Horse forehead pieces from nomadic barrows of the Scythian time in the Southern Urals

The paper is devoted to the description of horse forehead pieces, which were used by the nomads of the Southern Urals in the 6th - 4th centuries BC for protecting the horse’s head and / or decorating bridle. The research is based on the analysis of sample consisting of 47 finds. The author proposes the typology of the items under consideration, characterizes the types of lamellar forehead pieces with and without zoomorphic images, rod-like and rod-lamellar forehead pieces, forehead pieces in the form of zoomorphic images, representing a round sculpture. All the finds are divided into two chronological groups. The first group includes forehead pieces, which were part of horse equipment mainly at the end of the 6th - 5th centuries BC. This period was charactized by the prevalence of forehead pieces in the form of fairly large trapezoidal or subrectangular plates depicting the heads of prey birds in profile on one or both short sides. The second group unites the items referring to the end of the 5th - 4th centuries BC...