Rediscovery of a 5th-Century BCE Burial Assemblage of the Dnipro Forest-Steppe Region

This article discusses an unknown Scythian burial discovered by Serhiy Mazaraki near the village of Velyki Budky (Sumy Oblast, Ukraine) at the end of the 19th century and previously unknown to researchers. An assemblage of gold objects from this burial is identified, including a ring and seven plate appliqués depicting a scene in the Scythian “animal style,” dated to the second or third quarter of the 5th century BCE. The objects have numerous parallels, which help illuminate broader aspects of Scythian culture. The ring belongs to a small group of high-conical-shielded rings, likely crafted by Bosporan jewelers catering to a Scythian clientele; it is suggested that they were common in the northern Black Sea region throughout the 5th century BCE. The image of a curled-up predator on the gold appliqués corresponds, in both compositional and stylistic features, to the artistic tradition of the “animal style” of the 5th century BCE. Unique is the depiction of another image—the head of an antelope with a straight horn on the plaques. The assemblage of artifacts enables us to explore various aspects of the artistic traditions of the northern Black Sea region, the Kuban, the Cis-Urals, and even Western Asia.