Unique finding discovered in Central Kazakhstan

Archaeologists from Karagandy city discovered the oldest object. A bronze cauldron weighing 25 kilograms was found during excavations in the Taldy historical and archaeological park. Well-known specialist for the revival of time-destroyed artifacts Krym Altynbekov is studying the ancient relic at the scientific and restoration laboratory.

“It belongs to the 3rd-4th centuries B.C. It is probably from Zhetisu, but I don’t know why it ended up here. Archaeologists say that it is a ritual mound. Why and how it got there remains to be investigated. This is what we do, trying not to damage it,” said Krym Altynbekov, Head of Scientific-Restoration Laboratory.

During the clearing of the cauldron, artifacts from the Early Iron Age were recovered as well. One of them is a detail of an expensive horse harness with bronze decorations.

“The most interesting findings were zoomorphic images. The images of a horse were found, if we look under magnification, we can also see that there is a horse's bridle here. There are images of such a predator. It’s what we call a tiger griffin, because there are signs of both a tiger  and a griffin. The bared teeth, the mouth and this jointly with a bridle set played a protective magical role, and at the same time identified a rider’s belonging to a particular tribe,” said Igor Kukushkin, an archeologist.

There are several similar cauldrons now, but all of them were found in Zhetisu. A detailed and comprehensive study of the found objects will take several months. After that, the state commission will decide which of the museums will exhibit the artifact.