NO. 13 SOVIET ANTHROPOLOGY — MELD 79 



the presence of the red ware and iron weapons, and, finally, because 

 of the finding in the neighborhood of the cemetery of a silver denarius 

 of Antonius the Pious, the graveyard had been attributed to the 

 Roman epoch. 



An analysis of the inventory by Kuflin and his assistants shows 

 the fallibility of thus fixing the date. Fragments of a bronze vessel, 

 found in one of the graves, belonged to the well-known type of bucket 

 from the Colchian-Koban I'.ronze Age and also found in the Ukraine 

 in pre-Scythian barrows. 



Kuftin succeeded in coimecting the red polished pottery with a 

 similar type from Toprak-Kala on Lake Van and also from Armavir- 

 Blur,^- where during 1879 A. S. Uvarov found similar pottery as well 

 as some bichrome ware " taken erroneously for late Roman. 



Among the beads from the columbarium, which do not reveal any 

 Hellenic or Roman influence, there are three stamp seals with 

 z(X)morphic figures: one toggle-shaped bead seal from the grave with 

 the inhumation ; and two columnar pendants, in which Kuftin estab- 

 lishes, because of the similarity of the pictures to the earthenware 

 tamps from Toprak-Kala and a series of other correspondences, a 

 lype of Urartian seal, little found up to the present, in which is pre- 

 served in contrast with the stamp cylinder prevalent in other parts of 

 the Near East, the archaic figure of the stamp seals of Asiatic stock. 



Thus, Kuftin came to the conclusion that the cemetery excavated 

 by Tetrov docs not date from the Roman but from the \''an epoch, 

 belonging, as it does, not to the native population, of which the types 

 of tomb and tomb inventory of that time are well known, but evidently 

 to one which had come from Lake Van. Consequently, it must be 

 presumed that there long existed in eastern Anatolia the custom of 

 cremation, a practice not foreign to the early cultures of Mesopotamia 

 and Syria and practiced later in the Kingdom of Mitani and in the 

 burial of the Hittite kings. 



The proposed attribution of the columbarium to the Urartians ex- 

 plains the dilTerent composition of the necklaces, foreign to the South 

 Caucasus for this date. For example, instead of carnelian, which was 

 the usual material for this period, ribbon agate and colorless glass 

 predominated. In addition, the style of the bronze bracelets with lions' 

 heads was similar to that found at Zakim associated with a bronze Ix^lt, 

 the ornamentation of which, in its time, was compared with that of a 

 sword in the Melgunov treasure. 



"This is the town of Argishticliinli of the UrartLin inscriptions. 

 ^^ Tills pottery is probably correlated with the types from Mukhanat-Tcpe in 

 Yerevan [formerly Erivanj. 



