Garment applique with anthropomorphic plot

Golden appliques are the numerous artefact groups found in Scythian elite burials. The series of similar appliques were used to decorate a noble Scythian`s garments from the central tomb of Barrow No4 near Balky village in Zaporizhzhia Region, Ukraine. Three, with rectangular forms and holes for sewing, have distinguished sizes and quality of metalwork. And one of them was found undamaged. The plaque's surface is decorated with embossed images: a woman on the left sits on a throne with a mirror in her left hand, and in front of her, a man standing with a rhyton in his right hand. Scholars suppose that a scene of a Scythian cult is depicted on the applique: the divine delivery of power to a Scythian king. A woman is impersonating the supreme Scythian goddess Tabiti Herodotus associated with the Greek goddess of the hearth, Hestia. Or it may be the goddess of love named Artimpasa, who was supposed to be the patron of Scythian kings. Plaque findings with the same scenery are known in many Scythian barrows of the 4th century BCE: Kul-Oba, Chortomlyk, Verhnii Rohanchyk, Pershyi Mordvynivskyi, Ohuz, Melitopol. Vasyl Bidzilia, the researcher of a piece, supposes that this applique is best sample of this type, and it was made with a fresh punch. Specific and indigenous narratives and wide spreading of plaques with the exact scenes point to the fact that they were made in the North Black Sea Region, in the workshops of Bosporus.