2,000-year-old burial found in Russia near a human sacrifice and a cup to ward off magical threats

Archaeologists in southern Russia have unearthed the 2,000-year-old grave of an elite warrior who was buried with his weapons, horse — and a human sacrifice. The grave and sacrifices were found with other lavish goods, including two gold coins featuring Alexander the Great.

A team found the elite grave in Russia’s Kuban region east of the Crimean Peninsula, in a necropolis of more than 150 ancient graves arranged around it. This central placement indicates the man had been a member of the social elite, according to the study, which was published in September in the journal Russian Archaeology.

The evidence of a human sacrifice comes from another burial assemblage beside the warrior’s grave. This neighboring burial had the remains of three horses, two cattle, a pig, a dog and a fragment of a human pelvis that seems to have come from a sacrificed person, the researchers wrote.

The two gold coins — one found on the warrior’s skeleton and one found nearby — indicate that the burial took place in the early first century B.C., while the location and style of the burial indicated the warrior had been a noble of the Indigenous Maeotian people. At that time, the Maeotians were allied with the neighboring Mithridatic Empire, a Hellenistic-Persian kingdom and the enemy of the expanding Roman Republic.