'Pandora’s box': A textile tool set from a Scythian burial in Ukraine

Abstract

Textile tools made of perishable materials such as wood are extremely rare in the archaeological contexts of ancient Mediterranean, but numerous complete and fragmentary boxes containing textile tools and other materials have been found in Scythian burials of the 5th-4th centuries BC in southern Ukraine. The boxes are found exclusively in female burials and are clearly of Hellenic craftsmanship. The paper presents preliminary observations about a 4th century BC female burial 2 from Kurgan 5 at Bulgakovo, which was accompanied by a wooden box containing three wooden distaffs, a spindle whorl made of an amphora fragment, a wooden comb and two smaller wooden boxes, one of which stored a set of at least 19 wooden weaving tablets with four holes each, an iron needle and some yarn.