DEPICTION OF THE DEER IN TAGAR WEAPON DECORATION
The paper is devoted to the depiction of deer in the decoration of Tagar weapons. Such images are not numerous, much fewer than the deer images on other types of Tagar inventory. However, in terms of expression and diversity the deer images in the decoration of Tagar weapons are not inferior and even superior to those in other extant categories of items. The paper presents the experience of systematizing animal style decoration of Tagar weapons based on such features as the type of weapon, animal posture and image style. The authors revealed the stylistic traditions of images dating back to Arjan-Mayemir traditions, images on deer stones of the Sayan-Altai and Mongolian-Trans-Baikal type, as well as the impact of the Scythian art from Tuva and Altai. Styles of deer depiction in knife decoration were correlated with blade types. It was possible to determine that some of the images with depictive signs of the early Scythian tradition were performed on items related to the later stages of Tagar culture, indicating the duration of the early Scythian traditions along with new versions of images.