INSCRIBED VESSELS AND SILVER ARTEFACTS FROM SOUTHERN KAZAKHSTAN IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1ST MILLENNIUM BC

Abstract

This article discusses firstly the silver bowl with inscription discovered by K.A. Akishev in the “Golden Man” funerary barrow of Issyk, highlighting that this inscription may be of allochthonous origin, possibly written in a Kharosthï alphabet to express words and concepts of a Saka dialect. Some etymologica comments on the Scythian and Saka ethnonyms attest that the root of these lessems could be of Indo-European and not of old Turkic origin, as recently suggested by some scholars according to their interpretation of the already mentioned inscription on the silver bowl from Issyk. Other epigraphical documents dated back to the the second half of the 1st mill. BC recently discovered from archaeological excavations in southern Kazakhstan (at Chirik Rabat, in the Inner Syrdarya delta) attest other, different languages (old Greek and Aramaic) that were widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and across Near and Middle East. The analysis of the few silver manufacts so far discovered in southern Kazakhstan, found in different kurgans at Issyk, as well as the study of the distribution of the typology of the silver spoons with duck-head end, one of them was found in the Golden Man barrow, allow us to suggest that the silver production documented in southern Kazakhstan in the second half of the 1st mill BC is of allochthonous origin. The silver items were manufactured far from the Eurasian steppe of the contemporary Republic of Kazakhstan and then traded or gifted during peculiar or important occasions. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by the analysis of the distribution of the silver spoons with a duck-head end, which in the 1st millennium BC were peculiarly widespread in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. In conclusion, we hypothesise that the Issyk inscription as well as the others recently discovered epigraphical documents provide little evidence to interpret the local past of the ancient inhabitants of the Central Asia steppes, with exception to their cultural and social interactions. Otherwise, they can brought light to the past of those communities or individuals which have manufactured the objects, incised the signs and words, and then traded or gifted.