Karavan

Karavan [Караван]. A Scythian fortified settlement of the late 5th to early 2nd centuries BC discovered near Karavan, Derhachi raion, Kharkiv oblast. Excavations carried out in 1954–5 uncovered the remains of fortifications, clay and wood surface dwellings, ceramics, and the bones of domestic and wild animals. Miniature clay vessels, a fragment of an anthropomorphic statuette, clay ‘breads,’ and 170 clay models of grains found by a sacrificial altar and in an ash mound were probably associated with a Scythian agricultural cult.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]