BGPU students discovered a rich female burial place with gold artifacts at Filippovsky burial mounds

The Institute of Archeology of RAS have announced about a unique discovery. A burial place of a woman covered with gold round plaques with solar ornament was unearthed at the world famous Filippovsky burial mounds.

The burial place was found in Ileksky area of the Orenburg region. Other gold and bronze artifacts were found there too.

According to scientists, the abundance of gold items testifies to a high social status of the buried woman (a wife or a concubine of the chief).

This discovery is one more acknowledgement in favour of evidence by the Greek historian Herodotus on so-called amazons — women- warriors.

Leonid Yablonsky, the head of Sarmat Archeology department, the Professor, the Doctor of History from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Archaeology Institute, names these archeological finds sensational. According to him they are of universal importance and occur once in two hundred years.

Archaeological excavation of Filippovsky burial mounds known since the XIXth century was begun in 1985 by an archaeological expedition of Bashkir Branch Academy of Sciences of the USSR led by Anatoly Pshenichnyuk. Results of this excavation made the monument world famous. Then in the mould «number 1» (total 28) the central tomb of Sarmat chief was surveyed. And though it was plundered even in ancient times, archeologists found a rich collection of gold pieces in it and in two places near it including numerous ornaments, ceremonial gold incrusted weapon, vessels, and many other items.