Y.S. Hudiakov1, 2 and Y.A. Filippovich1 1Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia 2Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
This article describes iron armor plates, weapons, and a horse harness from a randomly discovered site at the village of Filimonovo in the Kan Valley, southern Siberia. The reconstructed lamellar armor consists of several horizontal rows of vertically arranged and joined narrow iron plates. Parallels suggest a date and cultural attribution. The group of finds includes three-bladed arrowheads, stirrups, bipartite bits, buckles, twisted loops, and bronze plaques. These items of horse harness are typical of the Old Turkic culture from the middle of the first millennium AD. The armor, the decorated stirrups, and horse harness from Filimonovo apparently date to the late 500s, when the Yenisei Kyrgyz were forced into vassalage to rulers of the First Turkic Khaganate. We suggest that the Filimonovo assemblage is a cache. The tradition of caching weapons and armor was practiced by various peoples of southern and western Siberia during the Xiongnu-Xianbei age and in the Early Middle Ages. Based on the analysis of various types of plates, a reconstruction of the late first millennium AD Old Turkic armor is proposed.
Keywords: Southern Siberia, Early Middle Ages, weapon cache, protective armor, lamellar armor, Old Turks, Yenisei Kyrgyz.
