In Kyivan Rus’ the manuscripts, architecture, and implements produced for the higher classes were ornamented with Byzantine motifs and sophisticated drawings depicting mythical beasts (eg, griffins, centaurs, sirens, mermaids) and monograms of Jesus Christ. The Greek artisans of the coastal colonies ornamented their creations in the style of their own metropolis but adapted them to indigenous tastes, and Scythian craftsmen borrowed Greek motifs in addition to making objects that were typical of their culture. Isomorphic motifs became widespread during the Bronze age and Iron age in the ornament of the Scythians and Sarmatians and the Hellenic ancient states on the northern Black Sea coast. Generally they expressed the conceptualization of cosmic phenomena and concretized ritual semantic signs. Ancient ritual ornament was based on a series of geometric archetypes and generalized, stylized, or fragmentary depictions of flora and fauna. The creation of the last remaining principal elements of geometric ornament was attained in the Eneolithic Period, particularly by inhabitants of the Trypilian culture, who used zoomorphic and anthropomorphic motifs. The use of parallel and intersecting lines, spirals, waves, triangles, and comb shapes was characteristic of the Linear Spiral-Meander Pottery culture, the Boh-Dnister culture, the Dnipro-Donets culture, and the Surskyi-Dnipro culture. Extant Neolithic artifacts reveal a greater variety of geometric ornament.
In Ukraine the oldest examples of ornament are found on Paleolithic bracelets and other artifacts made of mammoth bones discovered at the Mizyn archeological site in the Chernihiv region. It is based on a developed semantic system derived from the repetition of symbols or signs with or without a compositional center. A decorative design, which is usually symmetrical and rhythmical.
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