Materials of archaeological excavations of the Bronze Age sites contain many items, the functions of which are quite difficult to determine. The subject of this study is a group of artifacts that, in our opinion, are related to the production of ornaments: ceramic saucers with signs, molds, cross-shaped pendants. A number of molds and ceramic saucers contain prints similar in form to cross-shaped pendants — the only type of molded ornaments in the Bronze Age of the Southern Trans-Urals and Kazakhstan. At the same time, the dimensions of negatives on the molds and saucers do not match in size with known finds of cross-shaped pendants, which does not allow considering them as working specimens used for casting these ornaments. Regarding ceramic saucers, various versions about their functions, from ritual to production (molds), have been proposed. The X-ray fluorescence analysis of the inside of the prints on ceramic saucers recorded past contact with metal — tin and lead, and to a lesser extent with copper. Various types of scientific analyses have found that tin and lead are concentrated in large quantities in bronze alloys, used for making cross-shaped pendants. Based on this, a hypothesis has been proposed regarding their possible application combining the ritual and utilitarian aspects, i.e. their potential use in rituals related to the production of ornaments.

Keywords: Bronze Age, Petrovka culture, Alakul culture, metallurgy, ceramic saucers, molds, cross-shaped pendants, ornaments production.

 

Funding. X-ray fluorescence analysis was carried out within the framework of the budget topic of the South Ural Federal Scientific Center of Mining and Geophysics of the Ural Branch of the RAS No. 125013101191-9 (Ankushev M.N., Rassomakhin M.A.); archaeological support of materials from the sites of Chebarkul III, Novonikolaevka I, Kulevchi III, part of the data was collected within the framework of the state assignment of the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the RAS, No. 124032100052-6 (Alaeva I.P.); archaeological support of materials from the sites of Streletskoye 1, Tomino 1, Andreyevskoye IV, Stepnoye VII was carried out with the support of the Advanced Scientific Research Fund of Chelyabinsk State University in 2025 (Kupriyanova E.V., Petrov N.F.).

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 15.11.2024

Article is published: 15.03.2025