allows us to suggest, with high degree of probability, that the dagger may have been manufactured either as a tax payment of the corporation to the state or rather was ordered by a king to serve as a gift to an equal person. Moreover, the analysis of the inscription suggests that the object could have been made in Asia Minor, perhaps in Commagene, in 74 BC (that means the date falls in the Seleucid era), rather than in 59 BC, because the existence of the eklogistes in the Pontic Kingdom has not been confirmed by any documents. This date corresponds well to the archaeological date of the burial in Kosika to the early third quarter of the 1st century BC and the already published hypothesis, that the deceased could have been a participant of the Asia Minor campaign of the Bosporan King Pharnakes in 49-47 BC.