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There is a group of burials with clearly marked military attributes which can be distinguished among the early Sarmatian burial sites in the territory of southern Ural and the Volga region. The most striking feature of these burials is the presence of a sword and a dagger with straight crosses and Crescent-shaped tops with each inhumation. Moreover, the buried were often accompanied by quivers of arrows and were rarely found with spearheads. These military burial complexes find direct analogies in the sculptures of warriors on the sanctuaries of the Ustyurt plateau among the types of bladed weapons and their location in the military outfit. On the one hand, this fact allows to identify these shrines with ritual experience of the Sarmatians, but on the other hand, to define a high social status of the examined Sarmatian military graves.

Keywords: Volga-Urals region, early Sarmatian culture, burials with weapons, Ustyurt plateau, Sarmatian sanctuaries, stone statues of warriors

Information about author:

Anatoly Skripkin (Volgograd, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Volgograd State University. Universitetsky Ave., 100, Volgograd, 400062, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]