3rd Century BC Research Articles

Комплекс конской узды из меотского погребения на правобережье Кубани

The paper presents an overview of a unique Maeotian horse bridle assemblage from the cemetery of Starokorsunskaya settlement No. 2 located on the right bank of the Kuban river. The horse was buried lying with its abdomen in a ventral position, its legs folded up underneath its abdomen, its face turned east-north-east. The eastern part of the burial construction was damaged and collapsed into the storage reservoir. It is possible that the person‘s burial who was accompanied by the horse, also disintegrated. Two iron socketed arrowheads dating back to the 6th – 3rd centuries BC were found between the horse ribs. In the horse’s teeth there were two-piece iron bits with rigid check-devices; more than six sets of iron single-gnawed bits lay next to the horse. Two-piece iron bits were equipped with rigid check-devices in the form of short crosses, the ends of which were forged into blades with sharp small teeth (variant B). The check-devices of this variant were recorded in the Maeotian culture of the second quarter – middle 4th century BC, and possibly existed throughout the first half of the next century. However, the latest assemblages with such check-devices from the sites on the right bank of the Kuban river dating back precisely to the beginning – the first quarter of the 3rd century BC according to the amphorae containers. A group of single-gnawed bits consisted of six sets with cheek-pieces of different types. The bits themselves (except for one set) are pseudo-twisted, with a movable ring at one end and a cheek-piece at the other. Cheek-pieces with an 8-shaped widening in the middle are of two different types. Three pairs of bits are equipped with a pseudo-twisted rod-shaped cheek-pieces, the other three blade cheek-pieces with conical and moon-shaped pendants. Cheeks of these types do not yet have close analogies either in the Maeotian or in the Scythian culture, and the singlegnawed bits were never found anywhere before. According to cross-shaped rigid check-devices on two-piece bits, the chronology of the burial is limited to the second quarter of the 4th – beginning of the 3rd century BC. The set of single-gnawed bits was most likely intended for training young horses on the lane. The presence of six sets of such bits in the burial probably indicates that a horse-breaker was buried there.

Martial's hawk and Iberian falconry. An exception in the ancient world

It has been generally acknowledged that falconry was unknown in Antiquity until it was imported in the 5th century AD by Germanic tribes into the lands of the Roman Empire. However, this theory contrasts with a 1st century AD epigram by Martial that depicts a hawk kept in captivity that regrets hunting for a fowler, a concept that can be perfectly understood as falconry. Due to a lack of knowledge of Iberian iconography and the absence of other early sources that attest to the existence of hawking in Antiquity, historians of hunting have interpreted Martial's epigram in diverse ways to avoid accepting that the poet was familiar with falconry. However, a careful look at Iberian figurative arts between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC reveals that Iberians depicted scenes perfectly coherent with falconry. Furthermore, some of these images were created in the region around Bilbilis where Martial was born, grew up and retired. Thus, we can conclude that it is highly likely that Martial was describing falconry in his epigram due to his knowledge of the sport in his native Hispania. Iberians seem to have practiced falconry since at least the 3rd century BC. This constituted an exception in the ancient world, since there is no evidence to prove that falconry was known in Middle Eastern, Greek or Roman civilizations.

ANCIENT COIN FROM TARASOVA HORA SETTLEMENT NEAR ZHABOTIN

Тhe paper is devoted to the first find of ancient coin on the territory of the Tarasova Hora settlement near Zhabotin village of the Cherkasy district. It is the coin of Olbia city — the obol «borisphen». It was minted in 300—280 BC. Such coin was already found in a complex of things from the Early Iron Age of the 5th—4th centuries BC. That is the evidence of existence here of some sight of this period. The Finding of such coins proves the presence of cultural and trade-economic relations of the local indigenous population with the ci­ties of North-Western Pontic region and Olbia in particular.
 On the reverse of the coin the inscription of OLBIO is visible as well as the images of gorytos and axe. On Avers you can disassemble the fuzzy image of the hair curl. The coin is rectangulare, with dimensions of 1.8 × 1.4 cm. Mass 2.36 gr. The surface is covered with green oxide and has traces of scales from staying in the fire. Thus, since the coin has no difference it can be dated to the 300—280 BC.
 Such coins are not rare, and their findings are known in the large territory from the Crimea to the Middle Dnieper. Also two similar coins were accidentally found in this region on the banks of Tyasmin River near the Raygorod village of Cherkasy district. These are the bronze coins minted by Olbia in 300—280 BC, however, according to numismatics opinion, were in circulation until 230 BC, during the first half of the 3rd century BC. These coins, called by the researchers «Borisphens», depicting on the avers of the bearded Scythian deity of the Dnieper River (Borisphenes), were the only bronze coins produced in the Northern Pontic region and have got a wide spread outside Olbia, practically impossible for coins of non-cost metals.

MEDICAL SCIENCE LANGUAGES ACROSS HUMAN HISTORY

The Edwin Smith Papyrus is written in ancient Egyptian language around 1,600 BC. The earliest foundations of Ayurveda medicine is written in Sanskrit dating from about 600 BC. The foundational text of Chinese medicine is the Huangdi neijing, (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), written 5th century to 3rd century BC. The oldest written sources of western medicine are the Hippocratic writings from the 5th and 4th centuries BC written in Greek. During the Middle Ages (800–1,500 AD), Arabic was the language of medicine in most parts of the world. Scholars from different parts of the world were gathered in ‘Bait ul Hikma’ at Baghdad. They translated scientific works from Greek, Syriac, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit into Arabic. After Renaissance (14th AD), in Europe, both Greek and Arabic works were translated into Latin. Latin supplanted Greek as the preeminent medical language and remained so until the early 1800s. Then followed the era of the national medical languages. Since the 1950s, English has been the principal language of the medical profession. The global language of medicine in the 21st century is English. Pak J Physiol 2022;18(1):1?2

Non-Ferrous Metal Products of the Monument Serny Klyuch in the Mountains of the Middle Urals

The paper presents the results of the study of non-ferrous metal products that were found at the hillfort Serny Klyuch with an area of about 1000 m2, located on the top of a high (20–25 m) limestone cliff near Nyazepetrovsk town in the upper reaches of the Ufa River. The hillfort contains materials from the last five millennia. In 1989–1993 archaeologists of the Ural State University uncovered half of the monument with the remains of fortifications, metallurgical furnaces, production sites, industrial and residential premises. Items made from non-ferrous metal were found here as well as wastes of its production (55 specimens). These findings relate to a small camp of metallurgists of the late 3 – early 2 millennium BC of the South Ural Abashevo culture, a non-fortified settlement and a powerful fortified metallurgical center of the 6th/5th – 3rd centuries BC of the aboriginal Itkul’ culture and the ancient fortified settlement of the 8–12 centuries, which belonged to the bearers of the local Petrogrom culture. Spectral analysis of the metal of 34 items, carried out in the laboratory of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, showed that tools, weapons and jewelry were cast from “metallurgically” pure and “contaminated” copper (29 pieces) and bronze (5 pieces).

From Cyprus, or to Cyprus? A pilot study with osmium isotopy and siderophile trace elements to reconstruct the origin of corroded iron billets from the Kyrenia shipwreck

Iron billets found in the Kyrenia Ship off the north coast of Cyprus, which is dated to the late 4th/early 3rd centuries BC, have been examined in order to get information about the quality and the possible origin of the iron. Most of the material had been converted to corrosion products and could only be analyzed for osmium isotopy, but the remaining iron core of one billet has been investigated for microstructure by metallography, for trace elements by LA-ICP-MS and osmium isotopes by NTIMS. Some iron ores and an iron chisel found in Cyprus have been analyzed for comparison. According to the results of this work, the billet consists of a roughly consolidated bloom that do not match Cypriote ores, which suggests that the ship was on her way to Cyprus.

Studies on archaeological olive fruitstones from the Archaic and Punic periods (7th–3rd century bc) of Sardinia, Italy

Recent archaeological investigations in the lagunas di Santa Giusta and Mistras, waterlogged sites in central-west Sardinia, Italy, have enabled the recovery of archaeobotanical remains, exceptional in terms of quantity and preservation, dated to the Archaic and Punic periods in the 7th–3rd century bc. Among the finds was a significant amount of Olea europaea fruitstones (endocarps), which are discussed here. The morphometric features of these fruitstones, extrapolated by image analysis, were analysed statistically and compared to modern wild olive populations and cultivars. Thanks to the image analysis, it was possible to recognize the presence of O. europaea var. sylvestris (wild olive) and O. europaea var. europaea (cultivated olive) from the Archaic and Punic periods and to make suggestions about their use. Moreover, most of the cultivated type fruitstones identified by the statistical analysis can be attributed to a group of modern Sardinian cultivars, providing new data on the origin of cultivation and use of olives in Sardinia.

“Macedonian Amphoras” at Kale, Krševica Site – Another Evidence about Chronology of the Iron Age Settlement and Connections with the Hellenistic World

Archaeological finds discovered in the course of the investigations at the site Kale near Krševica village confirmed the exceptional importance of that site. Large scale excavations conducted at the site from 2001 to 2018 revealed the remains of the settlement dating from the 4th – 3rd centuries BC. Settlement with the acropolis was at the dominant position in the vicinity of Južna Morava. From there it was easy to reach Macedonia and the Aegean via the passages along the Vardar river valley. Many discovered artifacts including metal objects, fragments of Greek painted pottery, large quantity of amphoras, which mainly originate from the vineyard regions around the towns of Thasos and Mende confirm the intensive relations between Krševica and the southeast Europe. For this occasion we selected from the various amphora types only few specimens, which differ from the older ones and are characterized by disk foot, ovoid or baggy body with rounded or angular shoulder, long, thin neck, flaring or projecting rim with sharp ridge well below, strap handles from shoulder to ridge. They are also known as “Macedonian amphora” type and they are related to the Hellenistic period. From the same period dates the remains of the large vaulted structure below the acropolis. Settlement at Krševica had been also known to the Celts. Many pits with large quantity of the Celtic finds were found at the acropolis. The material dates from the 2nd–1st centuries BC, from the time of clashes between the Celts and the Romans after the fall of Macedonia.

Cultural Diffusion in the Architecture of the Ancient World (on the Example of the Cult of Isis in the 3rd Century BC – 2nd Century AD)

The practice of borrowing and mixing architectural forms and meanings from different cultural environments dates back to the architecture of the ancient world and is still relevant today. Therefore, discovering its origins, mechanisms and causes of development is an important subject in the theory and history of architecture. The purpose of the study is to introduce the concept of cultural diffusion, as a methodological technique for mixing architectural forms from different artistic environments, which contributes to the development of qualitatively new solutions that form new architectural styles and synthesise new meanings. It is also vital to substantiate the phenomena of cultural diffusion as the first and necessary stage of subsequent processes of development of architectural meaning and shape – the stage of conscious and reasonable choice of an architectural prototype for a new design. The main material for the study is objects related to the cult of Isis – one of the most common religious cults in the architecture of the ancient world, which belonged to the Greco-Roman civilisation. In terms of methodology, the study is based on the analysis and systematisation of papers on architectural objects associated with the cult of Isis, and the results of visual observations (description and comparative analysis). Using the example of architectural objects associated with the cult of Isis, the study demonstrates that in the architecture of the ancient world, various methodological approaches were developed in architectural form-making: both autonomous processes in different cultures and mixed, which involved the capabilities and means of various cultural environments, opening unlimited prospects for the development of architectural form and meaning. Scientific originality is the interpretation of the process of cultural diffusion as an important methodological prerequisite for a new architectural form and meaning development. This determines the practical importance of the study, since the phenomenon of cultural diffusion, as a methodological technique for the architect's work, is still relevant today

On the crossing: russian mongolian archaeologist Vitaly Volkov (rememberence-cum-article)

The research activity of Vitaly Volkov (1933–2000) was unusual in the sense that all of it took place outside the USSR, in Mongolia. His contributions to the Mongolian archaeology were also unique: a typology of the steles with stylized images of deer (most of them are located on the territory of Mongolia and more than 400 were discovered and described by Volkov); the excavations of the Scythian burial ground of the 5th – 3rd centuries BC near to Ulangom; the discovery of the first Aeneolithic burial sites in Mongolia; the primary fixation and interpretation of petroglyphs in the canyon of the river Chuluut dating back to the third – the end of the second millennium BC, with many previously unseen rock carvings. Volkov’s life experience is no less valuable than his scientific legacy. From the age of eight, he was brought up in the family of his stepfather Bazaryn Shirendyb, an outstanding Mongolian historian and public figure, the first president of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and a man of remarkable personal qualities. Such a culturally syncretic school of personal formation taught Volkov not to measure the social environment of another culture with the usual standards, but to live in it. He was a rare type of person who, not caring about status distance, at the same time arouses deep respect. And knowing Mongolia as none of the foreigners who visited it, he never looked at Mongolian culture and the people who shared it from the position of an “elder brother”.

Предметный комплекс одежды в погребальной обрядности населения Верхнего Приобья эпохи раннего железа

The article characterizes the clothing assemblage in the burial rituals of the Early Iron Age population of the Upper Ob River region. The work draws from the materials found on the Bolsherechenskaya sites of the 8th (7th) — 3rd (2nd) centuries BC. Using this archaeological material, the author examines the event-driven sacralized actions with items of clothing at the stage preceding the burial, and directly during its implementation. The complex of these actions is subdivided into actions associated with symbolic damage to things; actions associated with a change in the symbolic status of things and actions that mark the high symbolic status of things. The clothing assemblage, revealed during the study of the burial, is differentiated into truly aesthetic and symbolically significant things. Whole things, as a rule, related to objects of art, are found in characteristic places of their lifetime use. Things with a symbolic status changed during the funerary rite are recorded in an unusual topographic context. Event sacralization can be viewed as an adaptive strategy for integrating things and ideas into the funerary practice of a multicultural community, consisting of certain ethno-territorial groups “with a consanguineous or neighboring type of community”.

Новые данные по результатам исследования погребально-поминального комплекса Цаган-Хушун-II «а» на побережье оз. Байкал

Funeral and memorial complexes are the objects consisting of human burials and memorial structures or ritual masonry, under which there may be objects that have some symbolic meaning for the people who built them. One of such objects on the Baikal coast is the site of the Iron Age Tsagan Khushun-II in the Priolkhonye. Until now, it was considered an object with one type of funeral rite — the Elginsky, which existed on the territory of the Baikal region from the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD. Those buried in the grave pits were laid crouched, on their sides, with their heads oriented to the southeast. However, the excavations carried out in recent years have revealed an earlier type of burial — Butukheysky. For the Butukheysky burial rite, the position of the person buried in the grave pit is elongated, on his back, with his head oriented to the southeast. Radiocarbon dates were obtained from the bones of those buried from two Butukheysky burials discovered in the southern part of the burial ground. The age of burial No. 23 corresponds to the erd — beginning of the 2nd centuries BC, the age of burial No. 31 — II — beginning of the 1st centuries BC. Thus, the Butukheysky and Elginsky burial traditions have existed together for more than two centuries. Their representatives buried their dead in the same burial grounds.

Реконструкция женского головного убора из кургана пазырыкской культуры могильника Чинета II (Алтай)

The article presents a reconstruction of a female headdress-wig, which was discovered during the study of mound №34 of the Chineta II burial ground, located in the Krasnoshchekovsky district of the Altai Territory. The peculiarities of the funeral rite and inventory from mound №34 of the Chineta-II burial ground have numerous analogies among the artifacts found during the study of the mounds of the Pazyryk culture. The barrow is dated to the second half of the 4th–3rd centuries BC. The presence of socially diagnosing items of accompanying inventory (a headdress-wig, a bronze hryvnia lined with gold foil), as well as the features of the funeral rite (the accompanying burial of a horse), emphasize the higher social status of the woman buried in mound № 34 of the Chineta II burial ground. The closest analogy to the headdress from barrow № 34 of the Chineta II burial ground is women’s headdresses from barrow № 15 of the Khankarinsky burial ground and barrow № 1 of the Ak-Alakha-3 burial ground.

The Seleukids and Elam in the 2nd c. BC.

The history of the Elymais is one of the poorly illuminated pages in the history of the Hellenistic Iran. This land was inherited by Alexander the Great from the Achaemenids, c. 311 BC it came under the rule of Seleukos I and remained the part of the Seleukid state until the middle 2nd century BC when Kamnaskires I, “the King of Elam” according to Babylonian cuneiform texts, founded the independent Kingdom of Elymais. However, the prehistory of these events is not well known. Our sources for the 3rd century BC do not provide any reliable data on separatist tendencies in the area. The events of 187 BC associated with the expedition of Antiochos III to Elam should be considered as the first known evidence of such hostilities. The death of Antiochos during the campaign is often presented as the result of his attempt to rob the local sanctuary, but it should not be interpreted simply as spontaneous reaction of angry natives. Rather it was a deliberate refusal to raise funds from the temple treasury according to royal request. The ensuing military campaign ended in defeat. In 184, Babylonian sources record the appearance of an “Elamite enemy” in the area of Susa. The next Seleukid military activity in Elymais, also associated with an unsuccessful attempt of Antiochos IV to rob the temple of Nanaya, falls on 164 BC. This evidence demonstrates the gradual strengthening of local autonomy, which led to the creation in ca. 147/145 BC an independent state of Elymais.

Sophytes’ Helmet: Origin, Symbolism, and Apotheosis

This study examines the development of the depiction of the helmet worn by the male head on the coinage of Sophytes and its implications for alternative theories of attribution of the coinage. This was an Attic military helmet of the 3rd century BC. It is presented in a numismatic depiction that evolved from the preceding portrayal of Athena’s helmet on the Series 2 imitative Athenian coinage struck under Andragoras of Parthia. Calibration of the changes in coin fabric and the details of the helmet depicted on the Series 2 coinage to identical developments in the Athenian coinage of the 3rd century BC serve to date its emission to the middle of the 3rd century BC. Detailed analysis reveals that the obverse iconography of the Sophytes’ coinage developed independently of the superficially similar obverse iconography of the victory issues of Seleukos I struck at Susa. Consequently, there is no basis for the frequently inferred chronological nexus between the two coinages. Furthermore, art history considerations suggest that Sophytes, via the ornamentation of his helmet, sought to assimilate his image with that of Ares, in a claim to divinity that can only have emerged in the mid-third century BC when Greek religious and cultural norms had evolved to accept the apotheosis of leaders. An examination of the imagery of the gold stater emission struck by Sophytes predecessor, Andragoras, identifies the precedent for Sophytes claim to divinity in a symbolic numismatic narrative that reflects the rising existential threat to the secessionist march state of Parthia posed by the invading Parni, led by Arsaces.

Some aspects of the authorship of the treatise “Xiao Jing”

The article deals with the authorship of the Confucian treatise Xiao Jing (“The Classic of Filial Piety”). Xiao Jing is one of the classical treatises that constitutes a part of the Confucian corpus Shisan Jing (“The Thirteen Classics”). This confirms the importance and high significance of this text for the traditional philosophical thought of China. The earliest mention of the title “Xiao Jing” was recorded in the work from the 3rd century BC, Lu shi chun qiu (“Spring and Autumn of Mr Liu”), which indicates the terminus ante quem non for the treatise Xiao Jing. According to some Russian scholars, the treatise Xiao Jing was compiled in the IV-II centuries BC. The Chinese scholarship acknowledges eight main versions of authorship, and therefore dating of Xiao Jing. The author stresses the importance to establish the authorship of the Xiao Jing treatise since this can be a piece of additional information for a comprehensive understanding of the philosophical heritage of the Confucian tradition of this text. After presenting an outline of the main versions of authorship of the Xiao Jing treatise, the author states that this issue can hardly be solved unambiguously. Therefore, this article can be considered as a preliminary essay for further research. The appendix offers a complete Russian translation of the Xiao Jing made by the author of the present article.

Euklidesowy traktat Podział kanonu i pitagorejska harmonika

The Euclidean ‘Division of the canon’ and Pythagorean harmonics: The article presents the first Polish translation of a short Ancient Greek treatise entitled The division of the canon, which is commonly dated to the 3rd century BC, with a doubtful assumption that the author of the treatise is Euclid himself. It is the oldest surviving text derived from the mathematical school of harmonics, which combined the mathematical theory of proportion with the musical laws of harmony. The main purpose of this Euclidean treatise is to describe the instrument called canon (or monochord), which consists in determining the successive notes of the Greek musical system by means of mathematical principles. The treatise essentially consists of two distinct parts: an introduction and twenty propositions in the style of Euclid’s Elements. To bring this highly esoteric text closer to the modern reader, the translation is preceded by a brief introduction, which deals with the basic issues of the transmission of the text, its structure, and the problem of authorship. The philosophical problems of the treatise and its basic concepts are also discussed. An underlying idea of both the introduction and the work on the translation is that The division of the canon is an eminently Pythagorean text, which both expressed and proved their conviction about the mathematical structure of the universe.

An oenochoe with Gnathia decoration in the National Museum of Transylvanian History

An oenochoe with Gnathia decoration, part of the collection of the National Museum of Transylvanian History is here published. Judging by its style, the vase is part of the Alexandria group. The vessels specific to this group are mainly produced in the workshops of Taranto, during the first half of the 3rd century BC. The vessel from the Cluj museum has characteristic ribbing arranged in two vertical registers, on the whole surface of the body and the decoration with stylised geometric and plant motifs, depicted on the neck and in the middle and upper area of the body.

Kurgan-Cemeteries of Central and Eastern Regions of North Caucasus 3rd Century BC – Early 2nd Century AD (Monuments Chegem-Manaskent Type)

The article is devoted to analysis of materials from kurgan-cemeteries of the foothill zone of Central and Eastern North Caucasus regions (from Kabardino-Balkaria to Caspian Dagestan) dating back to the 3rd century BC – early (first half) 2nd century AD. These sites were earlier referred to as the Chegem-Manaskent type. Main diagnostic features of these sites are similar traditions of the funeral rite and the ceramic complex. The formation of the Chegem-Manaskent cultural monuments includes the material culture, determined by traditions of the North Caucasian sedentary population, and the funeral rite based on customs of the nomadic population of the North Caucasian steppes of the early Sarmatian period. The original territory of Chegem-Manaskent culture of monuments formation was the area from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic to the western part of the Chechen Republic. The kurgan cemeteries of the Caspian Dagestan were the result of the migration of Chegem-Manaskent culture carriers in this direction. The cultural traditions of the population formed a specific basis of the early Alanian culture of the North Caucasus (2nd–4th AD); their genetic connection is witnessed by similar funeral rite (burial in type I catacombs) and in the ceramic complex. So, the monuments of the Chegem-Manasket type underlie the formation of the monuments of the Podkumok-Khumara type, with which they are connected by the use of a catacomb burial rite with the repeated use of chamber for new graves and a ceramic complex. In addition, the ceramic complex of monuments of the circle of the Andreiauli settlement largely goes back to the ceramic tradition of antiquities Chegem-Manasket circle, complicated by the morphological influences of the tradition of Caucasian Albania including the use of the transformed catacomb burial rite with multiple use of chamber graves and the ceramic complex.

Horse's hoof motif in the art of ancient nomads (genesis and symbolism)

Among the motives of the ancient nomads’s art, the horse’s hoof attracts special attention of specialists. The sign of hoof is reproduced in the form of a schematic image of a part of a leg (sometimes a pair of hind legs) or an abstract pattern of the hoof’s footprint. Several regional cultural and stylistic areas can be distinguished. The first area is located in the Sayano-Altai region and adjacent territories. The figurative element of the hoof here is presented mainly on ladles and less often on cheek-pieces, and the abstract element of the hoof’s footprint placed on petroglyphs and harness buckles. The second area includes the Dnieper region, the Kuban region, the Caucasus and Iran, where both depicted elements are placed on the cheek-pieces. The South Ural is considered as a buffer zone where European and Asian influences collided. The figurative element here adorns mainly the cheek-pieces, while the abstract element decorates the buckles. The Khakass-Minusinsk Hollow and Kazakhstan are special areas with specific sets of items. The hoof signs in petroglyphs were depicted from the end of the Bronze Age up to the ethnographic time. The hoof signs on items appeared in the second half of the 8th – first half of the 7th century BC. The earliest finds were found in Altai. Probably the Asian territories played the most important role in the development of the hoof’s motive. The disappearance of the horse hoof images from nomadic art occurred in the 3rd century BC. In the second half of the 7th century BC the motive penetrated the Middle East with the carriers of the ancient nomadic culture. The motive of the horse’s hoof transformed into an additional detail of the animal’s figure — a mouth or an ear. The horse hoof was associated with certain ideas among the ancient nomads. The image of a horse’s hoof in petroglyphs served as a pictogram, ethnic or social emblem. The motive depicted on the objects could also serve as a symbol of a certain group of people. Presumably, these were the royal Scythians, known by the «History» of Herodotus, — an association of nomads those played a significant part in the formation of the archaic Scythian culture.