Museum complex

Falar - a decoration element of a horse harness

Kuban region, Ekaterinodar district, Severskaya stanitsa, Seversky burial barrow
II – I centuries BC
Sarmatian culture
Gold
Diameter-14.2 cm
From: excavations by cossacks and V.I. Sizov, 1881
Showcase 3

Among the antiquities of the Kuban region of the sarmatians time outstands with its significancy a complex of the II – I centuries BC from the Seversky burial barrow, where a big golden falar (a neck decoration for horse’s harness) with relief image of a mythological scene, that belongs to the Dionysian cult: a fight of two ancient Greek gods Dionysus and Aphine with giants, was found. The left side of the vessel is decorated with the image of a beardless man riding a panther with protrude tongue. A round head of a defeated man with opened eyes and cut in circle hair is lying on the ground. A woman’s figure in the center is depicted with a helmet decorated with spiral ornament, and with ornamented round shield in her right hand. She is holding long hair of a running naked man. The hand and legs of the man are wrapped around by snake that bites him. In the burial were also discovered significant glass goblets in golden setting, a golden fibula-brooch, plaques and a setting for a rhyton with an image of a griffon, a flat clamp or a handle with hammered ornament, a fragment of a silver buckle, a silver item in a shape of ram’s horn, two golden stater (coin) of bosporan king Paerisades.
A rich, ceremonial neck decoration for a horse’s harness. Unique item. It has no direct analogy.

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