“In October 1882 there were ploughed up near Vettersfelde in Lower Lusatia and acquired for the Antiquarium in Berlin the fragments of a great jar and the complete equipment of a Scythian chief. It included the centre ornament of his shield, a fish 41 cm. x 15 cm. made of pale gold repoussé and covered with animals in relief, a gold breastplate 17 cm. square formed of four roundels each with a boss in the middle, and animals in relief all round it, set about a fifth smaller roundel or boss, a gold plate to cover the sheath of a dagger of the typical Scythic shape with a projection on one side, the handle of the said dagger as usual covered with a gold plate and showing the characteristic Scytho-Siberian heartshaped guard, a golden pendant, earring, arm-ring, neck-ring, chain, knife sheath with remains of the iron blade, gold ring, small stone wedge set in gold, a hone bored through and set in gold, and some fragments…
The fish is the most remarkable of these things. It corresponds in style and destination to the Kul Oba deer, and Furtwangler’s decision that they are both shield ornaments has been satisfactorily borne out by the finding of the Kostromskaja deer still in place upon remains of the shield, only this was round instead of long shaped as had been supposed on the evidence of the Kul Oba vase.
The inventory of the find is typically that of the personal effects in the Scythic tombs of kings except that the horse trappings are absent, and of course the women’s things. The whole may be dated rather earlier than the older objects from Kul Oba and put in the first decades of the Vth century.
How these things including the brittle whetstone found their way so far from home without loss is unexplained. Save for some little damage by fire and rust they are as good as new. Furtwangler guesses that their coming may have to do with the Scythians northward retreat before Darius.” (Prof. Ellis Minns, 1913)
Discoveries in Kul-Oba Royal Kurgan and the details of invasion of Darius the Great in the area of present-day Ukraine can be found in ‘Royal Scythia, Greece, Kyiv Rus‘ book.
