The Image of the Horse in the Insignia of Power

This article deals with stone products, that is, wands. They usually ended with zoomorphic images, among which the image of a horse was the most often found. Considerable attention was paid to their iconographic properties. Also, other characteristic features of these products were highlighted and described here. The main goal was an attempt to reveal the phenomenon of the cult of the horse, which had a wide significance and spread in the decorative and applied arts of the Bronze Age in the territory of the Ob-Irtysh region. The key argument in favor of confirming the sacred meaning and special status of the horse was its predominance in the images of stone wands.

Special emphasis was placed on the fact that all stone rods with a horse's pommel belong to accidental finds. They were found in the vicinity of Semipalatinsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, and in the destroyed burial grounds of the Shipunovo-Ⅴ burial ground in the Altai. The reason for such a wide scope of distribution in these surroundings was their special significance in the life and activities of the population. This was also confirmed several times by other archaeological materials, which were similar in functional significance but had already met with other zoomorphic images. However, they are all treated in the same way in the literature and are called stone wands, dated from the beginning – the first half of Ⅱ thousand BC.

As a result, it was concluded that the functional purpose of these stone products was their use as one of the attributes of power, which became its symbol.

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