Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 48 (2) 2020   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2020.48.2.029-037

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Two Rare Finds from the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya Sites
in the Black Sea Region

S.N. Korenevskiy¹ and A.I. Yudin²

¹Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117292, Russia

²Research Center for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Glebuchev Ovrag 492, Saratov, 410003, Russia

We describe two unique finds from the 2018 excavations at the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya settlements of Pervomayskoye and Chekon in the Krasnodar Territory: a pendant and a clay figurine of a goddess, respectively. The parquet ornament on the pendant is paralleled by that on a cylindrical pendant-seal from Chekon. Such ornamentation is frequent on Near Eastern button-seals, and occurs on Anatolian artifacts symbolizing the fertility goddess and the magic related to her. Therefore, the Pervomayskoye and Chekon pendants, too, may be associated with the fertility cult. The figurine of a goddess from Chekon can be attributed to the Serezlievka type of the Late Tripolye culture. It testifies to ties between Maikop and Tripolye in the late 4th to early 3rd millennia BC. Both finds shed light on the vastly diverse beliefs of the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya tribes at the middle and late stage of that culture.

Keywords: Maikop-Novosvobodnaya community, settlement, amulet, cult, figurine, Tripolye culture