The riddle of the Scythian gold “cones”

The paper explores a mysterious group of precious Scythian artifacts. These are gold ‘cones' (termed also as lids or rattle-bells), which occur in the kurgans of the 5th-4th centuries BC in a vast area stretching from the Southern Urals to the North Caucasus. For over 140 years archaeologists have been unable to resolve the issue regarding the function of these artifacts. The author suggests one of the versions explaining the actual function of gold rattle-bells in the Scythian culture.