The primary discovery of the Koban necropolis in 1869 was the result of a flood, which led to the collapse of one of the terraces on the bank of the Gizeldon river near the Upper Koban village. Such, ancient burials with numerous bronze objects were discovered and collected by the local landowner Khabosh Kanukov, who took them to Tbilisi, where they attracted the attention of scholars and the general public. The subsequent excavations of the Koban burial ground in 1877–1881 by Russian (Georgij Filimonov, Vladimir Antonovich) and European researchers (Rudolf Virchow, Ernest Chantre) has resulted in the examination of more than 25 burials and brought new evidence of the uniqueness of this site (Filimonov 1878/1879; Antonovich 1882; Virchow 1883; Chantre 1883, 1886; Dolbezhev 1888). The excavations brought to light numerous impressive bronze objects, which ended up in museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Lyon, and Vienna, providing a foundation for their further study.

One of the most significant collections of the Koban burial assemblages that are kept in museums in Europe, both in terms of the uniqueness and number of the artefacts, relates to the activities of the Austrian researcher Franz Heger. Some of the Koban finds are on display in Hall 13 at the Natural History Museum Vienna (Fig. 1), presenting artefacts from the cemeteries Koban, Faskau near Galiat and Verchnjaja Rutcha near Kumbulta. Among those are the characteristic bronze animal figurines, axes and oversized bronze dress pins as well as necklaces made of carnelian and bronze (Heinrich 2018).

In 1881, 1890, and 1891, Franz Heger undertook several scientific missions to the Caucasus and succeeded in acquiring a collection of grave goods which is mostly based on burial complexes of the Late Bronze – Early Iron Ages from North Ossetia (1200–400 BCE) for NHMW (Heinrich 2006/2007, 2018). The Caucasian grave ensembles were acquired with the assistance of Vasilij Dolbezhev, who for over 10 years took part in the excavations of the Koban cemetery and was one of the most qualified and best-informed local experts on the Koban antiquities of that time.

The Franz Heger Caucasian collection includes more than 30 grave assemblages of extraordinary scientific interest (mainly from Koban and to a lesser extent from the site Faskau). It also involves stray finds of typologically interesting artefacts from the site Verchnjaja Rutcha.

One of the most prominent and the largest sites of the Koban Culture is the eponymous necropolis and namely its materials constitute the core of the Caucasian collection in Vienna. The Koban cemetery was located on a plateau, covering an area of ca. 2 ha size, between the Upper and Lower Koban villages. Originally, this burial ground comprised approximately a few hundred graves belonging to different chronological periods – mainly from the Late Bronze and Iron Age but also Early Medieval material (Chantre 1883, 1886; Virchow 1883; Dolbezhev 1888; Alekseeva 1949). Owing to the richness of the Central Caucasian burials, many of them were plundered in the 19^th century. In this regard, the numerous representative burial complexes stored in Vienna are especially noteworthy and have a key position for comprehensive studies on the Koban Culture.

The burial complexes from the 19^th century excavation kept at NHMW are important for the research, because they most probably belonged to the elite members of that prehistoric society, whose burials included valuable grave goods and dress components. This makes the collections at the museum a key site to be considered for research questions related to the material culture and history of the Caucasus in the Late Bronze and Iron Age.

Unfortunately, the excavations from the 19^th century don’t meet modern methodological standards in terms of documentation, especially in describing and documenting specific aspects of the funeral rite. However, they are still valuable, even in comparison to other cemeteries of the Koban Culture that have been discovered in the Caucasus region in the 20^th and the 21^st centuries, as these more recent finds offer less informative material (e.g., bronze artefacts) in terms of typo-chronology compared with those from the Vienna collection. The newly excavated sites altogether have an amount of approximately 1,000 well-documented published burial assemblages (Tekhov 1980, 1981, 1985, 2002; Belinskij and Dudarev 2015). To name the most important, e.g., Klin-Yar III with 377 graves, Тli with 481 graves.

For a critical review of the Koban assemblages excavated in the 19^th century, a typological comparison between them and recently excavated and well documented graves of the Koban Culture have been undertaken. The preliminary research indicates that the composition of the burial complexes from the Vienna collections is rather common for the Koban Culture. They mainly differ from the newly excavated materials coming from recently examined Koban culture sites (which are also better documented) in terms of wealth and informativeness (e.g., the presence of new and reliable chronological indicators for the development of the periodization of the Koban Culture). This further amplifies the scholarly potential of the use of materials from the Caucasian collection in Vienna and enables the realisation of different research aims. Similar research on material from old excavations at the site Koban was presented, e.g., by Giorgi Bedianashvili and Catherine Bodet (Bedianashvili and Bodet 2010).

The above-mentioned points emphasize that the unpublished Koban grave ensembles from Vienna are significant for today’s archaeological research, despite these materials being discovered more than 100 years ago. The detailed study and publication of these burial assemblages is essential for the comprehensive study of Koban Culture.

For the JESH and MSCA4Ukraine grants, some of the richer and informative burials have been studied and documented. As a case study, in this article the assemblage of Burial 5 will be presented and discussed. For this first stage, the focus is on the presentation of the material culture in their typo-chronological aspect. The main approaches are:

Contribution to a better understanding of the typo-chronology of the Koban Culture: So far, the materials from the Koban cemetery discovered by Ernest Chantre in the 19^th century (Chantre 1883, 1886) serve as the basis for defining the early stage of the Koban Culture in the Caucasus region.

Study of cultural networks that connect the Central Caucasus with other regions. A detailed academic assessment and publication of more numerous and informative materials from the Vienna collection will substantially advance the current state of research about the Koban Culture and its role in the transregional cultural exchanges.

Detailed classification, comparative typological analysis and determination of the chronological parameters of key Koban artefacts/burial assemblages both with absolute and relative dating methods as well as their synchronization with the Central European, North Pontic and Near Eastern chronological systems. A combination and cross-reference of new archaeological chrono-indicators allows to create a reliable basis for reconstructions of cultural-historical processes in the Caucasus as well as in neighbouring and more remote areas in the 12^th–4^th centuries BCE.

Defining status-markers and social hierarchies within Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age societies in the Caucasus region.

This is the basis for future research with interdisciplinary analysis of the artefacts. This article opens the series of publications of materials from the Koban cemetery, stored at NHMW. It finally aims towards a comprehensive and interdisciplinary research of the so far unpublished materials from the Caucasian collection kept in the museum’s archive, in order to bring them back into the focus of current scientific research, as a source of new typological and interpretive developments.

One of the most informative burial assemblages of the Koban cemetery is a burial that has been put on the inventory at the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum Vienna as Burial 5. The numbering of the burials has been done obviously during the inventory in 1883 by Heger. It is noteworthy, that the researcher Ernest Chantre (Chantre 1886) has also listed a burial 5 for the Koban necropolis along the artefacts kept in Paris (which differs from Burial 5 from the Caucasus collection at NHMW). According to the inventory book No. 15 of the department, the finds were excavated by Khabosh Kanukov, Adelar of the Tagaurian Ossetians, and donated to the Museum in 1883 by the Anthropological Society in Vienna. There, the inventory of this tranche of Koban finds was finally completed on December 13^th, 1883 by Franz Heger (Heinrich 2006/2007, 2018: 272–276). According to the entry in the inventory book, Burial 5 was described by Heger as a male grave (Fig. 2). It is no longer known whether Heger had any further information to verify that the grave inventory belonged together – as we have no other hints, in the following study the artefacts are discussed as belonging to an ensemble, but we are aware that this approach has to be taken with caution. Concerning to the inventory book, Burial 5 contains weapons (a dagger blade, an arrowhead of the Scythian type, a richly decorated axe and a stone mace), tools (a bronze knife and a stone whetstone), jewellery (bronze fibulae, pins, various pendants), and pottery.

Weaponry

A bronze cast double-edged dagger blade has concaved sides and a wide, prominent, trapezoidal rib in the centre (Figs 3A, 4A, B) (Inv. No. 41495). At the base of a pointed triangular-shaped tang, there are two round holes for rivets, through which an unpreserved wooden hilt was attached to the blade. The blade has forged and sharpened edges. The length of the blade is 26.7 cm, the maximum width is 5.9 cm and the diameter of the rounded holes is 0.3 cm.

Bronze cast axe with a twice-curved body and a wide evenly rounded blade (Figs 3B, 5A–D) (Inv. No. 41494). The elongated oval shaft-hole is located on the concave part of the body, which passes into a distinguished wedge-shaped butt. The side faces of the shaft-hole are decorated with three relief longitudinal ribs. The length of the axe is 18.2 cm, diameter of the blade is 5.4 cm, the sizes of the shaft-holes are 4.4 × 1.9 cm.

The axe is richly decorated with an engraved ornament that combines zoomorphic and geometric images. On one side of the blade, there are images of two predators, presumably the “dog-wolves”, arranged symmetrically in relation to each other. Depicted in a dynamic “running” pose, the animals are executed exquisitely and subtly. The forward-facing heads of the animals have an open mouth, a snub nose, a round eye with a protrusive pupil in the centre, pointed and inclined forward ears of a sub-oval shape, and a slender, arch shaped body. The wide and massive neck is also curved. The animals have two front and hind legs, which are bent and put forward, while the marked knee joint is shown only on one of the front legs.

The ends of the legs are completed with “fan-like” straight lines. The long tails of the animals have curved upward ends. The surfaces of animal bodies are filled in sections with an ornament consisting of rows of chased dots and inclined lines in the form of a “herringbone”.

On the reverse side of the blade there is an image of the so-called “Maltese cross”, in the form of a large rhombus-shaped figure with an additional image of a diamond inscribed in it. The latter’s inner space is filled with nine circles arranged in three rows. Four smaller geometric figures in the form of triangles inserted one into the other are attached to the outer, protruding vertices of the rhombus. The surface of the inner triangle is smooth, and the space between the triangles (as in the diamonds mentioned above) is filled with a net decoration.

In the central part of the curved body, between the shaft-hole and blade there is an ornamental belt covering all the facets of the axe. It consists of seven rows filled with circular, net, and spiral ornaments, which are separated from each other by incised vertical lines (Fig. 5A, B).

The side faces of the axe adjacent to the shaft-hole are also richly decorated. On the two upper faces (“back”) there are several alternating bands filled with ornaments. Between the edge of the shaft-hole and the area with а net decoration, there is a wide band with concentric circles inside. Behind it, there are two zones of the hatched strips, next to which six circles are placed (three rows of two circles in each). Areas filled with a grid pattern separate them from the fish images which have their heads turned toward the butt. The body and head of the fish are filled with parallel rows of dots. Next to the heads of the fish there are repeated zones of ornamentation of shaded bands, limiting six circles (three rows of two circles). It shows a high standard of craftmanship and artistry.

On the two lower faces (“belly”) of the axe, the decor consists of two symmetrical pairs of snakes with triangular heads crawling in opposite directions. Their bodies are filled with parallel rows of small dots, and their eyes are shown with two rounded hollows (Fig. 5C). On the right side of the butt is a solar sign in the form of a circle with a seven-pointed star inscribed in it, which has a small ring in the centre. This circle and the space between the rays are filled with a dotted decoration. On the opposite left side of the butt, due to the patination of the surface, such a circle can only be traced partially. The end of the butt is decorated with a zigzag ribbon filled with dots.

It is also necessary to mention the image of a fish on the upper edge of the axe blade. The body of the fish is filled in the parallel rows of dots (Fig. 5D). The craftsman who engraved this axe was highly skilled in the technique of artistic processing. All the images on the object are made at a high technological level.

A bronze, two-bladed arrowhead with an asymmetrically rhomboid head and broken spike at its base (Figs 3D, 6A) (Inv. No. 41.496). The lower part of the socket is also fragmented, and there are two casting cavities on one of its sides. The length of the arrowhead is 5.1 cm, the maximum width of the head is 1.5 cm, and the diameter of the socket is 0.6 cm.

A massive spherical mace-head with flattened poles (Figs 3F, 7A) (No. 41505). It is made of dark, hard stone. The surface is well smoothed and polished. There is a round through hole drilled in the body with a longitudinal cone-shaped cross-section. The height of the mace is 6.3 cm, the diameter in the centre is 6.7 cm, and the diameter of the holes at the poles is 1.5 and 1.9 cm.

Adornments/Jewellery

A pair of bronze pins has smooth rods of rectangular (Inv. No. 41498) and square (Inv. No. 41499) cross-sections in its two upper thirds, and rounded cross-sections in its lower part (Figs 3G, H, 8A, B). Their heads are formed from the upper flattened ends of the rod that are rolled into a tube. The length of the pins is 10.6 cm, and the width of the rod varies from 0.4 to 0.7 cm.

Two bronze fibulae are represented by different types. They have been crafted from one single bronze piece with a simple loop spring. The first fibula is larger in size (Figs 3J, 9B) (Inv. No. 41500). It has a massive arc-shaped bow of a circular cross-section, thickened in the middle part, and a narrow catch of elongated sub-rectangular form. The bow is decorated with alternating vertical and horizontal rows, filled in with an incised herringbone pattern. Because of the intense wear, the ornamentation is best preserved on the “belly” and partially on the upper part of the bow. The height of the fibula is 7 cm, the length is 9.8 cm, the diameter of the bow in the middle part is 1.1 cm, and the diameter of the pin-stem varies from 0.2 to 0.4 cm.

The second fibula has a smooth arc-shaped bow of oval section with two transverse protrusions on the rod, one above the spring (the coiled end of the pin-stem), the other above a catch (one end of the bow opposite the coil that catches the pin-stem) (Figs 3I, 9A) (Inv. No 41.501). A flattened and wide catch has an elongated sub-rectangular shape. The height of the fibula is 6.2 cm, the length is 8.2 cm, the diameter of the bow in the middle part is 0.6 cm, the diameter of the pin-stem is about 0.3 cm.

Two identical bronze pendants in the form of a ring with the ends extending one behind the other are of interest (Figs 3M, N, 10A, B) (Inv. No. 41.503). They are coiled in one and a half turns from a round rod with pointed ends. Their dimensions are 3.4 × 3.3 cm, the wire section is 0.2–0.3 cm. One of the pendants is oxidized, the other has been restored.

Two large pendants of elongated oval shape have hooked, slightly bent upwards, flattened ends (Figs 3K, L, 11A, B) (Inv. No. 41.502). The pendants are made of a triangular cross-section bronze rod. Their length is 5.3 and 5.7 cm, and the width of the rod is 0.5–0.7 cm.

The adornments from Burial 5 also include 30 carnelian beads of various sizes and shapes, as well as three glass beads of golden-yellow colour.

With a certain share of the convention, we attributed the bronze pendant-amulet as adornment in the form of an animal head, most likely a mountain goat (Figs 3O, 12A–C) (Inv. No. 41.504). Among its main elements are the straight head and large twisted backward horns with sharpened ends. The “spiral” of the right horn curls to the right and the left one to the left. The front surface of the horns is decorated with in-depth decoration in the form of a longitudinal line, on either side of which are rows of transverse notches. The narrow, elongated muzzle of the animal with a slight widening at the end has the distinguished nasal and forehead parts. The nostrils are depicted as two deepened lines located along the upper “hook-nosed” edge of the muzzle at an angle to each other. Below the nostrils, in the middle of the muzzle, a transverse deepened line marks the mouth with out-standing teeth in the centre.

The eyes and ears, placed at the base of the head, differ in varying degrees of their completeness and execution. They were probably made separately and attached to the head with subsequent refinement. This “kit” is most thoroughly executed on the left side (Fig. 12B). An eye, raised in relief and shaped like an elongated oval, has an inner recess of a similar shape. The ear, in the form of a narrow-elongated oval, has a hollow that repeats the shape of the ear. The ear and eye, located on the opposite side of the head, have a similar outline. However, after attaching them to the head, there was no final treatment of eye surface (Fig. 12C).

Between the horns there is a vertical loop in the form of a stretched oval which gradually tapers to one of the ends. The length of the pendant is 6.5 cm, the height 2.3 cm, the distance between the horns is 7.8 cm, and the length of the loop is 1.5 cm.

Tools

A bronze knife has a distinguished flat, wide handle of a sub-rectangular shape, a slightly arched back and a concave blade (Figs 3C, 13A) (Inv. No. 41497). A shift from the handle to the blade is designed in the form of a ledge. The length of the knife is 14.1 cm, the maximum width of the blade 2.3 cm.

A whetstone has an elongated shape with tapering ends and a rectangular section (Figs 3E, 14A) (Inv. No. 41.506). It is made of dark grey sandstone. The surface is well smoothed and bears traces of usage. A round hole was made in its upper part by double-sided drilling. The length of the whetstone is 12.8 cm, the width is 2.1–2.6 cm, the thickness is 1.2 cm, and the diameter of the holes is 0.8–0.9 cm.

Pottery

The pottery is represented by a small clay bowl with a rim slightly bent outward, a high concave neck, passing into a rib on the body, and a rounded bottom (Figs 3P, 15A) (Inv. No. 41507). The bowl is made of clay with the inclusion of small mica glitter. Its surface is partly polished and has a dark colour with rather numerous light brown zones. The height of the vessel is 6 cm and the diameter of the slightly oval mouth is 13.4 × 13.8 cm.

On the lower part of the bowl rib there is an ornament in the form of a line of diagonal notches. The bottom parts are decorated with a complex geometric composition of drawn lines. The preserved part of the composition consists of several sections. The central part of the bottom is decorated with geometric ornamentation in the form of a rhombus, to the tops of which three additional figures are attached (the fourth is destroyed) in the form of “double” corners, the inner surface of which, like a rhombus, is hatched with parallel lines.

Three other parts of the ornamental composition are located on the bottom part. One of them consists of six hatched and two smooth diamond-shaped figures, arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Two lines of one of the furthest rhombuses extend beyond its limits. To the right and left of this composition are drawings of alternating hatched and smooth triangles. The best-preserved left part of the composition includes three rows of three hatched triangles in each row. Their tops are directed towards the bowl rib. The triangles are shaded with lines parallel to their right side. On the opposite side of the bottom of the bowl, to the right of the section of the composition of rhombuses, there is a partially preserved, decorative frieze, also consisting of three rows of hatched and smooth triangles, designed similarly to the above described section with triangles.

The bronze dagger blade belongs to the group of weaponry of the so-called “flame-shaped” form with a narrowed middle section. Among them, several varieties can be distinguished, which differ from each other in the design of the tang and the longitudinal convex rib on the blade, the number of holes for attaching the handle, the presence or absence of horizontal “shoulders” in the transition from the blade to the handle, etc. This group of daggers has appeared in the early 1^st millennium BCE in Central Caucasus and they were used in this region, for quite a long time; up to the 8^th–7^th centuries BCE, while the specimens with two holes for attaching the handle are considered typologically the latest (Kozenkova 1995).

The blade of the dagger from Burial 5 of the Koban necropolis should be attributed to the latest Central Caucasian modification of this type of weaponry, which is characterized by the presence of highlighted horizontal shoulders at the transition from the blade to the handle, which has clear triangular outlines; a relatively wide relief rib on the blade that gradually narrows from the base to the tip; the presence of two holes for attaching the hilt, as well as quite large sizes, varying from 24 to 28 cm.

In her important and substantial work about the Bronze and Iron Age in the Caucasus region, Sabine Reinhold attributed daggers of this type to her variant DoC2 (“Bronzener Griffplattendolch mit langer Klinge”) (Reinhold 2007: 33, fig. 14,C2 and tab. 11,5 with distribution map; tab. 207,1). However, if we look more specifically at the daggers that she included in this variant (see her “Liste 023 DoC2”), we recognize that they are different from each other. While the term “long daggers” appears in the title, there are no criteria in the description of the variant to separate long and short forms, and daggers in a quite huge range between 13.2 cm and 28 cm in length are included in this group. Also, the daggers of this variant have different shapes of the upper and middle part of the blades, which should consequently divide them under a typological point of view into several subgroups.

In the light of new excavated finds and deeper insights into artefact ensembles that have not been included into Reinhold’s book, we have to dispute their typo-chronological statements in some important details. For example, daggers from the Ėskakon cemetery were found accidentally as a result of bulldozer work (i.e., they do not come from a closed complex) and there is no reason to connect them with Burial 1. Daggers from Koban cemetery in her list DoC2 have “Kat-Nr. NOS35”, although finds from Kumbulta, Verchnjaja Rutcha und Nižnaja Rutcha are mentioned in the catalogue under the same number “NOS35” (see Reinhold 2007: 406). When mentioning the dagger from Baci-Jurt (Burial 1), her reference to Valentina Kozenkova (Kozenkova 1982: 93, tab. 14,8) is to be discussed, because this publication refers not to Baci-Jurt, but to Burial 50 of Serzhen-Yurt. Further, a dagger from the Berezovskij 1 cemetery was found in Burial 15, but not in Burial 29, etc. Due to these problems with details in typology, the seriation made by Sabine Reinhold for burials with weapons cannot be considered reliable enough, as well as – consequently – the chronology proposed on its basis.

For the sake of completeness, Georg Kossack’s work on Burial 85 of the Tli necropolis also has to be mentioned, where he attributes this specific type of dagger to his phase “Tli C (alt)”. According to Kossack, this represents the older part of the Early Iron Age (Kossack 1983: 110–114 and tab. 9,1), which is nevertheless quite discussable.

The close parallels to the dagger from Burial 5 are found in the Koban Culture burial grounds in the mountainous regions of the Central Caucasus, where the main center of their production was located. First of all, these are Koban (e.g., grave of a warrior from Vasilij Dolbezhev’s collection stored in the State Historical Museum (Moscow) and Tli (Burials 25, 52, etc.) (Fig. 4C–E) (Uvarova 1900: tab. 12,2; Tekhov 1977: fig. 84, 1980: figs 35,1; 41,1; 46,10; Moshinskij 1998: fig. 6,30). Some similar specimens are also known in Georgia, for example, at the Brili cemetery (Gobezhishvili 1952: tab.41).

Simplified “local” varieties of bronze daggers, similar to those considered above in terms of some features, but smaller in size, are known in burial assemblages of the 8^th–7^th centuries BCE from the piedmont areas of North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria (Elkhotovo – Burials 45, 73; Kamennomostskoe – burials excavated in 1925, 1948 (№ 2), 1949 (№ 9) (Iessen 1941: tab. II,6; Grinevich 1951: fig. 13; Chshiev 2017: figs 1, 2, 4).

An iron dagger blade with two through holes for attaching a handle from Burial 3 of the Ullubaganaly 2 cemetery of the 7^th–6^th centuries BCE in the Kislovodsk hollow should also be mentioned, which typologically is an imitation of the earlier bronze Koban specimens and testifies their use up to the early Scythian time (Kozenkova 1995: tab. 8,9).

Bronze cast axes with a double-curved and richly ornamented body are among the typical objects of the classical Koban Culture of the mountainous regions in the Central Caucasus, where the main centre of their manufacture was located. Similar items are well known in the Tli and especially the Koban burials, where ornamental motifs finding the nearest parallels on the axe from the Koban Burial 5 (paired figures of predators, joint images of snakes, fish and “dogs”, spirals, solar signs in the form of a star in a circle, etc.) were most often used (Chantre 1886: pl.1; Uvarova 1900: fig.10; 13; tab. 5,7; Hančar 1934: taf. 1,3; Abb. 2b; Domanskij 1984: fig.1).

Concerning Sabine Reinhold’s typology, the axe can be attributed to her group B of shaft hole axes subvariant AxB4A (“Geschweifte Kobanäxte mit einer Rippe”), which corresponds to Uvarovas type B of shaft hole axes (Reinhold 2007: 45–48, esp. 47: fig. 21,B4A).

Among the features of the axe from Koban is the decoration of its blades with a pattern consisting of geometric (“Maltese cross”; motive VB after Reinhold 2007: 50) and zoomorphic (paired images of predators; motive VI after Reinhold 2007: 50) motifs. Such a combination is quite rare and is also known on the bronze axe from Burial 52 of the Tli cemetery, where on one of its blades there was a predator, and on the other an image of the “Maltese cross”, close to the considered one, the middle part of which is filled with a circular decoration (Fig. 5E) (Tekhov 1980: fig. 46,6). Another close image of a “double” rhombus, the inner surface of which is filled with a circular ornament, is found on the handle of a dagger from Burial 14 of the Koban cemetery. There are also images of triangles, which, however, due to the lack of free space are shown adjoined not to the tops, but to the middle of the sides of rhombus (Chantre 1886: pl. 20bis, 1).

It is notable that among the materials of the Koban necropolis there are other examples of placing different ornamental scenes on the blades of bronze axes, for example, images of a geometric frame with triangles directed downwards and a predator “crawling” on the sides of the axe; the figure of a man with a bow and wriggling snakes, etc. (Uvarova 1900: figs 23–25; Domanskij 1984: fig. 1; Bronzezeit 2013: № 601). This should probably be considered as a feature of the Northern Ossetian variant of the graphic ornamental style.

In the Central Caucasus (Koban and Tli cemeteries), as well as the adjacent areas of the Northern Caucasus (Elkhotovo, Burial 45; Zayukovo), bronze axes are known, which are decorated with other modifications of the “Maltese cross” motif. In contrast to the one-sided images on the axes from Koban, Burial 5, and Tli, Burial 52, they are presented there on both blades of the axes, and, while retaining the general scheme, when four triangles are attached to the tops of the central rhombus, the figures themselves differ not only in size and decor, but also in the arrangement of crosses on the blades (Fig. 16A–G) (Hančar 1934: Abb. 1c; Tekhov 1980: fig. 88,1; Domanskij 1984: fig. 14, tab. 23; Skakov 2016: fig. 6, 1; Skakov and Chshiev 2017: fig. 3; Pelikh and Skakov 2022).

Several variants of the “Maltese cross” images on the blade of bronze axes are distinguished. The first variant includes “Maltese crosses” as the main element of decoration (Fig. 16A, B). They are combined with rather monotonous, mainly herringbone geometric ornamentation, located in the central part of the axe body. The second variant is represented by crosses inscribed in a sub-triangular decorative frame filled with herringbone ornament and supplemented by additional elements, for example, the images of fish (Fig. 16F, G). The third variant includes miniature figures of crosses, which are combined with the image of a “predator” and are located above his head on the periphery of the blade (Fig. 16D, E).

In addition to axes, the images of the analysed variety of the “Maltese cross”, consisting of five geometrical figures, are also presented on the Koban bronze buckles, belts and fibulae, including those dated to the 7^th century BCE (Uvarova 1900: tab. 17,1; Tekhov 2002: 17, tab. 19,8). This fact demonstrates quite a wide distribution of the “Maltese cross” motif in the mountainous regions of the Central Caucasus, in contrast to Abkhazia, where it is presented in a smaller number and with less decorative variety on separate axes (e.g., Achandara and Otkhara) (Fig. 16C) (Lukin 1941: figs 4; 5,1).

It should be noted that, besides the Central Caucasus, the “Maltese cross” in the form of various modifications was widespread in the eastern Transcaucasia (Ganjachay region) in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Ages, where it was used for ceramics decoration – the burial mounds in the vicinity of Helenendorf (Khanlar), and others (Fig. 17A–C, L–N) (Anonymous 1902: figs 116; 120; 174а, 174b; Gumel 1940: figs19; 20; Gusejnova 1979).

The considered variation of the “Maltese cross” in the form of rhombus to the tops of which four triangles are attached has also become widespread in the forest-steppe areas of the left bank of the Dnieper (Ukraine), and in particular, in the Vorskla river basin. Here it is presented, mainly, on the handles of clay ladles, dated to the 7^th century BCE (Fig. 17E, F, K) (Shramko 1996: tabs 9,1–3, 7; Scherban and Rakhno 2006: fig. 5,6; Shramko 2006).

Some researchers interpret the motif of the “Maltese cross” consisting of rhombus and triangles as a hint for the influence of the Basarabi Culture (8^th and 7^th centuries BCE in South-Eastern Europe, mainly Romania) into the Northern Black Sea region (Kashuba and Daragan 2009). However, it should be noted that the main concentration of artefacts decorated with this motif is connected with the left bank of the Dnieper river, i.e., located closer to the Caucasus, but not with the sites of the eastern periphery of the Basarabi cultural complex (the Dniester region and the right bank of the Dnieper river). This and other facts which will be presented below, suggest the Caucasian way of distribution of this motif into the forest-steppe areas of Dnieper, especially since its origins in Central Europe still remain unclear. Here, it is worth mentioning that in Italy, artefacts decorated with various modifications of the “Maltese cross” are known in the sites of the 9^th–8^th centuries BCE, which preceded their emergence in the Basarabi Culture of South-Eastern Europe (Müller-Karpe 1959) (For more details about the distribution of the “Maltese cross” decoration in Central Europe see Metzner-Nebelsick 1992; Brosseder 2004).

The usage of geometrical figures in the form of rhombus with additional elements, for pottery ornamentation was well known in the Near East, and partly in Transcaucasia at different chronological periods (Fig. 17J) (Contenau and Ghirshman 1935: pl. 54; Goff 1963: fig. 41; Mellaart 1970; Pogrebova 2011: 83). This circumstance allows us to consider these areas as one of the main centres of its emergence and distribution in antiquity. Namely, from these regions, the considered motif of “Maltese cross” could spread to neighbouring and more distant territories, including the Central Caucasus, and later, the left bank of the Dnieper river.

This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the image of “Maltese cross” is found on the Ukrainian clay ladles, on which the handles have “horned” protrusions (Fig. 17K) (Shramko and Zadnikov 2021: fig.7,1). This feature of the design of vessel handles is also evidence of the Caucasian influence on the ceramic traditions of the inhabitants of the Ukrainian forest-steppe.

It should be noted that namely in the Vorskla river basin images of “Maltese cross” are known with a wide double ornamented outline of the rhombus (Scherban and Rakhno 2006: fig. 5,6; Shramko 2021: fig. 5,10), which, unlike the Basarabi Culture, is well represented in the Caucasus (Figs 5B, E; 16E, F). The facts listed above, as well as the artefacts of proper Caucasian origin, e.g., bronze pins with twisted bars or a head rolled into a tube (Fig. 8G) (Petrenko 1978: pl. 13; Shramko and Zadnikov 2021: fig. 4,2), which were found in the same sites as ceramics with the “Maltese cross” decoration allow us to suggest the Caucasian route of distribution of this motif into the Dnieper forest-steppe region in the early Scythian time.

The dating of the axe from the Koban Burial 5 to the early Scythian period is not contradicted by other ornamental motifs presented on it. For example, a paired image of predators, whose appearance in the Central Caucasus should be connected with the influence of the Near Eastern art, for which they were typical. For example, the Caucasian axe with a similar decoration on the blade dated to the 7^th century BCE is stored at a museum in Kars (Türkiye) (Işıklı and Baştürk 2010: figs 3a, 5a, cat. №10; Skakov 2016: fig. 4,7). From the chronological point of view, this type of shaft-hole axe was in use from KoB1B until KoD1 with a focus in KoC1 – or in absolute chronological terms mainly from the 10^th to the 9^th, respectively the 7^th century BCE (Reinhold 2007: 47, 145). This dating coincides with Kossack’s chronological classification into his phases Tli B and C (“alt”) (Kossack 1983: 97, 110–114).

As for axes with a double-curved body, considered as a status symbol of Koban material culture, the upper chronological appearance of their use corresponds with the emergence of elements of the culture of the early Scythians in the Caucasus (Tekhov 2002: 15, 186, tabs 15,1; 50,1; Dudarev 2012).

Among the weaponry found in Burial 5, there is also a bronze Scythian two-bladed arrowhead, which belongs to the rare finds in the Koban sites of the Central Caucasus. Besides the burial presented here, two other two-bladed socketed arrowheads were unearthed in the Koban cemetery (Fig. 6A–C). One of them has a short socket with a barb and diamond-shaped head (Virchow 1883: 88, pl. 1, 21). The second arrowhead has an oval-shaped head and a broken socket. The latter specimen was found in Burial 16 of the northern cemetery of Koban, which is dated to the 6^th century BCE (Alekseeva 1949: 199, 201, tab. 5,3). Praskovya Uvarova erroneously reproduced in her book a bronze arrowhead allegedly found in the Koban cemetery, although in fact it comes from north-western Anatolia and was published by Rudolf Virchow as an analogy to the Koban arrowhead (Virchow 1883; Uvarova 1900: fig. 33).

Nevertheless, the arrowhead can be attributed to Sabine Reinhold’s variant PfC2A of two-bladed arrowheads with rhombical blade and nozzle (“Doppelflügelige Tüllenpfeilspitze mit rhombischem Blatt”) (Reinhold 2007: 59, fig. 27,C2A). Due to the state of preservation, the original length of the nozzle is not clear.

In the mountain regions of the Central Caucasus, where the Chmi cemetery is located, another bronze bi-blade arrowhead with a rhomboid head was found (Fig. 6D). That is a good analogy for the arrowhead from the Koban Burial 5. From the Chmi burial site a bronze two-blade arrowhead of smaller size with an oval shape of the head (Fig. 6E) is also known (Moshinskij 1998: fig. 11,63–64). A two-bladed arrowhead with a barb and narrow, elongated head from Burial 129 of the Tli cemetery, dated to the 7^th century BCE (Fig. 6F) should also be mentioned (Tekhov 1980a: fig. 9,32).

The closest parallels to the bi-blade arrowhead from Koban Burial 5 are found in the early Scythian sites of the Northern Caucasus (Krasnoe Znamya, kurgan 9, Alekseevsky hamlet) as well as in some local settlements (Serzhen-Yurt, Derbent), which are dated within the first half till the middle of the 7^th century BCE (Fig. 6G–V) (Kozenkova and Krupnov 1966: fig. 36,1; Маkhortykh 2021: 96–97, fig. 1,1–11, 39–42). An earlier dating for these bi-blade arrowheads is suggested by Georg Kossack, who places them in his elder Early Iron Age phase Tli C (“jung”), which covers the end of the 9^th and the beginning of the 8^th century BCE (Kossack 1983: 121­–124). Nevertheless, Kossack didn’t mention closed complexes testifying his dating.

Burial 5 of the Koban cemetery also contained a spherical stone mace-head, which was a symbol of power and at the same time belongs to the group of prestige weapons. Such, this artefact combines sacred and combat functions. Stone maces are rare finds in the sites of the Final Bronze/Early Iron Age of the Central Caucasus. For example, only two such items are known in the several hundred burials of the Tli cemetery (Tekhov 1977: fig. 90,1). Maces of spherical form are among the most archaic in the territory of the Northern Caucasus, Transcaucasia and the Near East. Such maces were rather widespread in the 3^rd to 2^nd millennia BCE, although they continued to be used without much change up to the early Scythian time (Теkhov 1977; Kоzenkova 2002).

Round-shaped stone maces (Reinhold’s type KkA “runder Keulenkopf aus Stein”; Reinhold 2007: 52–53 and fig. 24,KkA), similar to the object from Koban Burial 5 have been found in such burial sites of the Central Caucasus as the Faskau and Verchnjaja Rutkha (Alekseeva 1949: 229, tab. 10, A, 15; Krupnov 1951: fig. 9,8). They are also well known in the sites of the 8^th−7^th centuries BCE of the western and especially eastern variant of the Koban Culture (Fig. 7B–D) (Kоzenkova 1995: 78, tab. 21; 2001: 69, tab. 92,9–10; 2002: tab. 11,4; Mаrkovin 2002: fig. 64,2). In the northwest Caucasus, round-shaped stone maces are a feature of the steppe variant of proto-Meotian sites located on the left bank of the Kuban river and allegedly dated to the late pre-Scythian period (Erlikh 2007: 105, fig. 162,3–4).

Bronze pins with a sharpened end and a head rolled into a tube (Reinhold’s type NaE “Rollenkopfnadeln”; Reinhold 2007: 83 and fig. 33,E1A), found in Koban Burial 5, are well known in other graves of the same cemetery, as well as in the Tli necropolis of the Central Caucasus (Virchow 1883: tab. II, 6,7; Chantre 1886: pl. 20, 8; fig. 3; Теkhov 1985: tab. 131,17–19).

They were also found in the male and female burials of the Elkhotovo cemetery (North Ossetia) and in the sites of the western variant of the Koban Culture (Klin-Yar III, Burials 236, 239, 249; Kislovodsk furniture factory, Burials 7, 25; Zayukovo III, Burial 28; Tereze, Tombs 1, 2) (Fig. 8D–F) (Kozenkova 2004: tabs 39: 2,3,6,7; 40: 1–10; Belinskij and Dudarev 2015: fig. 83, 6; 85, 4; 96, 5; Kadieva et al. 2020: 173, fig. 2,9 & 14). The main period of usage of this type pins was in the 8^th to the first half of the 7^th century BCE, that coincided well with other materials of the analysed Koban Burial 5. In contrast, Sabine Reinhold dates this specific type of pin into her late Bronze age phases Ko A and B1(A and B), which – in absolute terms – is equivalent to the 13^th to the 10^th century BCE (Reinhold 2007: 83). This dating seems much too old and can possibly be explained by some issues with less detailed definitions of types (“typological vagueness”). First, the bronze pins of Koban Burial 5 belong to the syncretic types, the rod of which simultaneously has a rounded and square (rectangular) cross-section, so their consideration within Reinhold’s typology has to be reviewed in this respect (the types Е2 and Е3 of bronze pins are mixed up and there are contradictions between the text and the pictures – Reinhold 2007: 82–83, tab. 20 and Abb. 33). In addition, the E1 A type with a circular cross-section of the rod also includes pins with an oval cross-section (for example, Reinhold 2007: tab. 106,6), etc.

Secondly, Reinhold’s suggestion that type NaE “Rollenkopfnadeln” should be dated within the framework of the 13^th to the 10^th centuries BCE has to be discussed because the pins of this type are present in a significant number of burials of the Tli cemetery (Graves 129, 304, 305, etc.) in the context of the 7^th century BCE (see Tekhov 1985, tab. 131; 192, etc.; Reinhold 2007, Liste 382, etc.). Moreover, recently published burial assemblages mentioned in our article confirm a younger date.

A fibula with a thickened arc-shaped bow and a narrow catch has the closest analogies in the mountainous regions of the Central Caucasus (Koban and Tli cemeteries), where this type of jewellery (Reinhold’s fibula type FiB3a “quer verzierte Bogenfibel mit symmetrischem Bügel; Querschnitt rund”; Reinhold 2007: 91, fig. 22 and 92, fig. 35, line C) was the most widespread during several centuries (mainly in the 9^th–7^th centuries BCE) up to the early Scythian period (Fig. 9F) (Virchow 1883: tabs 2, 3,4; 4, 3,4; Chantre 1886: pl. 22, 3,6; Uvarova 1900: tab. 30,2; Теkhov 1977: fig. 103; 1980a: fig. 2,11; 1981: figs 53, 56, 59, 82, 85, 86, 111; Kozenkova 1998: tab. XXIV). These absolute dates correspond well with Sabine Reinhold’s dating into her phases Ko C1 and C2 (Reinhold 2007: 148, fig. 60) and also Georg Kossack’s attribution to his Early Iron Age phase Tli C (“alt”) (Kossack 1983: 110–114 and fig. 9,6–8).

Similar finds, although in much smaller numbers, are also known in the foothill areas of the Northern Caucasus, for example, in the male Burial 19 of the Zayukovo III cemetery, which is dated to the last decades of the 8^th to the first half of the 7^th century BCE (Fig. 9D) (Kаdieva et al. 2020a: fig. 3,3).

Another bronze fibula with a smooth, arched bow and two transverse protrusions on the rod is also characteristic for the Koban Culture of the Central Caucasus and are classified as type FiC1 by Sabine Reinhold (“Doppelknotenfibel mit symmetrischem Bügel”; Reinhold 2007: fig. 125,8). In addition to finds from Koban, Faskau and Verchnjaja Rutkha, they are also quite numerous in the Tli cemetery, including Burials 93, 205, 216, containing informative objects of the Scythian type and allowing them to be dated not earlier than the second half of the 7^th – early 6^th century BCE (Fig. 9C, E) (Chantre 1886: pl. 21, 7; Motzenbäcker 1996: pl. 28, 7; 42, 9; 62, 7; Теkhov 1980a: figs 5,8; 13,9; 14,10). This again coincides with Reinhold’s dating in her younger Iron age phases Ko D1 and 2 until E (7^th–5^th century BCE; Reinhold 2007: 91–92), as well as with Kossack’s attribution to his phase Tli D (e.g., Tli Burial 216; Kossack 1983: 141–144 and fig. 28,7). It should be noted that the above-mentioned Tli burials of the 7^th century BCE are close to the complex of Koban Burial 5, not only by the fibulae of the same type, but also by other similar objects, among which are necklaces of carnelian beads, whetstones, etc.

Small bronze pendants in the form of a ring with overlapping ends, which are well known in the sites of all variants of the Koban Culture, were also found in Burial 5 (Fig. 10C–F). Concerning the function of these specific rings- they are addressed as temple rings by Sabine Reinhold due to their position in the graves in the area of the head (type SrB1; Reinhold 2007: 75–76, fig. 31 “Schläfenringe mit 1½ Windungen”). Having appeared at the turn of the 2^nd–1^st millennium BCE, they have been used, as known from the artefacts of the Tli and Ullubaganaly-2 cemeteries, until the early Scythian period (Kozenkova 2004: 116, fig. 6,17; tabs 28,5&7; Теkhov 2002: tab. 9,3; Skakov and Chshiev 2017: fig. 4,10).

The large oval-shaped pendants with overlapping and slightly bent upward ends belong to the rare finds in the sites of the Koban Culture of the mountainous regions in the Central Caucasus (Fig. 11A, B). They have certain similarity with some bronze pendants that were common in many cultures of the Caucasus, beginning with the Middle Bronze Age and up to the Early Iron Age (Tekhov 1977; see also Reinhold 2007: fig. 90 “Drahtringe mit 1½ Windungen”). Evgenij Krupnov noted that early types of such pendants were round, while the later ones had an oval shape (Krupnov 1951). In the pre-Scythian period, bronze, oval pendants with overlapping ends are well known in such burial sites of the Northern Caucasus as from Tereze and especially Zandak – Burials 1, 23, 24, 38, 47, etc. (Fig. 11G–J) (Kozenkova 2004: tab. 28; Mаrkovin 2002: 134, figs 15,6 & 10–11; 37,1–4; 39,4–5; 53,2–3; 54,5; 56,4–6). And it’s namely in the Zandak, the massive bronze oval-shaped pendants with elongated proportions and a height of up to 5.5 cm were found. The time of their usage falls in the 9^th–7^th centuries BCE (Mаrkovin 2002).

Due to this evidence, the bronze pendants from the Koban Burial 5 belong to the youngest varieties of this type of grave goods that existed in the Caucasus up to the 8^th–7^th centuries BCE. Their features in addition to the large size, include the correct oval shape and slightly curved ends, which are less than one and a half turns. The pendants in question from the Koban cemetery have a certain similarity with the items coming from the southern slope of the Central Caucasus, which do not have reliable grounds for dating. For example, pendants of a smaller size with a widening in the lower part from cromlech 6 of the Styrfaz burial ground (Fig. 11C) (Tekhov 2000: fig. 37,2–3). Pendants of Styrfaz are similar to bronze pendants of the 8^th–7^th centuries BCE from Burial 70 of the Tli cemetery (Fig. 11D) (Tekhov 1985: fig. 110,1). It is also necessary to discuss the oval pendants of ribbed wire which have been found in the Chmi cemetery (North Ossetia) (Fig. 11E, F) (Uvarova 1900: tab. 59,5–6). Like most of the Central Caucasian finds of this type, they are distinguished by slightly bent upward ends, that allows us to distinguish them into a separate typological group, which differs from rounded pendants rolled into one and a half turns.

A bronze pendant-amulet in the form of a mountain goat’s head belongs to the images that became spread in the Caucasus in the early Scythian period (Fig. 12A–C). A drawing of this pendant, published by Ernest Chantre (1886: pl. 11bis, 12) and reproduced later in Praskovya Uvarova’s book (1900: tab. 25,7), is not accurate, especially in depicting the animal’s eyes and ears.

The use of images of ibex replaces the earlier zoomorphic pendants in the form of earless ram’s heads. They had voluminous bulging eyes as well as a long muzzle and horns twisted into several turns, placed on the sides of the head. The ram was considered a symbol of fertility and material well-being, so its image in the 9^th–8^th centuries BCE dominated in the spiritual life of the population in the mountain’s areas of the Central Caucasus (Krupnov 1960: 306). With the beginning of the Scythian period such pendants practically ceased to be produced and were replaced by a mountain goat.

Bronze pendants in the form of a mountain goat head, close to the find from the Koban Burial 5, have been discovered in the Kabardino-Balkaria (сemeteries Zayukovo and Lashkuta), mostly in the destroyed burials (Fig. 12E) (Vinogradov 1972: fig. 30,19; Batchaev 1985: fig. 4,2) and such valuable context information is lost. In the Lashkuta cemetery, a figure of goat was part of a necklace with drop-shaped pendants. These pendants have parallels in grave pit 11 of the Ergeta II cemetery in the Colchis, dated to the end of the 7^th to the beginning of the 6^th century BCE (Papuashvili and Balakhvantsev 2016: fig. 5, 25,38,39). Along with a pendant in the form of a goat’s head, a Colchian fibula of the late 8^th – 7^th centuries BCE with ring-shaped thickenings on a high, widened in the middle part, bow was found in the Lashkuta burial ground (Batchaev 1985: fig. 4,1).

Having undergone certain stylistic changes (hypertrophied ears, a modified form of horns, etc.), the bronze pendants shaped as ibex heads continued to be in use in the mountain areas of the Central Caucasus also in subsequent chronological periods of the Iron Age. This is made evident by finds from Koban, Verchnjaja Rutkha, Kazbek hoard, and others (Domanskij 1984: tab. XXVII, figs 141–142; Motzenbäcker 1996: 115, fig. 55; tabs 35,10; 93,3; Vasileva and Sablin 2021: fig. 4). In her typology of zoomorphic pendants, Sabine Reinhold divided four different variants of goat head-shaped pendants, whereby the pendant from Koban Burial 5 can be attributed to her type Tan A1A (“Widderkopfanhänger; Hörner nach oben gebogen”; Reinhold 2007: 105–107, fig. 39,A1 and tab. 157,1–2).

A bronze knife belongs to the “alien” artefact in Burial 5 from Koban (Fig. 13A). Typologically similar knives (type 3 according to the classification of Sergey Makhortykh (1997: 9, fig. 1,24–26) were found in the burial complexes of the Northern Caucasus dating mostly within the 8^th century BCE (Fig. 13B–D) (Nikolaevskoe cemetery, Graves 18, 46; Stavropol burial, etc.) (see also Erlikh and Surkov 2020: fig. 9,4). The origin of this type of bronze knives is connected with the Northern Pontic region and more western territories: the Carpathian-Danubian and the Eastern Alpine areas, where they existed throughout almost the entire pre-Scythian period (Makhortykh 1997). The presence of traces of wear on the knife testifies its long-term use, possibly as early as the 7^th century BCE. It is notable that iron knives of this type, imitating the older bronze specimens, continue to be utilized in the Scythian time (cemeteries Zayukovo III, Burial 43; Lugovoj, Burial 26/53, etc.) (Fig. 13E, F) (Kozenkova 1982: tab.1,13; Kadieva et al. 2019: fig. 2,7).

A whetstone from the Koban Burial 5 finds the analogies in the western variant of the Koban Culture sites of the Kabardino-Pyatigorye area, where they are mainly dated to the 8^th to the first half of the 7^th century BCE (Fig. 14A–D) (Kozenkova 1998: 24, tab. 7,13; 2004, tab. 26; Kadieva et al. 2020b: fig.1,2). Similar objects are also known in рroto-Meotian sites of the Republic of Adygea (Russia), for example in the Fars/Klady cemetery, where they are one of the most common artefacts in male warrior burials (Leskov and Erlikh 1999: fig. 59). The whetstones were a tool necessary for sharpening any blades and, over time, acquired the functions of a revered object in the military sphere, which also had a sacred meaning. Sabine Reinhold assigned the whetstones as an attachment of daggers due to their frequent combination with this kind of weapons, respectively icons of status in the burials. Long narrow whetstones with rectangular cross-section are defined as type WzA by Sabine Reinhold (“Wetzstein mit rechteckigem Querschnitt”; Reinhold 2007: 44, fig. 19).

A clay bowl from Burial 5 has the closest parallels among the pottery from other graves of the Koban cemetery, for example, Burials 15, 31, etc. (Fig. 15A–D) (Chantre 1886: pl. 33, 1, 2; Uvarova 1900: tab. 41,1). These bowls are distinguished by incised geometric decorations at the bottom parts of the vessels. Among the most common ornamentation elements are rows of smooth and obliquely hatched triangles or the rhombi, figures in the form of angles, and especially horizontal bands of oblique deepened lines located in the lower part of the rib on the body of the bowl.

The bowls of the Koban cemetery reveal certain typological connections with the pottery of the western variant of the Koban Culture, and primarily with the bowls found in the vicinity of Kislovodsk. However, it is necessary to note the differences in the proportions of these vessels, as well as in the motifs and nature of the geometric ornamentation, which in the western variant sites of the Koban Culture decorated mainly the neck and extremely rarely the bottom parts of the higher bowls (Fig. 15E–G) (Kozenkova 1998: 98, tab. 37,1–5). The main period of occurrence of round-bottom vessels in the Koban monuments of the western variant is the 8^th–7^th centuries BCE (cemeteries Klin-Yar III, Industry I, Kislovodsk furniture factory, etc.), though they continued to be used there in the 7^th–6^th centuries BCE (Mineralnye Vody cemetery) (Belinskij and Dudarev 2015: 291, 296, fig. 231).

As for a vessel decoration from the Koban Burial 5, for example, a figure in the shape of a rhombus with additional geometric elements in the form of angles, it – like an image of the “Maltese cross” on a bronze axe considered earlier – finds the analogies in the burial sites of the Eastern Transcaucasia (Fig. 17G–I) (Gusejnova 1989: tabs 7,1, 13,5), that is a confirmation of the existence of long-distance contacts between these regions in the Early Iron Age.

In general, the pottery of the Koban cemetery is characterized by considerable typological and ornamental originality and requires more future research. Its significant difference from the ceramics of the Tli cemetery should be noted, which is mainly close to the East Georgian pottery.