Svetlana N. Savchenko*, Mikhail G. Zhilin**

*Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore, Ekaterinburg (sv-sav@yandex.ru)

**Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (mizhilin@yandex.ru)

Key words: disc-pommel, sacral object, middle Transurals, pestle-grindstone, cult complex, sacral calendar.

In the discovered in 2006 settlement Shaidurikha 33 on the south-western bank of Ayatskoye Lake, in the sounding trench (9 square meters), in upper part of the undivided cultural layer containing the artifacts of the Mesolithic – Bronze Age there were found a pestle-grindstone 10.8 × 5.8 × 4.7 cm from granite gneiss and a disc-pommel 15.6 × 12.7 × 3.5 cm from the chloritic material at the distance of 25 cm from each other. The disc has asymmetric oval plano-convex cut. The surface was polished on the coarse-grained abrasive. The hole in the center was made by the stationing from both sides. On the surface there are graved line pictures in the basis of which there is a sidelong cross going through the hole. The rim of the disc was sharpened with a thin polisher from the both sides after it had already been ornamented. The perforated stone discs are known in middle Transurals from the early Neolithic period. At first, probably, there were discs of oval shape. There are only three oval Transurals discs-pommels together with the described one. It is a disc from the settlement Palatki II and an occasional find at the village Antonovskiy. Unlike the described one they have a wide brink on perimeter. According to the schemes of ornament compositions the Ayatskiy disc is similar to the disc from the Palatki II settlement. However, it should be noticed, that a big cross going through the hole is in ornament of all three objects. The pommel from the settlement Palatki II was found in the dwelling of the Bronze Age. However, the undividedness of the cultural layer and the artifacts from different epochs in the same level do not allow solving this problem clearly. Oval stone pommels are considered in bibliography as discs-calendars having had a sacral meaning as an attribute of a sacral person. After the recast the disc from the settlement Shaidurikha 33 could probably have been used as a weapon, e.g. as a pommel of a mace. Anyway its sacral meaning does not cast doubts.