The Scythians of Iron Age Hungary: Ritual Rattles and Steppe Symbolism | szkíta csörgők a vaskorból

This video presents a comprehensive overview of Scythian bronze rattles, one of the most enigmatic and symbolically rich classes of Iron Age artefacts found in the Carpathian Basin

These objects - openwork bronze rattles or jingling finials, typically topped with animal figures - have long puzzled archaeologists: are they ritual instruments? Wagon ornaments? Or tools of trance and ceremony?🔮

In this video, we explore:
a brief contextual note on the Scythians’ presence in the Carpathian Basin (7th–5th centuries BC)
• the possible northern Caucasian origins of the rattle tradition⛰️
• their interpretation as shamanic ritual tools
• the symbolic role of animal motifs (deer, bulls and big cats) in Scythian totemism and spiritual practice🦌🐂🐆

The second half of the video revisits four key archaeological sites where Scythian rattles have been uncovered:
1. Gyöngyös - a cremation grave containing six bronze deer-topped rattles🦌
2. Nagytarcsa - a ritual hoard with bull-headed rattles (two complete, one broken) and bronze bells🐂
3. Szurdokpüspöki - a disturbed burial featuring a feline-decorated rattle🐆
4. Gernyeszeg (Székely Land) - the easternmost example, topped with an ungulate figure, possibly a kulan🫏

Each site is explored in terms of its archaeological context, typology, symbolic content and cultural parallels; including comparisons with 7th-century BC rattles from Kurgan 8 at Novozavedennoe in the North Caucasus

Sources (all sources are cited on-screen during the video clips where they appear - full bibliographic references are also provided below)

Vágó Ádám (ed.): A Kárpát-medence ősi kincsei
Beate Maria Pomberger: Bronzebommeln und Schellen - eine klangliche Errungenschaft aus der Spätbronze- und frühen Eisenzeit. In: Studia archaeologica Brunensia, 2017
Kemenczei Tibor: Szkíta lelet Balassagyarmatról. In: Folia Archaeologica XXXI, Budapest, 1980
Harvard Art Museums, 1934.141.5 - “Rattle of a canopy of a cart” (orig. in bronze, National Museum, Budapest), from Gernyeszeg. Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Harvard Art Museums Collections Online
Hatalmasok viadalokban - Az Alföld szkíta kora / Sie sind in Kämpfen siegreich - Das Zeitalter der Skythen in der Tiefebene. Gyulai Katalógusok 10
Tankó Károly: Die skythischen Funde der Alföld-Gruppe aus Kazár und Szurdokpüspöki (Ungarn). In: Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae, 2015

• Noemi Alzayadi