Abstract

The article deals with metal items discovered at the beginning of the 20th century near the village Nikol’skoye in the Nurimanovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan, in the eroded bank of the Ufa River. Scholars have repeatedly turned to the material of the collection, but there has been so far no consensus regarding its origin. According to A.V. Shmidt, these artifacts point to the existence of a necropolis in this area, which, along with the Novikovsky, Bakhmutino and Birsk burial grounds, can be attributed to the late sites of the Bakhmutino culture identified by Shmidt. A.P. Smirnov defined the discovered items as a hoard belonging to representatives of the clan nobility of the “late Bakhmutino or post-Bakhmutino period”. The author of the present article analyzes the finds in terms of morphology, typology, chronology, functional purpose, and genesis. In regard of functionality, these objects can be divided into the following groups: 1) head and headgear ornaments (temporal pendant); 2) neck and chest decorations (fragments of torques, beads, sulgam fibulae, plaques, pendants); 3) arm jewelry (bracelet); 4) belt fitting (buckles, false buckles, pad). These types are represented both by items of local origin and objects produced in other places in different cultural settings that evidence the variety of the Bakhmutino tribes’ contacts with neighbouring population. The author accepts A.V. Shmidt’s hypothesis of the existence of an unfound burial ground in the Ufa–Belaya interfluve area, whose separate burials could have been destroyed by water flows of the Ufa River. Judging by the discovered artifacts, the Nikol’skoye burial ground could be used in the III–VII centuries. The complexes of the Bakhmutino burial ground can be fitted into the same chronological framework, and, in comparison with the burials of the Birsk burial ground, they were less susceptible to foreign cultural influence. These conclusions remain hypothetical. The relevant archaeological surveys have to be conducted to clarify whether the Nikol’skoye burial ground really existed.