VASYNSKYI BARROW OF THE MIDDLE SKYTHIAN AGE

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study from the excavation of the barrow of middle Scythian time in Vasyne (Znamensky district, Kirovograd region). Barrow was located in the upper reaches of the river Beshka, the right tributary of the Ingulets in its upstream. The main Scythian burial was committed on the surface of the ancient horizon. A complex wooden burial structure constructed of oak was partially burnt, but well preserved. In the center of the entire burial facility was a ground-based square ten-column wooden tomb (5.5 Ч 5.5 m) with a flat ceiling, around which a «pyramid» was built of horizontal layers of raw tree trunks, logs and logs, preserved to a height of 0.9—1,4 m. «Pyramid» at the level of the ancient horizon was surrounded by thin (5—7 cm) wooden flooring. The overall diameter of the wooden structure reached 19 m.
 The southern sector of the «pyramid» was covered with a layer of clay. The nature of the firing of the wooden masonry, the good preservation of the wood, some structural details of the «pyramid» itself, the presence of a clay pavement with products indicate the use of burning technology without access to air. The mound enclosed the annular ditch with two bridges in the western and eastern sectors.
 The burial was accompanied by numerous remnants of the treasure in the form of fragments of ancient amphoras, including plump-throated Chios, thin-walled antique black-figureed kilik, fragments of stucco vessels, and animal bones. In the filling of the tomb, remains of funeral gifts that fell after the destruction of the floor were found: fragments of wooden trays or stretchers, fastened with iron and bronze brackets with sacrificial food; the ruined bones of the horse, next to which was found a handful of mummified millet grains.
 The burial itself was completely robbed. The skeleton of the buried and funeral inventory were absent. At the bottom of the tomb, only the skeleton of a servant with a bone piercing and a bronze tip of a basic type arrow lost by robbers were found.
 Undoubtedly, the most interesting find was a stone anthropomorphic stele of gray granite, 2.65 m high, which depicts a standing warrior with a set of weapons, a rhyton and two hryvnia.
 According to the totality of finds in the mound and images on the stele, it is possible to attribute the time of its construction to the turn of the 6th—5th centuries. BC. The scale of the wooden burial structure, the ditch around the mound, the find of a granite stele, the remains of a treyne and sacrifices indicate that a representative of the Scythian military aristocracy was buried here.