Pages: 235-253

The article describes and generalizes finds of game/divination dice from the sites of Srubnaya-Andronovo cultural area which occupied almost the whole territory of the Eurasian steppes and forest-steppes in the 2nd millennium BC. The authors offer information about 31 finds of dice (28 intact and 3 damaged pieces) and more than 50 half-finished items which demonstrate different stages of their manufacturing. All of them are found in the course of excavation of 15 archaeological sites including 13 settlements, anthropogenic part of a mine and only one cemetery. The area of finds in the Srubnaya-Andronovo period in contrast to cultures of the Early and Middle Bronze Age points to the shift of “active game zone” in the Late Bronze Age to the Southern Ural and adjacent western and eastern territories. Dice seem to have been used both for game and ritual purposes. We do not know the rules of the game practiced by the contemporary archaeological cultures, that is, algorithms of usage of dice, and we are inclined to consider the signs on the dice as “differentiating” pictograms which did not progress yet to be numeric ideograms.

Keywords: Eurasian steppes, Late Bronze Age, Srubnaya-Andronovo world, dice, semantic of signs.

Information about authors:

Vladimir Stefanov (Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation). Ural Federal University. Lenin Ave., 51, Yekaterinburg, 620083, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
Sergei Kuzminykh (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19, Moscow, 117036, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
Yury Chemyakin (Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Ural State Pedagogical University. Kosmonavtov Ave., 26, Yekaterinburg, 620017, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
Igor Koryakov (Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Physics and Mathematics. Ural Federal University. Lenin Ave., 51, Yekaterinburg, 620083, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]