Dzattiaty R. G.

Key words: South Ossetia, Early Middle Ages, ground cemetery, zoomorphic pottery vessels.
The article considers the publication of the finds’ assemblage of the burial 8 of the ground cemetery which is situated near the village Edis of the Dzau district of the South Ossetia. The burial is preliminary dated by the author back to the 7th–8th cc. It represented a cumulative multitude grave in a ground pit. The remains of four buried people were found in the burial. The bones of three skeletons were displaced but the other one was in a relative anatomical order. The buried were accompanied by the crockery, adornments and the apparel’s accessories: fibulas, pins, earrings, buckles, pendants, beads and a tip of a belt. The specific attention in the article is drawn to the unique zoomorphic vessel in a shape of a sheep founded in the burial. The closest analogues to this find can be found in the North Ossetia. The author believes that the vessel could be of religious worship because the image of a sheep in the Iranian tradition generally and in the Ossetian particularly is identified with the image of Khvarenah.