The Khrustalnoye-III settlement is located on the left bank of the Bolshaya Karaganka River, 6.8 kilometers east-southeast of the eastern outskirts of the village of Cherkasy, 1.2 kilometers above the mouth of the Butak River, a left tributary of the Karaganka River, in Kizilsky district of Chelyabinsk region. The archeological site is flat, with a very slight slope towards the river. In 2005, during the excavation of the Khrustalnoye-III settlement by the expedition of the Arkaim Museum-Reserve under the direction of Fyodor Petrov, a stone pestle with a zoomorphic pommel was extracted from the plowed cultural deposit in the central part of the site.
The pestle is made of fine-grained gabbro of gray-blue color, in the technique of pecking (fine striking) with grinding of separate sections. It has the shape of a truncated cone expanded at the bottom. The expanded part is decorated with two horizontal cannelures. The pommel has the form of a four-fingered paw of an animal (probably a marmot). The paw is made very realistically, with careful detailing of the fingers and pads. However, it does not show the small fifth toe, which is located on the underside of the marmot’s paw. There are several small gouges on the underside of the pestle, possibly caused by working with the piece. One of the “fingers” of the pommel is partially chipped. The maximum height of the piece is 13.3 centimeters, the maximum width at the bottom is 6.4 centimeters and at the top — 5.2 centimeters.
Several years before this discovery, in the early 2000s, during the exploratory survey of the Khrustalnoye-III settlement led by Larisa Petrova, a stone bowl was found on the archeological site.
The bowl, as well as the pestle, is made of fine-grained gabbro of gray-blue color in the pecking technique. The corolla of the bowl is decorated with a cannelure similar to those two located in the lower part of the pestle. The working surface of the pestle enters the recess of the bowl almost without gaps and completely fits it in shape and size. All this suggests that in ancient times the pestle and the “mortar” bowl were a functional set. The maximum diameter of the bowl is 11 centimeters, height — 5.2 centimeters, weight — 967 grams.
