Indo-European ornamental complexes and their analogs in the cultures of Eurasia. S. V. Zharnikova

(Table 11) is absolutely identical to the ornamental motif characteristic of the Slavic Przewor culture of the 3rd century BC. – 3rd century AD (Table 11) and repeated on a Russian tile of the 18th century (Table 11). The meander and swastika motifs on the bronze axes of the Koban type from the same Tli burial ground are also of exceptional interest. Intricate swastikas placed on these axes from the 12th-9th century BC have analogues in the ornamentation of Pozdnyakovsk vessels, culture of closely related and simultaneous Andronovo.

      Koban ornament

      Koban ornament

      For example, a swastika with numerous “shoots” at the ends, placed on the bottom of one of the clay pots found in the Pozdnyakovsky burial ground “Fefelova Bora” (Ryazan) (Table 12), is repeated with each line on Koban bronze axes (Table 13). But we see such precisely complexly drawn swastikas on one of the maces of the crypt near the villages. Engikal (Table 12), they are present in the ornamentation of finds from a number of places in Azerbaijan, for example, on a clay stamp, as well as on the walls of the temple, the plaster of the dugout and the pintadere (Table 12), on the wall near the hearth and pintadera of the village of Babadervish (Table 1. 12). The same intricate swastika adorns the Koban buckle of the 6—5th century BC (Table 12) and a Scythian vessel from the 6th century BC from the village of Aksyutintsy on the forest-steppe left bank of the Dnieper (Table 12). The most complex swastika braid, carefully crafted by a master of the 9—7th century BC on one of the Koban bronze axes (Table 7), without the slightest changes, it is repeated in the Russian facial embroidery – the pattern of the royal robes of the Mother of God of the above-mentioned composition “Appearing the Tsarina” (Table 7) and in the embroidery of the Olonets valance of the 19th century (Table 7).

      And, finally, almost any, the most complex and whimsical branched swastika pattern, we can easily find among the samples of weaving and embroidery of Vologda peasant women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

      It could be assumed that all these ornamental motifs came from Byzantium into facial embroidery, which adorns religious objects associated with Christian rituals and from it to peasant embroidery and weaving. But there are no such compositions in the Byzantine tradition, which is clearly evidenced by the samples of ornaments published by V.V. Stasov in the album “Slavic and Oriental Ornament Based on the Manuscripts of Ancient and Modern Times”. And at the same time, in medieval psalters, gospels, books of hours, etc. Russia, Armenia, Serbia, Croatia, many elements of Andronovo and Koban decor is constantly present, and, in particular, such characteristic motifs as swastikas of various configurations, jibs, meanders, triangles. They are found to this day in folk ornamentation in the North and Central Caucasus, on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

      It could be assumed that all these ornamental motifs came from Byzantium into facial embroidery, which adorns religious objects associated with Christian rituals and from it to peasant embroidery and weaving. But there are no such compositions in the Byzantine tradition, which is clearly evidenced by the samples of ornaments published by V.V. Stasov in the album “Slavic and Oriental Ornament Based on the Manuscripts of Ancient and Modern Times”. And at the same time, in medieval psalters, gospels, books of hours, etc. Russia, Armenia, Serbia, Croatia, many elements of Andronovo and Koban decor is constantly present, and, in particular, such characteristic motifs as swastikas of various configurations, jibs, meanders, triangles. They are found to this day in folk ornamentation in the North and Central Caucasus, on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

      In practice, the spread of the Andronovo circle ornaments is one of the most important indicators of the ways of promoting the agricultural and cattle breeding tribes of Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. So M. N. Pogrebova notes that white-encrusted ceramics, the striking similarity of which with the cut ornament of the Andronov culture has been repeatedly drawn by researchers, appears in the Eastern Transcaucasia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC “in its current form with very rich and varied motives. She believes that in the addition of the Iranian material culture itself, newcomers from the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe played, apparently a significant role, as evidenced by archaeological sites of the early 1st millennium BC and, in particular, ceramics from Iran showing Andronovo influence, decorated with triangles and meanders, the meander being the leading ornamental motif (Tables 2, 3).

      In practice, the spread of the Andronovo circle ornaments is one of the most important indicators of the ways of promoting the agricultural and cattle breeding tribes of Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. So M. N. Pogrebova notes that white-encrusted ceramics, the striking similarity of which with the cut ornament of the Andronov culture has been repeatedly drawn by researchers, appears in the Eastern Transcaucasia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC “in its current form with very rich and varied motives. She believes that in the addition of the Iranian material culture itself, newcomers from the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe played, apparently a significant role, as evidenced by archaeological sites of the early 1st millennium BC and, in particular, ceramics from Iran showing Andronovo influence, decorated with triangles and meanders, the meander being the leading ornamental motif (Tables 2, 3).

      A similar picture can be traced in the ornamentation of Central Asia in the late 2nd – early 1st millennium BC. M.A. Itina, on the basis of studying the materials of the Khorezm exposition, concluded that complex ethnocultural processes took place here in the Bronze Age. The steppe bronze culture discovered in the South Aral region on the territory of the Akcha-Darya delta of the Amu-Darya, named by S. P. Tolstov as Tazabagyab, and has stucco ware with geometric Andronovo type ornaments. M.A. Itina writes: “The presence of the Timber and Andronovo features in the Tazabagyab culture gives us grounds to speculate about the alien character of the Tazabagyab population of Khorezm.”

      She also notes that the similarity of the ceramic material of the Bronze Age from the steppes of the Middle Volga region and Western Kazakhstan with Khorezm was more than once written by I. V. Sinicin. M.A. Itina believes that not only archaeological material makes it possible to record the advancement of pastoralist tribes from the northwest along the channels of the Uzboy, Atrek, Tejen, Murgab, Amu-Darya, Syr-Darya rivers, but also anthropological data record “a broad advance of the so-called Andronovo type to the south”. She subscribes to the opinion of S. P. Tolstov that the tribes of the Tazabagyab culture were “the first significant wave of Indo-European, Indo-Iranian or Iranian tribes that penetrated into Khorezm from the northwest”. I. M. Dyakonov believes that the path of the Aryan tribes from their ancestral home ran along the foothills of the Kopet-Dag, where there is “an ecologically uniform strip connecting Hindustan and the interior regions of Iran with Central Asia”. The same conclusion about the advance to the territory of Central Asia and further to Afghanistan and India of the northwestern pastoralist and agricultural tribes in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC does also V. I. Sarianidi. He notes that defensive fortresses with powerful walls and angular towers appear almost simultaneously in the Murghab basin (Auchin, Gonur), southern Uzbekistan (Sapali-Tepe), northern Afghanistan (Dashly I), “which excludes the element of chance and, on the contrary, acquires the features patterns due to the resettlement of tribes with general cultural unity”.

      V. I. Sarianidi compares the seals-amulets of Murghab (Southern Turkmenistan) of the middle of the 2nd millennium BC with the Near East and concludes about their independent origin. Speaking about the ornamental motif in the form of a swastika (“viper knot”), characteristic of Murghab seals, he comes to the following conclusion: " It seems that this specific drawing is more inherent in Iranian than Mesopotamian art: in this case, the Murghab image… most likely of Iranian origin,” and “only in the Iranian world do we meet scenes approaching the drawings of the Murghab seals”. We, in turn, can add