Introduction

Women in ancient nomadic communities always had a specific set of everyday jewelry, which was an important part of the costume. However, it is not possible to reconstruct the full costume of a Hunno-Sarmatian woman on the territory of Gorny Altai due to the peculiarities of the funeral rite and certain natural and climatic conditions that do not contribute to the preservation of organic materials. As a rule, archaeologists deal with various neck ornaments, beads from clothing and headdresses, earrings and pendants, beads made of biconic, cylindrical, etc. beads, mainly paste (from vitreous mass), less often from carnelian, jasper and other semiprecious stones. As part of a woman's costume, sometimes there are various ceremonial, ritual neck ornaments, some of which can be attributed to the category of amulets and in this regard talk about their mythological basis. In 2005, the authors of this article found two pendants made of Egyptian faience during emergency rescue operations at the Kurayka burial ground; such pendants are currently the only ones for the territory of Gorny Altai.

Archaeological context of the find

The Kuraika burial site of the Hunno-Sarmatian period is located on the right bank of the drying Kuraika riverbed, 2 km northeast of the village of Kurai in the Kosh-Agach district of the Gorny Altai Republic (Fig. 1). In 1994, large-scale excavations were carried out on the territory of the monument, during which 19 diverse objects were investigated [Soenov, Ebel, 1998, pp. 113-135; Soenov, 2003, pp. 18, 89-93] (Fig. 2). Even then, the threatening condition of a number of mounds located on the high crumbling edge of the coastal terrace at the eastern end of the burial ground was noted (Fig. 3). In order to select wood for dendrochronological studies, the authors In 2001 and 2003, secondary excavations of almost all previously investigated objects containing wooden structures were carried out at the burial ground. When visiting the monument in 2005, it was found that three objects are in a dangerous state*, seven unexplored embankments collapsed. Only a small part of burials No. 34, 39 remained; at a depth of 1.5 m, human bones and several bones were visible from the slope in the edge of the cliff.

The work was supported by grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project No. 06-06-80389 " Calendar chronology of archaeological sites of the Altai Hunno-Sarmatian era based on dendrochronological and radiocarbon data (II century BC-V century AD)"), the program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Adaptation of peoples and cultures to changes in the natural environment, social and technological transformations", programs of the President of the Russian Federation to support leading scientific schools (project NS-6568.2006.6).

* The authors of this article have conducted emergency excavations of these sites, the results of which are being prepared for a separate publication.

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Figure 1. Location of the Kurayka Monument (indicated by a triangle).

2. Plan-scheme of the Kuraika burial ground (according to [Soenov, 2003, p. 89]).

it lay among the rocks of the scree below. During the clearing of the preserved part of object No. 39, human remains were found concentrated in one place: the bones of the skull, pelvis, arms, and ribs (Fig. 4). Apparently, the bones that fell under the cliff were collected by local residents, put back in the pit and slightly sprinkled. Under the bones in anatomical order were the cervical vertebrae and collarbones, next to them-two pendants. According to D. V. Pozdnyakov, the bones belong to a woman aged 45-55 years*.

Description of finds

Both blue-green pendants are made in the form of male genitalia (Fig. 5). The height of the products is 1.9 cm, the width is 1 cm. One side is modeled; on the reverse side, the suspensions are flat. Both products have lugs in the upper part for hanging. One pendant is deformed; the ornament is worn out, obviously, during long-term use.

Date, analogs

Phallic charms are unique not only for this burial ground, but also for the entire territory of Gorny Altai. The fact is that the products are made of Egyptian faience; similar to the Criminal Code-

* The authors thank D. V. Pozdnyakov for the anthropological definitions.

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3. View of the eastern part of the Kuraika burial ground from the south.

Rastenia are found mainly on the territory of the Northern Black Sea coast and the Kuban region in ancient monuments.

The name "Egyptian faience" is conditional. Items made of this material do not have a clay potsherd, which defines the category of earthenware. Initially, the base for glazingwas a soft and resistant to high temperatures mineral steatite, which is a hard type of talc. Steatite is pliable in processing, it is easily cut with a knife and even retains traces of nail pressure, its hardness is equal to one. The product cut out of steatite was covered with a glaze - the so-called slip-a crushed mixture of sodium silicate, calcium and some dye diluted in water. The product was coated with a slip before firing. When fired, the mixture melted, turning into a glassy mass, and spread over the surface. The glaze base was also prepared artificially from a mixture of fine quartz sand and soda carbonate. A lump of the prepared mass was pressed into a one-sided mold, after which the product was removed, refined, dried, and then fired, previously coated with glaze [Alekseeva, 1975, p.23, 25]. The composition of raw materials and firing conditions affected the

Fig. 4. View of the destroyed border N 39.

Fig. 5. Charms from border No. 39. Kuraik burial ground.

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the quality of the texture, so the color scheme of objects made of Egyptian faience is very diverse. In glassmaking, copper and iron oxide were used as a dye to produce turquoise and green colors, and cobalt-dark blue [Ibid.].

E. M. Alekseeva in her seminal work "Antique beads of the Northern Black Sea region" [1975] identified 98 types of Egyptian faience products. The pendants found in Gorny Altai belong to the 90th type [Ibid., p. 47, Tables 12, 12; category 3706: Tables 4, 01, 02]. The researcher took into account 29 similar products. However, to date, the range of such objects has expanded due to finds not only from the territory of the Northern Black Sea region [I tesori dei kurgani del Caucasus..., 1991, cat. 260], but also the Kuban region. You can find many analogs. It is important for us that in the Northern Black Sea region charms in the form of genitals were found in complexes of the late 1st century BC-2nd century AD; this form of amulets corresponds only to the Roman era [Ibid., p. 47]. According to the wood of burial decks, the Kurayka burial ground is dated to 14 C in the second half of the II-middle of the III century AD (Panyushkina et al., 2007). Thus, the found amulets from Egyptian faience can serve as a reliable chronological indicator of this monument.

Pendants in the form of genitals can be considered among other figurative products made of Egyptian faience, which were symbols of cults of an apotropaic (protective) nature, which were revered in everyday life. Judging by the number and variety of figurative items in their area (the Northern Black Sea region), in the first centuries of our era, interest in amulets and small fetishes increased dramatically [Alekseeva, 1975, p.30]. We are talking primarily about various phallic forms and images in the form of a hand folded in a cookie, as well as numerous figures of such a popular character as the dwarf god Imp. He, for example, protected from evil in a broad sense, was the patron saint of the family, protected the house, children, women, and helped with childbirth [Mythological Dictionary, 1990, p. 109]. The demon as a collective image was especially popular in the Greco-Roman period on a vast territory, was often depicted on women's toilet items, household items, amulets, and was found in children's graves [Alekseeva, 1975, p. 38; Khodzhash, 2004, p. 9-10]. Sometimes the Demon shows male genitalia; relief scenes of its copulation are known [Khojash, 2004, il. 32, 80, 85]. Very often, this deity in the form of an amulet was part of necklaces and beads [Ibid., il. 196, 197, 199]. A statuette of the god Imp from the territory of Gorny Altai from the collection of Count A. S. Uvarov is known; it was found during predatory excavations of mounds (Gulyaev, 2005, ill. on p. 342).

Conclusions

Among the nomads of the Hunno-Sarmatian period in Central Asia, as well as among the peoples who inhabited the Northern Black Sea coast and the vast territory up to Scandinavia, these objects were symbols of universal apotropaic purpose. The question of the ways of penetration of Egyptian faience products from the Mediterranean region - the area of their origin - to the Altai remains open. Analysis of the burial equipment from graves dating back to the first centuries of our era revealed a large number of imported items that were brought to different parts of the Asian steppes during transit trade and exchange operations. The appearance of such things gave a certain impetus to the establishment of ethnically alien objects of "foreign fashion" in everyday life and "fitting" them into the system of local ritual and mythological representations. In any case, there is no doubt that amulets made of Egyptian faience with phallic images aroused increased interest among nomads and that is why they had such a wide range.

List of literature

Alekseeva E. M. Antique beads of the Northern Black Sea region. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1975, 120 p. (SAI; vol. D 1-12).

Gulyaev V. I. Scythians: Rise and Fall of the Great Kingdom. Moscow: Aleteya Publ., 2005, 400 p. (in Russian)

Mythological Dictionary, Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990, 672 p.

Soenov V. I. Archaeological monuments of the Gorny Altai of the Hunno-Sarmatian era (description, systematics, analysis). Gorno-Altaisk: Publishing House of Gorno-Altaisk State University, 2003, 160 p.

Soenov V. I., Ebel A.V. Research on the Kurayka burial ground // Antiquities of Altai. Gorno-Altaisk: Gorno-Altaisk State University Publ., 1998, pp. 113-135 (Izv. laboratorii arkheol., issue 3).

Khodzhash S. I. Images of the ancient Egyptian god Bes in the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin: Catalog. - Moscow: East Lit., 2004. - 173 p.

I tesori dei kurgani del Caucaso settentrionale: Catalog. - Roma: De Luca, 1991. - 199 p.

Panyushkina L., Sljusarenko L., Bikov N., Bogdanov E. Floating larch tree-ring chronologies from archaeological timbers in the Russian Altai between ca. 800 BC and 800 AD // Radiocarbon. - 2007 (In print).

The article was submitted to the Editorial Board on 28.05.07.

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