«Pressed out drops»: archaeological sources for searching early indications of the indo-Iranian cult of Soma / Haoma

Hypothesis concerning presence of the Indo-Iranians in the steppe zoneof Eastern Europe from the 3 rd mill. BC onward is grounded mostly linguistically. Nowit is rather widely accepted, despite it is difficult to establish correlation between ethno-linguistic entities and archaeological cultures. The author considers archaeological findsfrom the Bronze Age steppe kurgans to trace the cult of god Soma/Haoma, namely,sacrifice practice, as reconstructed from the texts of Rigveda and Avesta, which mentiona sacred plant, probably ephedra, used to experience the state of immortality. Finds fromEast Manych and West Manych Catacomb cultures are analysed (58 and 45 associationsrespectively). Most frequent stone artefacts are pestles, mortars (Fig. 1, 3), and shaftstraighteners (Fig. 4, 1). Pestles and mortars were probably used for pressing out Somajuice, and straighteners for bark removing. The objects are accounted in prestigiousgraves, often containing wooden wagons (Fig. 2). Of special interest are clay funnels,once evidently supplied with sheep wool filter for straining Soma juice. According toRigveda, it was poured out to wooden containers; the remains of wooden vessels areknown from the elite burials of Manych culture (Fig. 4, 2, 3). The suggested interpretationof the find sets from the Late Catacomb burials (the second part of the 3 rd mill. BC) mightbe confirmed by detailed analytical investigations of artefacts from new archaeologicalexcavations.