Abstract
<jats:p>This article is devoted to publishing four pommels made of Cervidae horns and decorated in the Scythian-Siberian animalistic style. The items are discovered in the Fore-Urals steppe in the nomadic collective grave dated the turn of 400s–300s – the first half of the 300s AD. The grave conceals at least 12 people cremated in situ. The animalistic style horn pommels are revealed in the part of the grave least exposed to the flames. These items are found by the remains attributed to an adult and a child. Pommel No. 1 represents a neck and a head of a predator cat with its teeth showing. The fur folds on the neck at the head stem are transformed into predator bird heads with beaks facing downward. The spot at the back of the head between the ears and among the bird heads represents a vertical silhouette of a ram head. Both sides of pommel No. 2 bear profiles of three animals carved in the horn. One animal is a boar, and its picture is dominating. The other two are a predator cat and a detached bird head. Pommel No. 3 is comprised with two profile figurines. One figurine is a three-dimensional image of a predator (a bear?), while the other side of the pommel is lost. The preserved side also shows elements of a zoomorphic transformation: a bird head and protoma of a different predator (probably, a bear too). Pommel No. 4 has lost its main animal completely. The image reveals a full-face and a profile of an animal (probably a bear) head tilted down. The main animal's body is comprised with bird heads. Equivalent items are found mostly in the Early Iron monuments in the Southern Fore-Urals and the Eastern Kazakhstan. The study suggests resemblance with the Eastern European Scythian animalistic style. However, the Totskoe items have their distinct peculiarities to them. The images and the techniques depend on the imagination and skills of the bone carver just as much as on the iconographic tradition.</jats:p>