Abstract
The article deals with Roman bronze amphorae found in the burials of Sarmatia. They originate primarily from Burial-mounds of the Lower Don area, but also from the Kuban and the Lower Volga basins. A special attention among the amphorae with egg-shaped body (Eggers 129, Raev 2, Tassinari A3220) attracts the fi nd from the Burial-mound no. 14/1961 near Kundinov Farmstead in the Lower Don basin (also called as the Bagaev Burial-mound no. 14). The shape and decoration of the handles and especially the images on their lower attachments are analyzed in detail. In contrary to the opinion of the scholars who dealt with the attribution of the amphora, the author basing on the detailed study of the image with its attributes concludes that not the Maenad, as considered before, but the personifi cation of Africa (less probably that of Egypt or Alexandria) are depicted on the lower handle attachments. One can hardly treat these images as portraits of Cleopatra VII or her daughter Cleopatra Selene II, as supposed by some scholars regarding a typological similar image on the medallion of a silver phiale from Boscoreale. In any case, the circles of parallels both to the shape of the vessel and to the decoration of its handles and their attachments could hardly give the ground to date the amphora later than the fi rst half of the 1st century AD.
In general, a signifi cant number of bronze amphoras found in the burials of the nomads of Asian Sarmatia attracts attention. Such vessels occur very rare both among the fi nds from the Roman legion camps of the time of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and among the imported bronze vessels of the fi rst – early second century AD, found in the central European Barbaricum. Perhaps only in the territory of Thrace there was found a comparable (in relation to the total number of Roman bronze vessels) number of bronze amphorae. The occurrence of such a relatively large number of bronze amphorae to the nomads makes us to think that, obviously, they enjoyed a certain demand among the latter.
Keywords
Roman bronze amphorae, Sarmatia, Lower Don area, personifi cations of Africa, Egypt, Alexandria, female hairdo in Egypt, Isis, Cleopatra VII, Cleopatra Selene, phiale from Boscoreale
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