Tagar artifacts at the Stavropol state museum reserve (G. N. Prozritelev's collection)

Abstract

This article introduces 16 bronze weapons and horse harness items representing the Tagar culture (a dagger, ten knives, bits, a cheekpiece, an axe, a celt, and a mirror) from the Minusinsk Region, collected by G.N. Prozritelev in the early 1900s. The objective of this study is to describe them and to assess their chronology. The dagger and the three knives exemplify the animal style of 500-300 BC. The cross-guard of the dagger is shaped like two oppositely facing bird heads separated by a spiral scroll. The pommels of the knives are decorated with figurines of a standing ram, a standing donkey, a ring, a roll, a drop-shaped slit, etc. The handles of two knives are decorated with a band consisting of oblique hatches, two rows of triangles, and a hoof sign. Based on the data, certain artifacts (the dagger, the knives, the cheekpiece, and the mirror) date to 600-300 BC. The axe, the celt, the bits, and possibly a massive knife with a bird's head at the junction of the handle and blade may date to 700-500 (possibly even 800-500) BC. A considerable scatter of dates suggests that the artifacts come from different sites. They may have been part of a single hoard whose separate items span a chronological range between 700 or even 800 to 400 BC