Employees of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science (SB RAS) came to the conclusion that the treasure found in the area of the Kazym River could belong to carriers of a previously unknown culture.
The Kazym treasure was found by amateur fisherman Andrei Cheremin in 2014. The find contained 25 unique items, including cast bronze discs with a relief surface. For three years archaeologists have restored and studied the objects in detail. According to scientists, the discs may represent the back side of Indian rattle mirrors that were supplied from India in the 6th-3rd centuries BC. For the first time such a mirror was discovered in 1947, and subsequently, following the results of excavations in the south of the Novosibirsk region and Altai, five more samples were added to it. All mirrors were located in female burials.
The rattling mirrors consisted of two parts - the back part and the found part. The first depicted priestesses surrounded by iconic Indian animals, and its center was decorated with a cone, probably symbolizing the top of the world. The plots were accompanied by solar signs, which may also indicate that the characters belong to higher beings. Similar techniques were used to create samples found in the Kazym estuary. At the same time, the latter differ from mirrors in design - cast, not forged - and in the way they are decorated: on Indian disks, the ornament was applied by chasing, on Kazym disks - by engraving.
The researchers suggest that such differences indicate the ascent of the find to a previously unknown archaeological culture. Their production can date back to the middle of the 3rd century BC: the craftsmen of the Central Asian craft centers copied Indian discs within their own tradition. Subsequently, in the II – I centuries BC, the specific relief of objects became simpler. So, from their surface, the ornament, rollers and a hollow cone in the center practically disappeared - the cultures of the population of the northern territories retained only their original form, replacing Indian motifs with the Scythian-Siberian animal style.
According to the author of the work, Peter Shulga, the new find also confirms the extraordinary vitality of the Indo-Iranian volumetric symbolism of the universe. Apparently, the cult of Mount Meru in the V-III centuries BC covered large territories from India to the South Urals. Then, as a result of the change of cultures, the mountain image disappeared. The changes are consistent with the formation of the Hellenic states, in which the production of non-functional copies of rattling mirrors could continue. Despite the absence of the found part, the discs, nevertheless, remained in demand, as evidenced by the content of the Kazym treasure.
The research is briefly reported on the website of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the SB RAS.
Denis Strigun