The exhibition of the Chelyabinsk State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve “Arkaim” presents a ceramic vessel found during the excavation of the Solonchanka I mound with ridges. A mound with ridges is a compound structure consisting of a head mound and two slightly curved stone ridges extending from it. The complex is located 2.7 kilometers northeast of the village of Krasny Ogorodnik on the left bank of the Suunduk River and on the right bank of the Solonchanka River, 400–450 meters from the fortified Bronze Age settlement Alandskoye in Kvarkensky district of Orenburg region. A photo shows a mound with ridges and small mounds adjoining it. The excavations were carried out in 1993–1994 by the archaeological expedition led by Alexander Tairov.

Before excavations began, mound 2 had a fill of 7.5–8 meters in diameter and 0.45 meters in height, and was surrounded by a stone ring fence with an outer diameter of about 12 meters and a height of up to 0.25 meters. A robber’s trench was recorded in the center of the mound. When the mound was opened, individual bones of a horse, a sheep and a wolf were found among the stones and under the turf. Among the finds in the mound with ridges were iron arrowheads (51 pieces), plates of a compound bow, a quiver, elements of horse harness (silver, bronze and iron buckles, strap tips, iron bridles), polychrome items, a bronze cauldron and other artifacts.

The pieces of a flat-bottomed gray clay molded jug was found in the fill of mound 2. It was lowered into a small pit. Traces of engobe were preserved on its outer surface. Engobe is a coating of liquid clay, which is applied to the surface of a raw or fired product to obtain a smoother surface, to mask undesirable coloring of products or to create an artistic relief pattern. The handle, round in cross-section (1.5 centimeters in diameter) and loop-shaped connects the upper part of the body and the middle of the neck of the vessel. At the transition of the neck into the body, two horizontal lines are drawn and a third line is outlined, departing from the first two upwards at an acute angle. Below the horizontal lines, different-sized triangles are drawn by a double line with vertices downwards. Along one of the sides of each triangle, short or long dashed dotted lines are drawn.