Koban ornament
Koban ornament
For example, a swastika with numerous “shoots” at the ends, placed on the bottom of one of the clay pots found in the Pozdnyakovsky burial ground “Fefelova Bora” (Ryazan) (Table 12), is repeated with each line on Koban bronze axes (Table 13). But we see such precisely complexly drawn swastikas on one of the maces of the crypt near the villages. Engikal (Table 12), they are present in the ornamentation of finds from a number of places in Azerbaijan, for example, on a clay stamp, as well as on the walls of the temple, the plaster of the dugout and the pintadere (Table 12), on the wall near the hearth and pintadera of the village of Babadervish (Table 1. 12). The same intricate swastika adorns the Koban buckle of the 6—5th century BC (Table 12) and a Scythian vessel from the 6th century BC from the village of Aksyutintsy on the forest-steppe left bank of the Dnieper (Table 12). The most complex swastika braid, carefully crafted by a master of the 9—7th century BC on one of the Koban bronze axes (Table 7), without the slightest changes, it is repeated in the Russian facial embroidery – the pattern of the royal robes of the Mother of God of the above-mentioned composition “Appearing the Tsarina” (Table 7) and in the embroidery of the Olonets valance of the 19th century (Table 7).
And, finally, almost any, the most complex and whimsical branched swastika pattern, we can easily find among the samples of weaving and embroidery of Vologda peasant women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It could be assumed that all these ornamental motifs came from Byzantium into facial embroidery, which adorns religious objects associated with Christian rituals and from it to peasant embroidery and weaving. But there are no such compositions in the Byzantine tradition, which is clearly evidenced by the samples of ornaments published by V.V. Stasov in the album “Slavic and Oriental Ornament Based on the Manuscripts of Ancient and Modern Times”. And at the same time, in medieval psalters, gospels, books of hours, etc. Russia, Armenia, Serbia, Croatia, many elements of Andronovo and Koban decor is constantly present, and, in particular, such characteristic motifs as swastikas of various configurations, jibs, meanders, triangles. They are found to this day in folk ornamentation in the North and Central Caucasus, on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
It could be assumed that all these ornamental motifs came from Byzantium into facial embroidery, which adorns religious objects associated with Christian rituals and from it to peasant embroidery and weaving. But there are no such compositions in the Byzantine tradition, which is clearly evidenced by the samples of ornaments published by V.V. Stasov in the album “Slavic and Oriental Ornament Based on the Manuscripts of Ancient and Modern Times”. And at the same time, in medieval psalters, gospels, books of hours, etc. Russia, Armenia, Serbia, Croatia, many elements of Andronovo and Koban decor is constantly present, and, in particular, such characteristic motifs as swastikas of various configurations, jibs, meanders, triangles. They are found to this day in folk ornamentation in the North and Central Caucasus, on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In practice, the spread of the Andronovo circle ornaments is one of the most important indicators of the ways of promoting the agricultural and cattle breeding tribes of Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. So M. N. Pogrebova notes that white-encrusted ceramics, the striking similarity of which with the cut ornament of the Andronov culture has been repeatedly drawn by researchers, appears in the Eastern Transcaucasia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC “in its current form with very rich and varied motives. She believes that in the addition of the Iranian material culture itself, newcomers from the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe played, apparently a significant role, as evidenced by archaeological sites of the early 1st millennium BC and, in particular, ceramics from Iran showing Andronovo influence, decorated with triangles and meanders, the meander being the leading ornamental motif (Tables 2, 3).
In practice, the spread of the Andronovo circle ornaments is one of the most important indicators of the ways of promoting the agricultural and cattle breeding tribes of Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. So M. N. Pogrebova notes that white-encrusted ceramics, the striking similarity of which with the cut ornament of the Andronov culture has been repeatedly drawn by researchers, appears in the Eastern Transcaucasia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC “in its current form with very rich and varied motives. She believes that in the addition of the Iranian material culture itself, newcomers from the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe played, apparently a significant role, as evidenced by archaeological sites of the early 1st millennium BC and, in particular, ceramics from Iran showing Andronovo influence, decorated with triangles and meanders, the meander being the leading ornamental motif (Tables 2, 3).
A similar picture can be traced in the ornamentation of Central Asia in the late 2nd – early 1st millennium BC. M.A. Itina, on the basis of studying the materials of the Khorezm exposition, concluded that complex ethnocultural processes took place here in the Bronze Age. The steppe bronze culture discovered in the South Aral region on the territory of the Akcha-Darya delta of the Amu-Darya, named by S. P. Tolstov as Tazabagyab, and has stucco ware with geometric Andronovo type ornaments. M.A. Itina writes: “The presence of the Timber and Andronovo features in the Tazabagyab culture gives us grounds to speculate about the alien character of the Tazabagyab population of Khorezm.”
She also notes that the similarity of the ceramic material of the Bronze Age from the steppes of the Middle Volga region and Western Kazakhstan with Khorezm was more than once written by I. V. Sinicin. M.A. Itina believes that not only archaeological material makes it possible to record the advancement of pastoralist tribes from the northwest along the channels of the Uzboy, Atrek, Tejen, Murgab, Amu-Darya, Syr-Darya rivers, but also anthropological data record “a broad advance of the so-called Andronovo type to the south”. She subscribes to the opinion of S. P. Tolstov that the tribes of the Tazabagyab culture were “the first significant wave of Indo-European, Indo-Iranian or Iranian tribes that penetrated into Khorezm from the northwest”. I. M. Dyakonov believes that the path of the Aryan tribes from their ancestral home ran along the foothills of the Kopet-Dag, where there is “an ecologically uniform strip connecting Hindustan and the interior regions of Iran with Central Asia”. The same conclusion about the advance to the territory of Central Asia and further to Afghanistan and India of the northwestern pastoralist and agricultural tribes in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC does also V. I. Sarianidi. He notes that defensive fortresses with powerful walls and angular towers appear almost simultaneously in the Murghab basin (Auchin, Gonur), southern Uzbekistan (Sapali-Tepe), northern Afghanistan (Dashly I), “which excludes the element of chance and, on the contrary, acquires the features patterns due to the resettlement of tribes with general cultural unity”.
V. I. Sarianidi compares the seals-amulets of Murghab (Southern Turkmenistan) of the middle of the 2nd millennium BC with the Near East and concludes about their independent origin. Speaking about the ornamental motif in the form of a swastika (“viper knot”), characteristic of Murghab seals, he comes to the following conclusion: » It seems that this specific drawing is more inherent in Iranian than Mesopotamian art: in this case, the Murghab image… most likely of Iranian origin,” and “only in the Iranian world do we meet scenes approaching the drawings of the Murghab seals”. We, in turn, can add to the above that K. Humbert in his album of 1000 ornaments of various peoples of the world defines the braid in the form of a “viper knot” as characteristic of the Iranian and Indian traditions.
But such an ornamental motif is often found in the decor of medieval miniatures of Russia, as evidenced by the materials of V. V. Stasov’s album, for example, the headpiece of the Gospel 1409 of the Pskov work (Table 14), the miniature of the Psalter of the Konevsky Monastery, made in the 14th century in Novgorod (Table.15), a sample of ornaments from Ryazan, Galich, Vologda 14—16th century. In addition, the “viper knot”, which was so characteristic of the Iranian tradition of the mid-to-late 2nd millennium BC, is present in the embroideries of various provinces of Russia until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It decorates, as the main ornamental motif, a fly of the 17th century, embroidered spacers of the late 19th century in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces and Kirillovsky district of Novgorod province.
V. I. Sarianidi notes that with the spread of new types of seals, the practice of making anthropomorphic sculptures completely ceases in southern Turkmenistan and the Indus Valley, which indicates changes in the ideological ideas of the local population, and that many authors see new Indo-European tribes in the carriers of the Dzhukar culture Indian subcontinent. This is how R. Heine-Geldern and V. Ferservice identify the Djukarts with the Arias, and G. M. Bongard-Levin believes that: » the emergence of the Djukar reflects the penetration of a small group of tribes associated with Baluchistan into Sindh”. One of the most important proofs of the Aryan invasion is considered the seals from the Chankhu-Daro hill, which are sharply different from the Harappan seals proper and have analogues only in the Indus Valley, Southern Turkmenistan, Northern Afghanistan, Susiana. Of exceptional interest in the light of our problems is the discovery by the Soviet-Afghan expedition (under the leadership of V. I. Sarianidi) in Northwestern Afghanistan, northwest of Balkh, of a monumental complex, defined by V. I. Sarianidi as a “temple city” of the Bronze Age. K. Yettmar suggests that both the circular fortification with nine towers and the surrounding buildings Dashly 3, subordinated to a certain religious idea, were used only during the annual holiday period. He notes that memories of such ritual centers are preserved in both ancient Indian and ancient Iranian texts. In addition, the mythology of Nuristanis (Kafirs of the Hindu Kush) contains indications of the “heavenly castle” where the souls of the dead find shelter. Descriptions of such a castle are in many ways reminiscent of structures in northern Afghanistan. K. Yettmar believes that the analogies of the “temple city” of Dashly 3 in the steppe zone were Koy-Krylgan-Kalu and the Arzhan mound in Tuva. E. V. Antonova, analyzing the layout of the structures of Dashly 3 and Sappalli-Tepe (Southern Uzbekistan) and noting the presence of geometric shapes in their outlines, he writes: “The fact that the planning of structures was given special importance is also evidenced by the amazing closeness of the plans of several buildings of the Late Bronze Age with ornamental motives”. V. I. Sarianidi notes the unusual layout of the so-called “palace” Dashly-3 and considers the T-shaped, extremely narrow corridors, in which it is difficult for even one person to pass, very indicative. “It seems that they had a” false “character, did not carry any functional load, were the architectural and ritual canon that should have been unswervingly present in monumental buildings of this purpose”. We can state that the plan of the “palace” Dashly-3 (Table 16) is traditional, one of the most widespread, along with the swastika, elements of Russian weaving, the so-called. “rhombus with hooks”, the semantics of which is devoted to one of the works of A. K. Ambroz.
In Dashly-3, the “rhombus with hooks” is supplemented by T-shaped processes on the sides of the rhombus, which are also often found in rhombic compositions of North Russian ornamentation (Table 16). E. V. Antonova notes that the plan for the construction of the central part of Sapalli-Tepe becomes similar to the swastika. But such a swastika also has analogues in weaving and embroidery of the Vologda peasant women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As noted earlier, most researchers associate the appearance of ornaments of the Andronovo complex, and in particular, meanders, swastikas, etc., in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Hindustan in the late 2nd – early 1st millennium BC with the advance of the Aryan groups to these territories from the northwest. About how significant these ethnic shifts were, and what a serious change in ideological ideas they brought with them, is evidenced to a large extent by the fact that many of the archaic ornaments brought to Central Asia, Afghanistan, Hindustan by the northern steppe tribes, survived in this region to our time. So M. Ruziev in his work dedicated to Tajik woodcarving, writes, that in the design of the doors and gates of Bukhara, an important role is played by the geometric ornament that took shape in the pre-Muslim period, consisting of zigzags, rhombuses, squares, swastikas. Moreover, he attributes the swastika to the most ancient and stable motives of a geometric pattern. “It is found in various types of decorative arts – tiled decoration, paintings, embroidery, carpets… In Central Asia, this ornamental motif can also be found on knitted Pamir stockings, in carving on tombstones, carving and painting on ganch and wood, and glazed architectural ceramics. The swastika figured in the decoration of the brick floors of ancient Khuttal and on the ganch panels of the palace from Afrasiab (10—11 century).