On the technology of manufacturing a ritual bowl from Yalbynya river basin (tributary of the Northern Sosva): alloy elemental composition

In the summer of2023, a bronze bowl was discovered during the survey ofthe Early Medieval settlement of Us-nyol at the mouth ofthe Yalbynya River, a tributary ofthe Northern Sosva River, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. An image of afish swimming against the sun was engraved on the frontal side in the upper third of the bowl. The stylized graffiti was reminiscent of the subjects depicted on cultic mirrors and disks in the Early Iron Age. In the center, at the bottom, there was a hollow cone encircled with two bands. The design of the central part of the object and presence of graffiti find parallels in the Sarmatian mirrors and cultic disks which widely occur in the Urals. Data on the composition of alloy from which they were made and on manufacturing technology is available for this interesting group of artifacts. Mirrors and disks were made of high-tint bronze by hot forging. The bowls which have been discovered at the archaeologically synchronous complexes in Central Asia, were made in the same way. Spectral analysis ofthe Yalbynya bowl has shown that alloy with high tin content was used for its manufacturing. Quantitatively different composition of ingredients in different parts of the object indicates different preservation degrees of its surface and traces of repairs. X-ray examination of the structure has revealed its layering (lack of homogeneity), which indicates the method of making the bowl by hot forging with additional processing of the back surface to give it a golden hue. The alloy used for making the Yalbynya bowl differs from alloys in the cultic objects from the Southern Urals and Central Asia by higher percentage of tin. It can be assumed that it was made as a cultic object in one of these regions, and subsequently reached the taiga zone through Central Asia.