Solid gold 2,400-year-old cannabis BONGS used by royal stoners dug up in Russia
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered what are thought to be 2,400-year-old bongs made of PURE gold that were used to get tribal royalty stoned.
The two bongs were used for smoking cannabis and opium, tests have confirmed, and were found with a number of other solid gold items weighing a combined total of 7Ibs hidden under clay in Russia where power lines were being put up.
They also found three gold cups, a heavy gold finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet.
A thick black residue found inside the two vase-shaped vessels was tested by criminologists who confirmed traces of the two drugs were found.
Historians believe they were used for drug rituals by the Scythians, a ferocious nomadic race, who ruled the grasslands of Eurasia for 1,000 years, and that they confirm the practices first reported by ancient Greek historian Herodotus who died in 425BC.
He wrote that the "Scythians used a plant to produce smoke that no Grecian vapour-bath can surpass and that "transported by the vapour, [they] shout aloud."
Historians Andrei Belinski, from Stavropol, and Antonn Gass, of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in Berlin, Germany, think they were used to smoke, and possibly also brew, a strong opium and cannabis concoction.
Mr Gass said: "That both drugs were being used simultaneously is beyond doubt."
The Scythians moved about and left no ruins and were feared by the Greeks and Persians. The only trace of them are huge grave mounds called kurgans which have been found from Mongolia to the Black Sea. The haul of treasure was found in a kurgan in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, in mid 2013, but was kept secret to avoid looters finding out.
It has only now been unveiled after excavations carried on to check for any other hidden treasures.
Scythians used a plant to produce smoke that no Grecian vapour-bath can surpass and that "transported by the vapour, [they] shout aloud.
Mr Gass added: "These are among the finest objects we know from the region."
Mr Belinski was brought into excavate the kurgan, called Sengileevskoe-2, to clear the way for a power-line project, and didn't expect to find much as it appeared looters had already visited.
However, the looters had not spotted the thick layer of clay which concealed a rectangular chamber lined with stones where the golden artefacts were buried 2,400 years earlier.
The ornate bongs each tell a story.
One shows a bearded old man slaying young warriors, while, the other has mythological creatures on it, including griffons ripping apart a horse and a stag.
Mr Gass believes the scene of the old man slaying the young warriors could represent the "Bastard Wars" Herodotus told of.
He reported how the Scythians were on the warpath against neighbouring Persia for 28 years. When the tribesmen came back they found and killed the men who were in their tents, who were the bastard children of their lonely wives and their slaves.
