The technique of gold inlaid decoration in the 5th-4th centuries BC: silver and iron finds from the early Sarmatian barrows of Filippovka, Southern Urals

Abstract

The present paper addresses silver and iron objects (iron sword awl, silver quiver hooks, and an iron knife with a silver handle) decorated with inlaid gold strips and plates. The artefacts were excavated recently in the barrows near the village of Filippovka, in the Southern Urals, and were dated to the 5th-4th centuries BC. Typological and stylistic analyses are complemented with the study of technological features of the objects. Analysis under the Analytical Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), carried out during the restoration of the objects, revealed the specific features of Urals gold. Most of the objects analysed represent local forms of the early Sarmatian culture. This technique of gold inlaid decoration was spread by the nomads of the Eurasian steppes from the Altai Mountains in the east to Central Kazakhstan and the Southern Urals in the west during a period between the 7th and the 4th centuries BC; furthermore, the technique is also attested in Achaemenid metalwork. A unique silver black patinated handle of a knife, shaped in the form of a stag, was inspired by the ‘Achaemenid international style’, but the peculiarities of style and the inlaid technique do not exclude the possibility that it could have been manufactured in a provincial Achaemenid workshop for a Sarmatian customer.