The paper addresses chronological issues with burial 2 from kurgan 1 from Filippovka 1 burial ground, a semantic analysis of some uncovered objects of art, as well as the anthropological type/genetic status of the buried woman. Using complex research methods (molecular-genetic, mineralogical, X-ray, technological, traceological analyses, methods of age-sex diagnostics, craniology, multidimensional analysis of principal components and search for archaeological analogies) ensured the authenticity of determining manufacturing techniques and anthropological studies as well as modern ideas about the cultural and chronological interpretation of the presented archaeological materials. A study of horse harness items abd typological attribution of arrowheads and beads made it possible to date the burial within the middle — third quarter of the 4th century BC. The context of items in the burial, the stylistics of their forms and structure convincingly showed that certain items were not used in everyday/social life, but rather served as some sacred attributes used in religious ceremonies and ritual practices only. A search for analogies to the iconography and images from these relics made it possible to clarify the compositional semantics and suggested their purpose in sacred scenarios. The anthropological type distinctive features and genetic structures, as well as the presence of traces of deliberate artificial deformation of the skull, confirm the local, South Ural, origin of the woman.

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Three faience amulets depicting the Eye of Horus (Wedjat) were discovered in the Southern Urals. They all come from burial mounds of early nomads and are dated by local chronologies to the 5 th-4 th centuries BC. One pendant comes from a pristine (not looted) burial of the burial mound Filippovka I; it was found in a complex of objects covered with a mirror. The two other pendants, similar to one another, were found in looted burials of the burial mound Novy Kumak. The material and iconography of the Filippovka amulet place it close to the types 138 v, w, and z in the classification of F. Petrie, who believed that this type of depiction of the Eye of Horus had originated from the time of the 6 th Dynasty (end of the Old Kingdom) and persisted through the end of the Ptolemaic Egypt. The pendants from Novy Kumak are comparable to Petrie's types 138 r, s, and t, which appear during the 23 rd Dynasty (3 rd Intermediate Period) and vanish early during the Ptolemaic dynasty. An extensive import of goods from Egypt to Mediterranean countries during the 1 st millennium BC resulted in the local craft centers in Syria, Judea, Anatolia, Greece, Italy and island states copying the Egyptian technologies of manufacturing glass and faience and starting manufacture of their own goods with the imported technologies. Trace analysis and analysis of faience composition showed that the pendants from Filippovka and Novy Kumak had been manufactured following different Egyptian faience recipes. SEM and SEM/EDX analyses of the Filippovka pendant suggest a possibility that it was made in handicraft centers of the Eastern Mediterranean with a borrowed technology. L. T. Yablonsky has developed the original idea of the research, aimed at not only revealing the origin of imported items, but also identifying the purpose of these amulets in rituals of early nomads. The author has analyzed the semantics of the amulets' image adopted in ancient Egypt, and the likely use of these amulets by nomads, made conclusions. O. V. Anikeeva has studied the iconography of amulets, their distribution among nomads, investigated the materials using natural-science methods.