A new assemblage with an ornamented koban-colchis axe (grave 45, Elkhotovo cemetery)

This paper introduces into scientific discourse a new assemblage of the Kobanculture, i. e. grave 45 from the Elkhotovo cemetery (North Ossetia), which, along witha rather diverse set of funeral offerings, has yielded a bronze ornamented axe decorated inthe traditions of the Koban-Cholchis graphic style. Over the past years this axe has beenthe fourth find of this type in the context of funeral assemblages discovered in the NorthCaucasus. The axe depicts a stylized beast (Group 7 after A. Yu. Skakov); taking distinctivefeatures of ornamentation into account, it may be linked to a ’South Ossetian’ variant ofthe graphic style and the dating of the axe and the funeral assemblage as a whole may fallwithin the middle - the second half of the 8th century BC.