In the lower reaches of the Ob, in the region of the mouth of the Kazym River, a treasure with unique objects, analogues of which are unknown, was discovered, and archaeologists found their prototypes only several times only in female burials of the 5th-3rd centuries. BC. in Altai, Upper Ob and Southern Urals. The Kazym treasure contained several round cast bronze discs, very similar to the reverse side of the gilded mirrors-rattles that were produced in the 6th-3rd centuries. BC. in India and supplied to the modern territories of the South Urals, Altai and the south of the Novosibirsk region.
The mirrors were completely round and consisted of two parts - the back (embossed) and the front - smooth, found to be mirror-like. Between themselves these bronze discs were connected by seven neat rivets, and inside the master placed pieces of tin or lead, which rattled pleasantly. In Siberia, Altai, Ural, only 6 rattle mirrors were found. In India itself and in other countries - so far not a single one. The cult nature of these rare items is evidenced by a number of facts - they were found only in female burials, their location (at the head with the face to the ground), and finally, the fact that during robbery in ancient times these mirrors were never taken, they were not even touched. Apparently, they terrified the ancient robbers. Probably, such mirrors belonged only to the servants of the cult - priestesses.
The first rattle mirror was found in the Pazyryk barrow in Altai by the famous scientist Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1947 and is now in the Hermitage. The nature of the images and the way they are located does not allow scientists to doubt that these things were produced in India or Bactria and had a purely cult character. From there in the V-III centuries. BC. they fell to the nomads of the Altai Mountains, the Upper Ob and the Southern Urals. And from the end of the III and II century. BC, in a similar way, solid-cast, so-called Sarmatian mirrors, which were made in India and in Asia Minor, came to the north, to the hunters of the middle and lower Ob. Studies have shown that the “gilding” of rattle mirrors was done by the craftsmen without the use of gold. A bright golden shine was achieved by a special grinding technology.
Scenes on the back of the rattling mirrors depicted priestesses with a raised hand, surrounded by lotuses and cult animals - the good Indian elephant, fallow deer or antelope. The center of the disc was invariably decorated with a hollow cone - the top of the World. Around the central ledge, skilled craftsmen forged convex hollow hexagonal rolls separating different worlds from each other. Rattle mirrors could be an attribute of the priestesses who served the cult of the World Mountain located in the North, and the mirrors themselves were a volumetric model of the country of the blessed (Hyperboreans), located around the World Mountain behind the impregnable ring of the Ripean Mountains - the outer ridge.
The ornament was located symmetrically between the rollers, but without complete similarity. All images were decorated with solar signs - symbols of the sun, which meant that all participants in the scene belonged to celestials. Many of the above techniques were borrowed in the manufacture of discs that were found in the found treasure. However, they are already made in the traditions of another culture, previously unknown and not yet described in the scientific literature.
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“The disks practically copy the back of the rattling mirrors, but they do not have any traces of rivets, holes, loops or hooks,” said Pyotr Shulga, a senior researcher at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography. - Disks with a cone, like rattling mirrors, could be interpreted in the Indo-Iranian environment as a scheme of the universe, similar to a three-dimensional Buddhist mandala. The nomads of Altai and the Southern Urals in the 5th-3rd centuries. BC e. the culture was different, but beliefs persisted. Two rough holes in the disks were punched later: apparently, the ancient northern hunters, who did not have such ideas about the universe, used these disks in a more utilitarian way: as belt plaques.
Despite the external identity with the back of the rattling mirrors, the found bronze discs, in contrast to their prototypes, turned out to be cast, not forged, and the pattern on them was engraved, not minted. This, according to the scientist, suggests that other masters produced them at a slightly later time. The very nature of the images has also changed. On the disks of the Kazym hoard, the pattern is not applied symmetrically, but in a circle. One of them, for example, depicts mating scenes of mythical horned horses with forked tails. First, the battle of stallions for the mare, then the reunion of the couple at the flower-altar and, finally, the final scene of love between two stallions and mares. On another disc, mythical horses resemble the heads of birds of prey, and on the third - waterfowl. The artistic style in which these images are performed is not described in the literature.
- These discs could have been produced since the middle of the 3rd century. BC e. in the Central Asian handicraft centers that copied Indian mirrors, rattles, but in their own tradition, - believes Peter Shulga. - And in the II-I centuries. BC e. The peculiar relief of discs with cones and rollers was already perceived by the culture of the population of the Lower Ob and then for several centuries it was reproduced on various plaques and buckles. This is evidenced by the rest of the discs of the same Kazym hoard - they are practically without ornamentation, repeating only the original shape of their prototypes, but with a bias in the Siberian style - instead of a chain of solar signs along the edge, you can see an ordinary rim, as if from beads. Round bronze belt plaques with bear heads from the 1st century BC. BC. to III-V century. AD were widespread in the northern territories and are described in detail in the scientific literature. However, after studies of the Kazym treasure, the thought arises that the borrowed Indian culture in this way has transformed and put down local roots.
Summarizing the unique find, the scientist emphasized that the disks from the Kazym treasure make it possible to trace the amazing vitality of the three-dimensional scheme of the Aryan universe: with a central cone surrounded by rollers and mythical scenes. It seems that the cult of the world mountain in the V-III centuries. BC e. was distributed over a vast territory from India to the Altai Mountains, the Upper Ob and the South Urals. But in the III century. BC e. throughout this territory, a global change of cultures takes place and the image of the World Mountain embedded in the rattling mirrors, surrounded by a ring ridge, completely disappears.
“Significant changes are taking place in India and Western Asia after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the formation of Hellenic states in the space up to India and the north of Afghanistan,” explains Peter Shulga. - By the beginning of the 3rd century. BC e. rattle mirrors stop producing. But in completely different workshops, perhaps in the Hellenic environment, they begin to copy them in accordance with other traditions, making completely non-functional discs. Finding them in the Kazym treasure shows that, like mirrors, these discs were also in demand over a vast territory, apparently including the forest-steppe of Western Siberia, where by the 3rd century. BC e. the Sargat culture is formed. However, no such discs have been found in the area or copies thereof. It is all the more surprising that a rich set of them was found in a single place near the Arctic Circle.
