Abstract This article contains a publication of a dedication by strategoi to Augustus, his heir Gaius Iulius Caesar and to the People, which was found in Olbia in 2006 and dates from the period between the year 1 bc and the year ad 4. It is the earliest inscription from post-Getic Olbia to have been discovered. Analysis of it makes it possible to suggest that Olbia was rebuilt after the rout by Burebistas in the last years bc under Roman control. The state organization of Olbia, which took shape after the city had been restored, reproduced certain features of the Roman constitution. Despite suggestions often voiced to the effect that Scythians or Sarmatians were included among its citizens, they were only granted the status of Olbian citizens later on – in the years 50-80 ad. The city was restored by Greeks who, at least in part, had come from Asia Minor and Thrace.

This article is devoted to the recently discovered site from the Hunnic period within the territory of the Mangÿshlak Peninsula (Kazakhstan). Inside a stone enclosure the silver facing of a saddle was found bearing depictions of animals and birds. The article provides a cultural interpretation of the site and a stylistic and semantic analysis of the depictions on the facings.

The authors of the report give an account on the new magical inscription (5th-4th cent.bc) found on the territory of the ancient necropolis of Panticapaeum in 2011. The paper contains a publication and a commentary on the text of the newly discovereddefixio. The monument is especially interesting for the new magic formula it contains.

This article is devoted to an analysis of materials from the excavations of the Kara-Oba burial-mound led by the director of the Kerch Museum, A. E. Lyutsenko, in 1859-1861 (Figs. 1-6). During those excavations and also the continuation of the investigation of the burial-mound in the 1960s (Fig. 7), data were obtained indicating that this site had been linked to both Greek and barbarian cultures, which made it possible to date it to the end of the 2nd century BC. However, despite the intensive research that has been carried out there for many years, the question as to the function of the site still remains unresolved.

The article presents a part of the archival heritage of Albert Grünwedel – his letters to S. F. Oldenburg, devoted to the exploration of Eastern Turkestan at the beginning of the 20th century. Grünwedel gives some important characteristics to the ways of studying of Buddhist art in Central Asia, describes the state of several monuments in Turfan; his information completes the history of cooperation of German and Russian expeditions. Several documents shed some more light on the conditions of the division of the areas of excavations between German and Russian expeditions.

Abstract In the Sighnaghi museum there is a bronze bouterolle found by chance during earthworks in the village of Patardzeuli in Kakhetia (Eastern Georgia). This cast bronze object in the shape of a rhyton and 12 cm long is the terminal of a wooden dagger sheath (or a wooden one once covered in leather). The terminal tapers evenly downwards and then broadens out to one side with a curved open-work detail representing a highly stylized depiction of a bird’s head: it consists of an imitation of a delicate spiral resembling a curved beak, while the eye is conveyed by a round knob positioned on the main part of the terminal next to the lateral detail. There are two rows of round knobs around the top rim of the bouterolle: between them there are two holes on each side of the object passing right through it, thus allowing it to be attached to the wood. Objects of this category have been recorded in various versions in the Caucasus and in modified versions outside. In places, where a context for such finds has made it possible, the period during which they were used has been defined as the second half of the 7th and the 6th century BC. Mapping of such finds indicates that the area of distribution for these terminals is confined mainly to the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasia. Although heads of birds of prey with their clearly defined large eyes and large curved beaks are one of the most popular motifs in the repertoire of the Animal Style of the Scythians, bouterolles of the type in question are not found in Scythian culture as such. An exception is the terminal from Repyakhovataya Mogila, which in its shape, manner of execution and proportions stands out from the rest and has been classified as a Scythian variant of the Caucasian bouterolles. Our research has led us to conclude that the fashioning of the scabbard chape in the shape of a bird’s head can be traced back to the practice of a local tradition in the Caucasus. We suggest that on the bouterolle from Patardzeuli, as for the other terminals from this series, the widely known motif of a bird’s head has been interpreted in a specific style intrinsic only to these objects, which gave rise to this special form of terminal. All the features, which set this group apart from artefacts of Scythian type from the same period, make it possible to conclude that bronze bouterolles of the type examined here represent a phenomenon from the Caucasus.