G Romanova

The Zmeisky catacomb cemetery of the 10th–12th cc. is well-known in the early medieval historiography of the Northern Caucasus. It has been identifi ed as Alanian, and its ethnic and cultural background is the milieu in which the heroic Nart epos evolved. Catacomb 14 yielded an especially rich burial of an equestrian warrior; among the fi nds is a magnifi cent saber and an equine brow piece of gilded bronze, shaped as a fi gurine of a woman holding a cup, with the contents shown by a glass inset. Tubular brow pieces are often encountered in the Saltovo-Mayak culture of the 8th–9th cc. in the Don region and in the Alanian culture of the Northern Caucasus up to the 13th c., yet the sculptured brow piece from catacomb 14 is unique and has no analogies. In our opinion, the artifact can be interpreted in the context of the Ossetian Nart epos. The woman holding the cup can thus be one of the epic heroines, Satana or Dzerassa, and the cup she is holding is the magical cup of Uatsamong, fi lled with rong, the drink of heroes. At the Nart feasts, the cup showed whether the participants spoke the truth about their feats, or were merely boasting. The second theme of the article is whether the archeological artifacts could represent the epic magical wheel of Balsag, which descends from the sky and cuts through the legs of the sleeping Soslan. The archeological artifacts from Koban and Kamunta (wheelshaped plates) were published by P.S. Uvarova and have been known for over 100 years, yet no historical interpretation has been suggested for them. The purpose of the article is to draw stronger attention on the part of archeologists to the Ossetian (and the other national variants) of the Nart epos, which is a valuable source of scientifi c information.