Burial Complexes and Hoards as Sources for the Reconstruction of Ceremonial Adornments of the Representatives of Komarovo Culture

The article features an analysis of metal adornments from burial complexes of the Komarovo culture dating back to the late Bronze period for the reconstruction of the characteristics of the costume complex and adornment elements. The authors used the information on the mutual occurrence of adornments in closed complexes (burials, hoards), their location with respect to skeleton bones, and analyzed the parameters of the adornments. The relative scarcity of metal adornments discovered in burials of Komarovo culture and the absence of local sources of raw materials for their manufacture allow to consider the adornments contained in burials, especially with such high metal content as pins, bracelets and neck torcs as elements of ceremonial (wedding, funeral) adornments belonging to persons of highest social standing. A complete set of ceremonial adornments of the northern groups of Komarovo culture consisted of a pin, a neck torc and a bracelet/multiple bracelets. The most stable combination of large adornments is observed in Volyn and Kiev-Cherkasy groups: a pin, a neck torc, a pair of multi-spiral (wrist) bracelets and a pair of (shoulder?) bracelets with spiral shields. There are no bracelets with spiral shields corresponding to the Galitsia group, the multi-spiral bracelet is substituted by the massive cast bracelet, and three categories of small adornments are observed. Elite burials of the Podolsk cultural group contain a large number of small adornments: pendant rings, pendants and necklaces of amber beads which replaced neck torcs.