Mound Grave-Tolstaya
Scythian burial mound Tolstaya TombUkraine, Dnipro
Mound Grave-Tolstaya
Scythian burial mound Tolstaya TombUkraine, Dnipro
In the steppes near Nikopol, Dnepropetrovsk region, in the middle of the field, a grandiose hill rises. Its height is more than 8 meters, diameter - 70 meters. This is the Scythian mound "Tolstaya Mogila".
Its history goes back centuries, to the 4th century BC, when these places were inhabited by the Scythian tribes. This mound, like thousands of its "brothers", would have remained unknown, if not for the event that occurred on June 21, 1971. On this day, Ukrainian archaeologist Boris Mozolevsky excavated the Tolstoy Grave. It was found that the circumference of the mound was surrounded by a moat. Near the moat and inside it, many accumulations of animal bones and shards of amphoras were found, which testified to a grand feast. After the researcher penetrated deep into the mound, it became clear that the mound had already been robbed earlier, but the robbers were content with only a small fraction of what this grave actually contained.
The tomb consisted of several rooms. The central tomb consisted of a deep entrance pit (7.75 m), two catacomb chambers that served as storerooms, and the main burial chamber connected to the entrance pit by a corridor. Next to the central building were two horse tombs with six horses and the graves of three "grooms". The side tomb, similar in plan to the central one, contained the burial of a young woman in a golden headdress. in clothes embroidered with gold plaques and gold ornaments. The woman was accompanied by servants: "charioteer", "cook", "servant girl". Somewhat later, a child was buried next to the woman, brought in through a specially arranged new passage from the floor of the barrow. The child's clothes were covered with gold plaques in abundance. Near it lay silver miniature vessels, possibly ritual ones. When the child was buried, a “guard” was also buried. All this testified to the fact that the mound is the burial place of a noble Scythian family. But the main "pearl" of the mound was the golden pectoral, decorated with masterful sculptural images of scenes from the life of the Scythians and animalistic scenes - the pectoral of the Scythian nobility. This treasure was immediately dubbed the "find of the century."
Here is how B. Mozolevsky talks about this in his monograph “The Scythian Steppe”: “I found it while clearing the floor of the dungeon on June 21 at 14:30. My fantasy turned out to be very poor to imagine something like excavations. And I'm sure it's not just mine. Now, when everything is behind, it is easier to believe in mysticism than in the fact that the robbers could actually get around such a treasure: if they extended their hand another ten centimeters, the pectoral for humanity would be forever lost ... ”After finding the pectoral, the name of this mound and the name of Academician Boris Mozolevsky spread throughout the scientific world and entered the history of world culture forever.
And one legend is connected with the name of "Tolstoy Grave". In the book of V. Goshkevich “Treasures and antiquities of the Kherson province”, published in 1903, there are the following lines: “In the steppe of the peasants of the village of Kamenka, to the right of the road to Heb. count Novo-Podolsk, there is a Tolstaya grave. Kamensky peasant Afanasy Babenko dreamed that there was a treasure in that grave. Babenko believed the dream and dug up the grave; I found a human skeleton in it, and with it an iron saber and 27 copper arrows. One of these arrows was sent by the Kamensky volost clerk F.I. Solyanka to the Kherson Museum. Now it is difficult to say why Afanasy Babenko failed to get to the bottom of the Scythian gold. Perhaps he did not believe enough in the providence presented by the dream, or nevertheless found something, but history is silent about that .. Or maybe the force that guarded the grave of the Scythian leader turned out to be stronger than the robber's attempts? After all, to get to the find of the century, the robbers did not have enough of some ten centimeters. Now the treasures of "Tolstoy Mohyla" are in the Kiev "Museum of Historical Values of Ukraine".
Its history goes back centuries, to the 4th century BC, when these places were inhabited by the Scythian tribes. This mound, like thousands of its "brothers", would have remained unknown, if not for the event that occurred on June 21, 1971. On this day, Ukrainian archaeologist Boris Mozolevsky excavated the Tolstoy Grave. It was found that the circumference of the mound was surrounded by a moat. Near the moat and inside it, many accumulations of animal bones and shards of amphoras were found, which testified to a grand feast. After the researcher penetrated deep into the mound, it became clear that the mound had already been robbed earlier, but the robbers were content with only a small fraction of what this grave actually contained.
The tomb consisted of several rooms. The central tomb consisted of a deep entrance pit (7.75 m), two catacomb chambers that served as storerooms, and the main burial chamber connected to the entrance pit by a corridor. Next to the central building were two horse tombs with six horses and the graves of three "grooms". The side tomb, similar in plan to the central one, contained the burial of a young woman in a golden headdress. in clothes embroidered with gold plaques and gold ornaments. The woman was accompanied by servants: "charioteer", "cook", "servant girl". Somewhat later, a child was buried next to the woman, brought in through a specially arranged new passage from the floor of the barrow. The child's clothes were covered with gold plaques in abundance. Near it lay silver miniature vessels, possibly ritual ones. When the child was buried, a “guard” was also buried. All this testified to the fact that the mound is the burial place of a noble Scythian family. But the main "pearl" of the mound was the golden pectoral, decorated with masterful sculptural images of scenes from the life of the Scythians and animalistic scenes - the pectoral of the Scythian nobility. This treasure was immediately dubbed the "find of the century."
Here is how B. Mozolevsky talks about this in his monograph “The Scythian Steppe”: “I found it while clearing the floor of the dungeon on June 21 at 14:30. My fantasy turned out to be very poor to imagine something like excavations. And I'm sure it's not just mine. Now, when everything is behind, it is easier to believe in mysticism than in the fact that the robbers could actually get around such a treasure: if they extended their hand another ten centimeters, the pectoral for humanity would be forever lost ... ”After finding the pectoral, the name of this mound and the name of Academician Boris Mozolevsky spread throughout the scientific world and entered the history of world culture forever.
And one legend is connected with the name of "Tolstoy Grave". In the book of V. Goshkevich “Treasures and antiquities of the Kherson province”, published in 1903, there are the following lines: “In the steppe of the peasants of the village of Kamenka, to the right of the road to Heb. count Novo-Podolsk, there is a Tolstaya grave. Kamensky peasant Afanasy Babenko dreamed that there was a treasure in that grave. Babenko believed the dream and dug up the grave; I found a human skeleton in it, and with it an iron saber and 27 copper arrows. One of these arrows was sent by the Kamensky volost clerk F.I. Solyanka to the Kherson Museum. Now it is difficult to say why Afanasy Babenko failed to get to the bottom of the Scythian gold. Perhaps he did not believe enough in the providence presented by the dream, or nevertheless found something, but history is silent about that .. Or maybe the force that guarded the grave of the Scythian leader turned out to be stronger than the robber's attempts? After all, to get to the find of the century, the robbers did not have enough of some ten centimeters. Now the treasures of "Tolstoy Mohyla" are in the Kiev "Museum of Historical Values of Ukraine".
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