{"id":"ROSTOVKP13042-001","label":"Rostov engraved bone dragon","people_or_site":"Rostov, Metropolitan Court beside the Church of the Saviour-on-the-Senyi","country_current":"Russia","historic_region":"Rostov / Yaroslavl Oblast","macroregion":"Europe / Eastern Europe","local_name":"","source_term":"Подвеска зооморфная (дракон)","source_language":"Russian","object_description":"Engraved bone dragon, 7.4 × 1.5 cm, with a shallow plano-convex body, thicker head and a 0.2 cm transverse bore through the mouth. The narrow body has dotted arc and scale patterns.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"rostov_kp13042_16_dragon","source_type":"museum_catalogue","source_url":"https://cris.uniyar.ac.ru/entities/demarchartefact/83446699-b28d-439c-b7ee-0317c17fbf0f","page_or_plate":"Object entry КП-13042/16; attached drawing дракон2.jpg","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"comparative_only","coordinate_basis":"Representative Rostov Kremlin coordinate from the holding institution's contacts page, 57°11′4″N, 39°24′58″E (https://www.rostmuseum.ru/contacts/). Used because the institutional object entry explicitly locates discovery in the same Metropolitan Court beside the Saviour-on-the-Senyi church; coordinate is a complex anchor, not a trench or museum-storage location.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A flat bone dragon, no longer than a finger, narrows from its head to a rounded end. The head is the thick end, with relief eyes and ears and a hole bored clean through its jaws from side to side. Below, the polished body is engraved on one face only: tiers of dotted, scale-like arcs, then a net of dotted diamonds. Archaeologist Andrei Leontiev read the diamonds as signs of earth and the arcs above them as signs of heaven, a rare trace of the pre-Christian beliefs of Rostov’s first townspeople.\n\nIt lay in a late-tenth-century layer, deposited just as Rostov became a Rus’ town. The Finnic Merya had long lived on this shore of Lake Nero; now a new town rose over their settlement, its earliest dated timber felled in 975, and in 988 the chronicle gave Rostov to Prince Yaroslav. The dragon’s three-lobed head matches carved ladle handles from Novgorod; its dots and arcs also decorate Merya bone scoops.","pull_quote":"Вполне возможно и ее сакральное значение.","pull_quote_translation":"Its sacred significance is also quite possible.","pull_quote_cite":"A. E. Leontiev, Сообщения Ростовского музея III (1992), p. 129","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Comparative object","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 975–1000 AD","date_qualification":"Late-tenth-century deposit; object not directly dated.","date_basis":"stratigraphic","date_confidence":"high","date_citation":"A.E.Leontiev1992p129, original exact-object publication; institutional catalogue gives tenth century.","sources":[{"citation":"Rostov Kremlin Museum / Yaroslavl State University CRIS. Подвеска зооморфная (дракон). РЯМЗ КП-13042/16, Инв. № А-153/16, ГК-8286871; attached drawing дракон2.jpg.","url":"https://cris.uniyar.ac.ru/entities/demarchartefact/83446699-b28d-439c-b7ee-0317c17fbf0f"},{"citation":"A.E.Leontiev, “Ростовская подвеска времен Ярослава Мудрого,” Сообщения Ростовского музея III (1992), pp.129–130.","url":"https://www.rostmuseum.ru/upload/iblock/06d/06d410192d3f74129529c7bb6ec17520.pdf"},{"citation":"A.E.Leontiev, “Заметки о ранней истории Ростова,” Сообщения Ростовского музея I (1991), pp.3–7.","url":"https://www.rostmuseum.ru/museum/biblioteka/soobshcheniya-rostovskogo-muzeya/vypusk-i-rostov-1991/leontev-a-e-zametki-o-ranney-istorii-rostova-c-3-7/"}],"source_citations":"Rostov Kremlin Museum / Yaroslavl State University CRIS. Подвеска зооморфная (дракон). РЯМЗ КП-13042/16, Инв. № А-153/16, ГК-8286871; attached drawing дракон2.jpg.; A.E.Leontiev, “Ростовская подвеска времен Ярослава Мудрого,” Сообщения Ростовского музея III (1992), pp.129–130.; A.E.Leontiev, “Заметки о ранней истории Ростова,” Сообщения Ростовского музея I (1991), pp.3–7.","source_display":"Rostov Kremlin Museum / Yaroslavl State University CRIS. Подвеска зооморфная (дракон). РЯМЗ КП-13042/16, Инв. № А-153/16, ГК-8286871; attached drawing дракон2.jpg.; A.E.Leontiev, “Ростовская подвеска времен Ярослава Мудрого,” Сообщения Ростовского музея III (1992), pp.129–130.; A.E.Leontiev, “Заметки о ранней истории Ростова,” Сообщения Ростовского музея I…","date_citation_display":"A.E.Leontiev1992p129, original exact-object publication; institutional catalogue gives tenth century.","object_display":"Engraved bone dragon, 7.4 × 1.5 cm, with a shallow plano-convex body, thicker head and a 0.2 cm transverse bore through the mouth. The narrow body has dotted arc and scale patterns.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"rostov","display_name":"Rostov engraved bone dragon","image":{"full":"assets/objects/candidate_first7_2026/rostovkp13042-001.png","thumb":"assets/objects/candidate_first7_2026/rostovkp13042-001_thumb.png","alt":"Front and side drawings of a narrow bone dragon, with eyes and engraved arcs, dots and scales; a shallow curved cross-section and scale bar appear below.","credit":"Rostov Kremlin Museum / Yaroslavl State University","source_page":"https://cris.uniyar.ac.ru/entities/demarchartefact/83446699-b28d-439c-b7ee-0317c17fbf0f","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Rostov bone dragon КП-13042/16: engraved face, side profile and cross-section."},"slug":"rostovkp13042-001-rostov-metropolitan-court-beside-the-church-of-the-saviour-on-the-senyi"}