Pages: 19-32

The thesis about supercultural character of metal objects has received wide arguments and practical confirmation in the monograph of V.Dergatscev (1997). Similar ideas related to the problems of the Scythian culture or «Scythian world» cultures were discussed, but in some other way - mostly in cultural-historical context (Alexeev 1991; Bokovenko 1991; Tschlenova 1993). Nevertheless, the chronological investigations of arms ofthe Iron Age of Eurasia basicly are limited by the formal analysis ofqualitative characteristics (Sokolsky 1954; Smirnov 1961; Melyukova 1964; Vasiliev 1980) or are presented in groups connected with cultural-historical (it is possible to say, ideological) context (Alexeev 1991). As a result, in the first case we have «taxonomy» groups ofthe objects (Klejn 1979; 1991), and in the other we have «systemic» (cultural) one, which purpose is to receive «cultural» phenomena, «realized by the founders of extinct culture of the past» (Klejn 1991).
Typological classifications mentioned by the author are united by the focusing ofthe authors on the analysis of morphological characteristics of metal objects. But the given approach unfairly disregards the number of functional attributes (Voltschenko 2002: 14), which are expressed in metrical parameters. Moreover the analysis of quantitative characteristics of metal objects the Iron Age cultures, is already bringing results.
The aims of the given article include the revealing ofthe connections of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of Scythian swords and the construction of the new typological scheme on the basis of these connections.