ON THE GENESIS AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE HELLENISTIC SHOULDER PHALARS 1 The article deals with the origin of the Hellenistic shoulder phalars. The appearance of this fashion was not associated with gradual changes in the decorations of nomadic harness and occurred in a short period of time, probably in the second half or at the end of the third century BC. It is not yet possible to unequivocally decide whether the nomads brought this fashion to Parthia and Greco-Bactria in a ready-made form or whether it arose as a result of the synthesis of harness a new design and ceremonial horse dress, typical of the Hellenistic tradition. Key words: Phalars, Hellenism, Greco-Bactria, Parthians, nomads. Shoulder falaras were an important element of the ceremonial horse dress of the nomads of Eurasia and have repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers.2 Considerable attention is paid to these decorations in the works of V. I. Mordvintseva. She proposed a fractional classification, dividing the falaras into four groups by "style": 1) the Ionian style; 2) the style of products made in imitation of the Ionian in the Greek cities of the northern Black Sea region; 3) the Greco-Bactrian style; 4) the Black Sea "graphic" style [Mordvintseva, 2001, pp. 162-164]. This grouping of material is somewhat arbitrary, but there are no alternative classifications of phalars yet. According to M. B. Shchukin, the Phalars of the Hellenistic era are "a fairly homogeneous group of ancient Toreutics, united stylistically" [Shchukin, 2001, p. 138], and the differences within one artistic style are due to different "schools" and "directions". This idea was supported by A.V. Simonenko [Simonenko, 2010, p. 203]. This approach was partly due to M. B. Shchukin's broad outlook and his desire to fit the archaeological material into the historical context. But the understanding of the unity of style applied to all falaras seems to be unsuccessful. They differ significantly in morphology, decor, and quality o ... Read more