MAIASP. 2024. No. 16

P.I. Shulga (Novosibirsk, Russia), I.V. Salnikova (Novosibirsk, Russia)

The phenomenon of Indian rattle-mirrors and bronze bowls with a cone

DOI: 10.53737/2713-2021.2024.76.38.007

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Pages: 159—193

Bronze rattle-mirrors with a gold glitter and engraving in “Indian” style belong to the most complex and time-consuming in manufacturing products. They consisted of two reverse discs of “musical” high-tin bronze: a flat front, and a relief reversible disc with hollow rollers with pieces of metal inside. At the same time, a reverse disc with a cone in the center, rollers and circular circles can be considered as a variant of the mandala. In combination, the product was a mirror, a musical instrument, and also an object of worship. According to all data, rattle-mirrors were produced somewhere in the North Indian and Bactria regions. However, all five known documented mirrors were found about 2400 km north of their intended production place. In three cases they were found in paired female burials of 4^th century BCE Scythian-like cultures in the Southern Urals and Altai. Presumably the buried were servants of a cult unknown to us. Such mirrors and burials are not known in the vast intermediate country. Neither can be found in India. For these reasons, until recently, rattle mirrors remained an exotic short-lived phenomenon in the nomadic environment of the 4^th century BCE without a history or traces of further evolution.

New materials for the rattle-mirrors phenomenon solution were unexpectedly obtained in recent years in the northern regions — in the taiga Ob region, only 300—400 km from the Arctic Circle. The discovery of a unique bronze bowl with a cone which copied the rattle-mirrors in 2014 at the mouth of the Kazym river, and the unique bronze bowl with a cone at the mouth of Yalbynya initiated a new direction of rattle-mirrors analogues searching. In the course of the study in the supposed places of rattle-mirrors manufacture (Northern Pakistan and India) the attention was drawn to the known there bronze, ceramic and stone vessels with cones in the second half of the first millennium BCE, distributed in Southeast Asia as well. Some of the bronze vessels had engravings similar to those found on the rattle-mirrors. Some of them also had conical protrusions at the bottom surrounded by circular circles. According to experts, these were the objects of worship, and cones with circles were the variants of the Buddhist mandala.

On the basis of the available materials, the authors of this publication conclude that in the second half of the 1^st thousand BCE in several areas from Thailand to Afghanistan, three types of portable ceremonial items, all of which contained mandala in the form of a cone, surrounded by circular rollers and circular circles: bowls with a cone, rattle-mirrors and cult discs copying them. However, only bronze cone bowls produced in India to this day are found in the territory of these products manufacturing. Rattle-mirrors and cult discs copying them were probably made, mainly for missionary activities in the steppe zone of the Urals and Altai, where they were found. Derived from rattle mirrors cult discs were probably made later in the 3^rd and 1^st centuries BCE in the territory of modern Afghanistan, but also for steppe nomads, from where they came to the taiga areas of the Ob region during the exchange. It is unlikely that beliefs could be passed north with the discs, but the design of the cone-and-circle mandala was accepted by the taiga population and produced in the Lower Ob region until the 5^th — 7^th centuries CE.

Key words: Lower Ob region, India, Thailand, high-tin bronze, bronze vessels and discs with a cone, rattle-mirrors, religious workers, missionaries, mandala, nomads.

Received March 11, 2024

Accepted for publication April 5, 2024

About the authors:

Shulga Petr Ivanovich (Novosibirsk, Russia). Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

E-mail: shulgapi55@yandex.ru

Salnikova Irina Vladimirovna (Novosibirsk, Russia). Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

E-mail: salnikovair52@gmail.com