The Museum of Moscow houses a bronze forehead band which was found among other artifacts of the Scherbinskoye hoard on the bank of the Pakhra River in Domodedovo near Moscow.

Between 1961 and 1964, archeological excavations were conducted on the territory of the Scherbinskoye settlement, supervised by the Moscow archeologist Alexander Dubynin. As a result, the Scherbinskoye settlement was included in textbooks as a perfect example of the Dyakovo culture, with a wonderfully preserved historic landscape.

Scherbinskoye was a small, fortified settlement. It appeared in the early Iron Age, and the latest finds date to the 6th–7th centuries AD. The settlement with its cultural layer reaching three meters was fortified with ditch and rampart defenses from the south and east.

The bronze forehead band is made of rectangular plates with so-called umbo-shaped pendants (an umbo is a round metal plate at the center of a battle shield). It was found among 130 items of the Scherbinskoye hoard dating back to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD. The hoard includes parts of headwear and jewelry, including glass and bronze beads, and quadrangular openwork plates with loops for fastening (some still bearing the remnants of leather straps). A small Dyakovo-type weight was hidden among the jewelry. The umbo-shaped temple pendants from the hoard represent one of the area’s most popular types of jewelry in the first centuries of the Common Era. Apparently, the set consisted of a headband, a cap decorated with metal plates, and a forehead band of quadrangular bronze plates attached to leather straps, with umbo-shaped pendants suspended near the temples. The collar was beaded. The outfit was complemented with necklaces and massive handmade spiral bracelets. Most probably, the hoard was buried by its owner in an hour of danger.

Later, the discovered artifacts entered the Museum of Moscow. Nowadays, the museum’s archeological collection contains 1,795 exhibits, including the famous Scherbinskoye hoard.