Wolf images used for decorating Tagar weaponry and knives

Purpose. The article is dedicated to studying figures of a wolf discovered as decorating Tagar culture weapons and knives (39 copies). All of them relate to the category of accidental findings. The figure of a wolf decorating Tagar knives and weapons has been known generally on the materials of the Tagar culture as one of the features of this culture while in other cultures of the Scythian character of Central Asia, the Lower Volga region, Southern Ural, the Black Sea region and the Caucasus wolf images were used extensively for decorating other categories of things, such as psalia, plaques, domestic implements and others. The purpose of our work is conduct research on the use of wolf images while decorating particular objects of the Tagar culture. We introduce new materials that were not published previously to a scientific use; reveal options of using the figure of a wolf as a decor on the Tagar knives and weapons and trace possible directions of this image appearing in the Tagar culture, as well as peculiarities of its development. Results. Knives decorated by a small head of a wolf and its figure depicted on daggers are one of the characteristic features of the Tagar culture. We classify the figures of a wolf discovered, identify versions of these images within the groups and peculiarities of their execution on each of the categories of things (diggers, knives, raising hammers). Stylistic parallels with the figures of wolves in the art of cultures of Scythian character are drawn. Conclusion. The motive of a wolfish predator is known in the decoration of Tagar knives on materials of the early Tagar barrow of the burial ground Hystaglar. In the Tagar culture this motive is further developed as decoration for knives and weapons. There are practically no direct analogies to Tagar knives and daggers decorated with figures of a wolf. In other cultures of Scythian shape such a motive was used for decoration on other categories of things, except for Altai, where knives and daggers decorated by images of a wolf (Staroaleika II, Firsovo XIV) were found similar to Tagar materials. The early type of the wolfish predator figure of the head (a knife from the Hystaglar burial ground) differs from the later «classic» Tagar figures of wolves in the decor of knives and weapons which show close stylistic parallels with the art of Saks and Savromats who lived on the territory of Altai in the 6-4 centuries BC and were probably chronologically synchronized with it. The territory indicates the vectors of the possible directions of emergence of new stylistic features in the image of a wolf in Tagar small statuary. A certain degradation of the motive noticed on small heads of a wolf decorating two knives and the reduced sizes of these objects can testify in favor of a long-term existence of a tradition to decorate Tagar knives with the head of a wolf. A similar phenomenon has been noticed in the decor of Tagar daggers decorated with wolf heads found in Klyuch Gremyachii.