Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 45 (4) 2017   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.4.074-081

Annotation:  New Data on the Chronology of the Initial Neolithic Gromatukha Culture, Western Amur Region Holocene Fishing in the Big Sea Region of Lake Baikal (Based on Materials from Multilayered Habitati Comparative Characteristics of Stone Tools from the Neolithic Sites on the Upper and Middle Kama On the History of Asian Bosporus in the Early Byzantine Times: Excavations at Verkhnegostagayevskoye The Jomon Megalithic Tradition in Japan: Origins, Features, and Distribution A Morphological Analysis of Malyshevo Middle Neolithic Pottery from the Lower Amur New Absolute Dates for the Trans-Uralian and Western Siberian Neolithic Anthropomorphic Bronze Masks from the Timiryazevo-1 Burial Ground A Multidisciplinary Study of Burial Mounds and a Reconstruction of the Climate of the Turan-Uyuk De Classifi cation of 9th–13th Century Arrowheads Found in Azerbaijan Chinese Lacquerware from the Pazyryk Burial Ground Chineta II, Altai A Late 16th to Early 17th Century Mongolian Ceremonial Helmet from the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Dendrochronological Methods in the Architectural and Ethnographic Study of Russian Towns in Siberia Kinship Analysis of Human Remains from the Sargat Mounds, Baraba Forest-Steppe, Western Siberia Intragroup Variation of the Facial Skeleton in 16th–19th Century Rural Russian Populations in the W   

Anthropomorphic Bronze Masks from the Timiryazevo-1 Burial Ground

O.V. Zaitceva, O.B. Belikova, and E.V. Vodyasov

National Research Tomsk State University, Pr. Lenina 36, Tomsk, 634050, Russia

This paper addresses rare funerary artifacts: anthropomorphic bronze masks unearthed in 1973 and 2014 from 5th–8th century AD mounds at Timiryazevo-1, on the Lower Tom River, southwestern Siberia, by an expedition from Tomsk State University. A detailed description of these is provided, and the archaeological context is described. Stylis tically and technically, the masks represent a distinct group, termed Timiryazevo and distributed in the Tomsk-Narym region of the Ob basin. In broader terms, they belong to medieval repousse ritual masks from western Siberia. As we demonstrate, the Timiryazevo specimens were details of funerary dolls made of organic materials and resembling those manufactured by Siberian natives in the recent past. They wer e meant to provide a temporary abode for one of the deceased person’s souls. The archaeological context suggests that at Timiryazevo-1 cemetery, dolls were buried separately, with their miniature belongings. We also suggest that other types of dolls were buried there, too. Those were made of purely organic materials that did not survive, as evidenced by numerous isolated clusters of miniature objects buried in shallow pits inside burial mounds or between them.

Keywords: Timiryazevo-1, western Siberia, Early Middle Ages, burial mounds, anthropomorphic masks, ritual dolls, miniature models