The Pisanitsa petroglyphs from the Citadel of the Artezian Ancient Settlement: Twenty Years of Research

Abstract

For two decades, the study of the most interesting lapidary monument has been going on – the Pisanitsa petroglyphs found in 2000 in the drainage cladding during the excavations of the Citadel of the Artezian Ancient Settlement. The archeologists found two monograms, three groups of characters, and traces of a two-line poorly preserved inscription. Many tamgas as well as the text and ligatures on this monument indicate its high significance. We believe that the abbreviations and tamgas of the first group were made by a professional carver in memory of the agreement of the Pontic commander Neoptolemus with the leaders of barbarian clans, joined later by his succeccor Machares, son of Mithridates VI Eupator Dionysus. The monograms encrypt the names of the Pontic nobles. Unfortunately, the inscription under the monograms has been preserved in fragments. It presumably contained the text of the agreement between the barbarian leaders and the Pontus representatives. The slab with the insignia was fastened in a prominent place in the wall of the Citadel. Later, when less influential clans joined the agreement, their insignia appeared on the slab as scratched thin lines above and below the line with the previously placed monograms and tamgas. The signs of the third group, most likely, appeared when the slab was removed from the wall and used again to be found later in the cladding of the defensive moat. The discovery of tamgas, monograms, and inscription in the Pisanitsa petroglyphs enhances our insight of the intercultural interaction between the barbarian clans of Taurica and the Northern Black Sea region on the one hand and the residents of Pontus on the other. No less important is that the discovery specifies the structure of the nomadic Iranian-speaking community in the region in the second half of the 1st century BCE.