Chronology of the burials with animal-style horse harness from the Prikubansky burial ground

The paper presents the description of findings - horse bronze cheekpieces and forehead pieces - from the Prikubansky burial ground (the Krasnodar region). This burial ground is a standard of the Maeotian culture of the 4th - early 3rd cc. BC. More than 350 burials with amphorae and black glazed ceramic vessels have been discovered in this burial ground. The sets of the horse harness with the iron bit, bronze cheekpieces and forehead pieces made in Maeotian-Scythian animal style, were found in 9 burials. The pairs of cheekpieces are gamma-shaped, the round shaft swells to figure 8. Its zoomorphic plaques show the stylized horns and heads of deer, wolf and griffin. The forehead pieces are openwork or in the form of the figure of the lying wolf, with a horizontal attachment loop on the reverse. The linear engraving on the openwork plaques is typical of the Maeotian-Scythian art in the Kuban region. The burials of the horsemen included the different inventory and Greek amphorae of many Mediterranean centers (Heracleia, Sinop, Mende, Thassos, Kos, Cnidus, Ikos). Most complexes contained 2 and even 3 amphorae. The combination of the different centers and types of amphorae makes it possible to date narrowly every burial and the set of horse harness. Generally, the chronology of the burials with the horse harness made in the MaeotianScythian animal style is limited within the second - third quarters of the 4th century BC. Only one burial, destroyed in ancient times (with one amphora), has wide chronology ranges within the first - third quarter of the fourth century. Morphology and typology of horse harness have been developed by N.Yu. Limberis, the chronology of complexes - by I.I. Marchenko.