Volosovo Treasure
IV-III Millennium BC
The end of the Stone Age – the beginning of the Bronze Age
Volosovo Culture
Flint, slate
2,5 – 31 cm
Receipt: excavations of the Historical Museum under the supervision of V. A. Gorodtsov, 1910
Showcase 11
Museum legend claims that once upon a time Countess Praskoviya Uvarova visited the excavations at the village of Volosovo (presently in Nizhny Novgorod Region). At certain point of time she poked her umbrella into the side of the trench… This is how the Volosovo treasure was discovered. It was a huge stack of flint products, consisting of 118 items. That pile of artifacts included daggers, arrow and javelin - heads, chisels, unfinished blanks, scrapers and knives, all submerged in layers of red ochre. Initially archaeologists believed that it was a hidden away set of spare tools, but today this collection is considered to be a ritual offering that accompanied ancient tombs made nearby, that did not exist any longer by the beginning of the XX century.
More information...Similar ritual treasures also could be found at other locations on the span of the Russian plain. Presumably that way ancient hunters and fishermen at the end of IV – beginning of III Millennium BC equipped the deceased for a new life in the other world, believing that all precious weapons buried along will live again there together with those passed away.
Functional purpose: a ritual offering to deceased members of the community.
Notice of uniqueness: It is a unique complex of flint artifacts in terms of quantity of manufacture and quality of craftsmanship, the skill of processing of flint, as well as its preservation, since most of the items from other ritual treasures were deliberately burned and came to us only in fragments.
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