The article examines the scientific biography of the outstanding Soviet and Russian archaeologist and weapons scientist Yuliy Sergeyevich Khudyakov. The main stages of the scientist's scientific career are highlighted, the key directions of his research in the field of studying the military and cultural heritage of the nomads of Central Asia and Southern Siberia of the Ancient, Medieval and early Modern times are identified. The contribution of Y. S. Khudyakov to the development of domestic weapons science in general and to the development of theoretical foundations for the study of nomads' military affairs in particular is analyzed. The thesis is put forward about the existence of a special "Siberian" school of weapons studies, the founder and leader of which can rightfully be considered Yu. S. Khudyakov. It is established that a distinctive feature of the research of representatives of this scientific school is the application of the complex analytical model of the study of military affairs of nomadic ethnic groups and cultures developed by Yu. S. Khudyakov and the principles of classification of weapons corresponding to this model.

The article deals with a vintage iron helmet owned by the Northern Kazakhstan Regional Museum (Petropavlovsk, Republic of Kazakhstan). The design and decoration of the helmet are described in detail, the dating and attribution are specified, and photographs of the headpiece are presented for the first time under all main angles. Regarding the material of manufacture of the helmet crown, it belongs to the class of iron (steel), by the construction of the crown – to the section of solid-forged articles, by the shape of the dome – to the hemispherical type. The surface of the hoop and the “box-shaped” visor are covered with inscriptions in Arabic, floral and geometric ornaments reproduced in the technique of gold incision on metal. The inscription on the hoop contains verses 255–257 from the Qur’an, Surah 2 Al-Baqarah “The Cow”, while the one on the “shield” of the visor is a prayer for protection, addressed to caliph ʿAli and known as the “message of peace” recited before a long journey or a difficult and dangerous enterprise, including combat action. During the use of the headpiece, the original pommel was removed and replaced with a slightly convex copper alloy pommel. Typological analysis allows us to date the helmet within the 17th – early 18th century. The item could have been manufactured in Mawara’annahr, Xinjiang, or a certain town on the Syr Darya, for a high-ranking Uzbek, Uyghur, or Kazakh warrior. This definition may explain the combination of a solid crown and a hoop with Arabic inscriptions with a box-type visor typical of helmets worn by Mongolian and Turkic nomads of Central Asia. The closest parallels are found in the museums of Kazakhstan. Judging by the traces of repair and reconstruction, this helmet was used for a long time.

In this article we introduced into scientific turnover four spearheads of long-barreled weapons from the collection of the Nizhny Novgorod state Historical and Architectural Museum-park. The first three tips were among the old receipts of the museum, their origin is unknown. The fourth exemplar was transferred to the museum in 1923 or 1925 by the son of famous photographer and collector of antiquities A. O. Karelin (Nizhny Novgorod). The place of acquisition of the tip by the photographer is unknown. We analyzed the design features of the spearheads, clarified the chronological framework, the area and extent of distribution of such products. In the analysis and interpretation of materials, a comparative historical method was used to determine the analogies of the tips. The first three exemplars can be characterized as hollow tips with a wide elongated-triangular and elongated-rhombic feather and an unconnected seam on the sleeve. A wide, massive feather allows them to be attributed to boar-spears (rоgatina) – a popular type of long-shaft weapons in Russia of the XV–XVII centuries. The analysis and the search for analogies made it possible to date them with a wide chronological interval of the XVI–XVII centuries. Such weapons were used by Russian warriors, primarily «infantry» – convoy servants, militia, city Cossacks, etc., since at the specified time long-shaft weapons were rarely found in the arms of nobles and boyar children, and if they were, then more often in the form of spades and spears. Similar aspearheads date back to local samples of pre-Mongol time. The fourth copy is defined as the tip of the Cossack «statutory» pike of the sample of 1839.

This article puts into the scientific circulation the new iconographic source – the painting scroll «Jingying bingji» wich is the valuable source of the Qing military and court costume of 18th century as well as the weapons and accessories of the Qing warriors. The scroll depicting Qing ministers and generals distinguished themselves during the pacification of Taiwan in 1787-1788 is considered in connection with the other painting scrolls and iconographic sources of other kinds. Researches of the Qing iconography seem to be actual not only from the point of view to get additional data about outlook of the people of the epoch studied as it allows to get the comprehensive impression of that epoch. But it seems to be actual also from the point of view that we need to discover the new genuine iconographic objects from Qing period as now researches face the abundance of the information about non-verified objects of Qing iconography. It makes impediments to the researchers to study these objects and apply the data received in these researches.

The article deals with the Qing military and court costume of 18th century as well as the weapons and accessories of the Qing warriors on the base of the iconographic source – painting scroll “Jingying bingji” – which is represented to the scholar circulation in the first time. Portraits of Qing ministers and generals distinguished themselves during the pacification of Taiwan in 1787–1788 are studied in connection with the Imperial regulations in respect of the cloths, weapons and accessories of civil and military officials, their insignia and signs of rank are checked in accordance with the Imperial orders concerning awards. It allowed to determine the high level of the historical accuracy of images of distinguished ministers and generals as well as found some inaccuracies in respect of the insignia and signs of rank on the portraits. Further researches of Qing iconography of 18th century in parallel with Imperial regulations and documents would allow to make big progress in studies of Qing military and court costume, and introduction of biographies of the portrayed persons to the scholar circulation would provide the valuable information not only in respect of the circumstances of their awards, but in respect of the historical events which allowed the portrayed persons to make their deeds. It would allow to create the more detailed scenery of the historical events in the China in 18th century and add a lot to our knowledge about that period.

In the culture and folklore of the Turkic-Mongolian ethnic groups, as well as the population of Tungus origin, despite the strong rooting of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, elements of beliefs of their own origin are still clearly noted, including the tripartite structure of the supreme deities – Tengri (divine sky, the highest power in the universe ), Yer-sug (native earth and water) and Umai (providing fertility on earth). There is also a lot of archaeological evidence of the existence of the Umai cult. But at the same time, only in four cases on the planet there are direct indications of the exact place and natural objects where this goddess lives and from where she acts. One of them is Mount Umai and a nearby rock formation, called the “tower” of Umai, on the right bank of the Yenisei at its exit from the West Sayan Canyon. Despite the numerous mentions of the mountain in the folklore of the Khakasses, including in already published materials, it has not yet received a detailed description. The presence of a rock formation of an original form next to it was not mentioned at all in the scientific literature. Thus, an unusually shaped mountain (in the form of a female breast) and a rock formation (looking like a tower) on the Yenisei, in combination, have the characteristics of a sacred center for such a chthonic character as Umai. Both of these natural objects can confidently be included in the number of sacred places associated with it. Based on this evidence, a number of aspects of the history of migrations in Eurasia can be traced, in particular, the boundaries of settlement, the degree of mobility and interethnic contacts, mainly of Turkic-speaking, as well as the population of Tungus-Mongolian origin.

The present work is devoted to the identification of militant properties of the checans of the saragashen stage of the tagar culture. Throughout its length the checans were one of the type of melee weapon. They were intended for infliction of the stab wounds. On the territory of the Khakass-Minusinsk basin the checans are known as early as the late Bronze Age, but they were widely used among the population of the tagar culture. They are an exclusively male subject. In the archaeological literature there was an opinion about non-militant purpose of the checans at the saragashen stage and they are interpreted as «votive» (exclusively intended for ritual use as an accompanying inventory of the deceased). The tagar petroglyphs demonstrate two types of the checans: big and small. Products’ analysis and their images allows to talk about the militant use of both reduced and full sized checans. One can assume that the decrease of sizes is related to a change in combat tactics.

The study of the Bulgarian statehood developed from raising the question of its barbaric and early class character to determining its feudal definition. However, this characteristic itself does not clarify the essence of the processes that took place and the mechanism of the real formation of medieval Bulgarian society. It is known that, an important role in these processes was played by the military estate with its specific culture. Therefore, in the absence of full–fledged written sources, the study of weapons and elements of military culture of the VIII - X centuries can play an important role. During this period, the Bulgarian military structure acquired features characteristic of medieval monarchies, but still retained elements of tribal organization, which was characteristic of many Turkic states of the early Middle Ages. The elite of society and the state, the basis of its military power was the military service class, called in epigraphic monuments "chury /chory". It was this elite, which concentrated the main levers of state power in its hands, that formed the basis of the military organization of Bulgaria in the tenth century. During this period, a special complex of weapons and a squad culture is being developed. One of its most expressive elements was the combat typesetting belts, as a symbol of military valor and social status. During the same period, such new elements of culture as chivalrous stories appeared, reinterpreting the heroic epic in the Islamic spirit. The specifics of the power structure in Bulgaria is its eastern appearance, which is in many ways similar to the power structure in the Seljuk Sultanate or Mamluk’s Egypt, where the Turkic nomadic tribes represented the class elite of society, nominating from their elite the rulers of the territories and population subject to them.

This article is devoted to the study of the Kazakh sadaq, as a set of a hand throwing weapon, its accessories and means for wearing them. Unfortunately, until today, the Kazakh sadaq has not been the subject of a separate scientific study, which indicates the relevance of this topic. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to study the specific peculiarities of the traditional Kazakh sadaq, ethnic terminology associated with this type of military equipment, identifying its various types and ways of wearing them.

In the article artifacts, written and folklore sources, iconographic and linguistic materials served as the source base for the study. As the military equipment of Kazakh batyrs, sadaq is constantly mentioned in oral sources of the 15th-19th centuries. From the written sources of the 19th century, we find the first description of the Kazakh sadaq and its image in the work of Ch.Ch.Valikhanov, dedicated to Kazakh weapons. Earlier images of the Kazakh sadaq are presented on the Kazakh burial monuments of the 18th century. These visual materials make it possible to reconstruct different types of Kazakh sadaq. The analysis and study of iconographic materials showed that the Kazakh sadaq is the result of the further developement of the medieval nomadic bows, which lead to evolution of the various types of Kazakh sadaq, differing among themselves in different compositions of the elements of the weapon set, and hence different ways of wearing them.

The paper considers the publications and reference sources of the 1920s-1960s dedicated to the history of the military affairs of the nomads of Kazakhstan. Researches and publications on the topic have been analyzed by characterizing their sources, structure and problems, describing the content of chapters and sections, determining their scientific novelty and contribution to the historiography of the problem. The significance of the works under consideration for the progressive development of the research problem historiography, the enrichment of scientific ideas about the nature and content of the history of military affairs of Kazakhstani nomads is formulated. The content of the works shows the trends of research interests, the vectors of which are characterized with values diversity. The research findings are that the analysis of the works prompts us to present the qualitative characteristics of the publications of the 1920s-1960s on the history of military affairs of the nomads of Kazakhstan. The author comes to the conclusion that: a) research and publications demonstrate the presence of transitions in the considered chronological period from a narrow range of works with limited topics towards expanding the scope of scientific research, through the study of the military organization and the basic foundations of the genesis of nomadic military affairs, and subsequently the development of key components of the problem: the main types of weapons, forms of military organization, the composition of the troops, the nature of the use of weapons; b) as a whole, the studies and publications of the 1920s-1960s laid the conceptual foundations for the historiography of the military affairs of the nomads of Kazakhstan.

The paper presents new finds of the horse harness elements of the Turkic period from Kyrgyzstan. The finds consist of: a pair of antler cheekpieces, bridle fragments, a wooden saddle frame, and four iron stirrups. They come from tombs with human-horse burials at the Boz-Adyr medieval cemetery, and a memorial enclosure at Kosh-Dobo in the Ysyk-Kol depression. One stirrup is a stray find from Chui valley. All finds represent widespread, «classical» items of Turkic period archaeology. They display extensive analogies with materials from burial and memorial complexes of the early Middle Ages in the Tien Shan, Altai, Tyva and Mongolia, i.e. from core Turkic cultural regions. However, most of these types of horse harness artifacts were used up to the end of the 1st millennium ACE. Based on comparative analyses, and taking into account their archaeological context, the horse harness artifacts can be dated to the VII–IX centuries ACE. Despite the fact that all items generally repeat known forms, some of them are quite unique in a number of details, which, in our opinion, is natural in handicraft production. The new materials significantly expand our understanding of the horse harness used by the Kyrgyzstan population in the early Middle Ages. The archaeological context of the discoveries suggests that their manufacturers and/or users were Turkic tribes during the Western Turkic and Turgesh Khaganates.