Results of the third year of research at the burial mound at Katanda-3 grave field

The main task of the third year of excavations at the burial ground of Katanda-3 was to complete unearthing of the entire area of the ground structure, which amounted to 1808.35 square meters, creating a digital model of the mound, recording and studying the upper layer of the construction. It was established that the stone construction with a diameter of 48,7 m along the South-North and 48,4 m along the East-West lines was a round-shaped platform made of boulders interspersed with pebbles. The surface of the stone platform is deliberately leveled. Its structure does not resemble either the Early Scythian or the Pazyryk burial mounds of the Altai Mountains. The items of horse harness - bronze ringed bits and straight two-hole psalia found in the main burial in situ - are of great importance for dating of the burial complex. The ends of the psalia are decorated with images of griffin heads. This is a bird of prey with a large round eye, animal ears, closed beak with a detailed cere. The griffins on the Katanda psalia are distinguished from the Scythian griffins by a ringed beak. This is an archaic feature inherent in early Scythian depictions of syncretic creatures - ram-birds, which were also used in psalia decoration. Ram-birds images existed for a rather limited period of time -7-6th centuries BC on the territory of the North Caucasus, in the basin of the Middle Dnieper, in the Northern Pontic and the Azov Regions, and sporadically in the Volga and Ural Regions. There is a great probability that the gracefully closed beak of the griffins on the Katanda psalia was borrowed from these archaic fantastic images. This assumption is consistent with proposed preliminary date for the burial complex - the 6th century BC.