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13th century BC

Koban culture — an archaeological culture in the Caucasus during the Bronze (13th/12th–4th centuries BC) and Iron (7th–3rd centuries BC) Ages. Representatives of the culture lived from the upper reaches of the Kuban River to the territories of modern Dagestan, with the main concentration of settlements in the central part of the region, on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Range. Anthropological bearers — autochthonous representatives of the Caucasoid type, likely participated in the ethnogenesis of Ossetians, Balkars, Karachays, and Vainakhs (Bats, Ingush, Chechens).

Research history

Name

The Koban culture was named after its first discovered burial ground — the "Koban" burial ground, which, in turn, was named by researchers after the North Ossetian village of Koban, where in 1869 ancient material artifacts of applied art were found. The name "Koban burial ground" became established in scholarship after the research of G. D. Filimonov ("Prehistoric Culture of Ossetia," Moscow, 1978) and V. B. Antonovich ("Diary of Excavations Conducted in the Caucasus," V AC. Proceedings of Preliminary Committees, 1882), as well as after mentions in "Materials on the Archaeology of the Caucasus" (issue VIII, 1900). At the time of the discovery of the ancient artifacts, there were two auls — Lower and Upper Koban; finds were usually associated with the latter. These auls have now merged into one village.

Discovery

In 1869, the spring flood of the Gizeldon River caused landslides on the left bank near the village of Upper Koban, as a result of which local residents discovered numerous stone cists (graves) with human skeletons and many bronze objects. The influential landowner Khabosh Kanukov collected some items and forwarded them to the Caucasian Museum in Tiflis (Tbilisi). In 1876, in Tiflis, the archaeologist and art historian G. D. Filimonov, who had arrived from Moscow, drew attention to the ancient artifacts. In 1877, he himself conducted excavations near the aul of Koban and confirmed the existence of an extensive burial ground. Following him, a number of researchers visited Koban (V. B. Antonovich and others), including scholars not only from Russia — in 1880, the Frenchman Ernest Chantre and the German Rudolf Virchow worked here, becoming the first authors of books on Koban antiquities in Western European scholarship. Artifacts similar to Koban ones began to be discovered in some other places in the North Caucasus. In 1881, the V Archaeological Congress was held in Tiflis, at which the archaeologist Count A. S. Uvarov particularly noted the finds from Koban, gave them a detailed description, and attempted dating (beginning of the 1st millennium BC). This congress stimulated the development of historical research in the Caucasus and attracted the attention of scientific circles to Koban antiquities. New archaeological expeditions led to the formation of large private collections of Caucasian bronze, which over time found their way into museums — both Russian and Western European.

Research in the 20th century

To date, three local variants of the Koban culture have been identified and three stages of its development have been outlined. Historian and archaeologist Ya. V. Domansky indicates that the main division of the period of existence of the Koban culture is made into two large stages — the Early Koban (the classical Koban stage), ending in the 7th century BC, and the Late Koban, ending in the 4th century BC. An expert on this culture, the Caucasologist V. I. Kozenkova, in 1990 in her doctoral dissertation proposed a new periodization, which shows what place the artifacts of the ancient Koban people occupy in the system of cultures of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the Caucasus, Transcaucasia, Eastern and Central Europe. She also proposed a concept of the so-called Proto-Koban (transitional) group.

Origin

The main theory explaining the origins of the Koban culture today is the proven assumption of their autochthony in the Caucasus region, and researchers date the formation of the ancestors of the Koban tribes to the period of the origin of the Caucasoid type of the European race — the Middle Bronze Age (26th/25th–20th/19th centuries BC).

Among researchers involved in the issues of origin, development, and spread of the Koban culture (E. I. Krupnov, B. V. Tekhov, V. I. Kozenkova, I. M. Chechenov, V. B. Vinogradov, Yu. N. Voronov, V. B. Kovalevskaya, and others), there are more or less significant disagreements.

Material culture

The material monuments of the culture are quite diverse, but bronze items of the 11th–4th/3rd centuries BC are the most characteristic — axes, belt buckles, fibulae, bracelets, arm guards, weapons (daggers), horse harness elements; they were usually decorated with embossing with geometric ornaments and images of animals; there were also three-dimensional figurines of animals and anthropomorphic sculptural images. Products of Koban craftsmen are distinguished by their elegance of manufacture, exceptionally high quality of workmanship, and undoubtedly have artistic merit. Various vessels were also cast from bronze; ceramics were made with appliqués and also often decorated with geometric patterns. In the 7th–4th/3rd centuries BC, at the late stage of the culture's development, excavations confirm the appearance of Scythian-type items and the predominance of iron products over bronze ones.

The burial rite of the Koban people consisted of inhumation, although cases of cremation are known. Mounds over burial grounds were usually not erected; in exceptional cases when this was done, researchers trace the influence of steppe nomads. The discovered burial grounds of representatives of the Koban culture have some differences — in the high-mountain zone, these are stone cists made of slabs, also covered with a powerful slab (sandstone or slate), while in the foothills they are ordinary pit graves or pits lined with rough stone and boulders. In male burials, weapons were a mandatory attribute; cases of burying men with bridled horses are known. Tools, vessels, bridles, and funeral food were also placed in the burials.

Economy

The Koban people practiced pastoralism — transhumance in the mountains with a predominance of sheep, and household-based in the foothills with a predominance of cattle and pigs. Agriculture was also widespread — they grew varieties of hard and soft wheat, barley, rye, and millet. The Koban culture had advanced non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy technologies for its time; metalworking was developed, including artistic metalworking. In addition to blacksmithing, pottery workshops are found in Koban settlements. Modern researchers know about the extensive trade and other inter-tribal connections of the bearers of the Koban culture with Transcaucasia and Western Asia, the lands of the Cimmerians, and later Scythia. From nomadic peoples, the Koban people adopted many samples of weapons and horse equipment, which local craftsmen improved and established their mass production both for themselves and for export back to the nomads.

The Koban people usually did not fortify their settlements, as they tried to locate them in hard-to-reach places — on rocks and elevations; in river valleys, high plateaus or flat spurs of gorges were also chosen for habitation (Serzhen-Yurt, Bamut). Houses were built of mud-brick, wattle-and-daub, sometimes on a boulder foundation; in the mountains, entirely stone houses were found. Houses were usually built in groups, walls against each other; significant settlements with entire blocks of buildings divided by streets were also encountered. In such settlements, cobblestone pavements are found.

Ethnic affiliation

The creators and bearers of the Koban culture could belong to different ethno-linguistic groups. At the early stage of the formation of the Koban culture (dated to the 12th century BC), the Scythians could not have participated, as their appearance is dated by scholars to the 8th century BC (see Scythians), nor could the Sarmatians, whose appearance is dated to the 4th century BC (see Sarmatians). The introduction of Scythian-type items is established only at the late stage, which dates from the 7th to the 4th centuries BC and is characterized by the predominance of iron products.

M. M. Ivashchenko asserted: "the main bearer of the so-called 'Koban' bronze culture were the Colchians" (1941, p. 56).

At the beginning of the 20th century, based solely on the external similarity of Koban illustrations with items from the Hallstatt culture of the Danube basin, G. Wilke and M. Hoernes explained the achievements of Caucasian bronze by a mass migration of Danube metallurgical tribes. Only in 1935, A. A. Jessen, in a special work devoted to the history of copper metallurgy in the Caucasus, managed to show the complete groundlessness of the theories of "Danube" borrowings.

The Ossetian archaeologist B. V. Tekhov attributed the bearers of the Koban culture to the Indo-Iranians, who, in his opinion, lived here since the end of the 3rd millennium BC.

In museums and collections

At the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th centuries, individuals in the North Caucasus were actively engaged in trading Caucasian bronze items, which were found in ancient settlements and burial grounds. Most of the artifacts found during the heightened demand for elegant products of Koban craftsmen ended up in private collections (with the help of landowner H. Kanukov, the German scholar R. Virchow collected a collection; with the help of the Kabardian prince I. Urusbiev, the Hungarian count from the Zichy family); many of them have been lost today. Later, museums and scientific organizations, both Russian and Western European, actively bought objects of material culture from private collections. For example, artifacts purchased by the Russian Academy of Sciences were transferred to the collection of the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg; a large collection ended up in the Museum of National Antiquities in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France). Thanks to the work of archaeologists and local historians of the Soviet period, collections of Koban antiquities can also be seen today in the local history museums of Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, and Grozny.


Sources:

Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015