Vitaly Sinika

The cemetery is located near the urban village of Suvorovo (now Stefan-Vode) and the village of Talmaz in the Stefan-Vode region of Moldova, and includes 3 Scythian barrows and one later burial within a Bronze Age barrow. In all of the 5 burials, arrowheads and spears were found, one burial contained a sword and a gold winding of a whip handle. Armour (lorica or shield) was also found in one of the burials. One of the complexes investigated is another female burial with weapons in Steppe Scythia. All other data shows that the Suvorovskoe cemetery is a warriors’ one. A Heracleian amphora and weapons complex allow to data the cemetery to the 1st decade of the 4th c. B.C. Analysis of the data gives new information on the funeral rites of not only Scythians living in the Dniester region, but of the entire Norhern Black Sea steppe area. This is due to the discovery at the Suvorovskoe cemetery of such a funeral structure as pit with a step, – variant 7 of type 1 pits. Grooves and small ledges in the Western and Eastern walls of the pits in two of the complexes may allow to identify subvariant 4 among variant 7 pits of type 1.