archaicwonder: Maykop Culture Gold Bull, Mid-3rd ML BCFound in the Maykop Barrow (Barrow Oshad), May
archaicwonder: Maykop Culture Gold Bull, Mid-3rd ML BCFound in the Maykop Barrow (Barrow Oshad), Maykop, Adyghe RepublicThe Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop), c. 3700 to 3000 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. It is contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia. Their territory extended along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop in the Kuban River valley.In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles. The Maykop people tended to live sedentary lives on artificial terrace complexes in the mountains. The terraces were built around the fourth millennium BC and all subsequent cultures used them for agricultural purposes. The vast majority of pottery found on the terraces are from the Maykop period, the rest from the Scythian and Alan period. The Maykop terraces are among the most ancient in the world, but they are little studied. The longevity of the terraces (more than 5000 years) allows us to consider their builders unsurpassed engineers and craftsmen. -- source link