Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (4) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.4.085-092

Annotation:  A Neanderthal Refugium in the Eastern Adriatic Ushbulak—A New Stratifi ed Upper Paleolithic Site in Northeastern Kazakhstan Archaeological Findings on Suchu Island (Excavation Area I, 1975) Burial with a Chariot at the Tabyldy Cemetery, Central Kazakhstan Objects of Portable Art from a Bronze Age Cemetery at Tourist-2 The Use of 3D-Modeling for Reconstructing the Appearance and Function of Non-Utilitarian Items (the Ceramic Protomes of Horses from Late Bronze to Early Iron Age Sites in the Southern Taiga Zone of Si “Portrait” Medallions from the Kazym Hoard A Runic Inscription at Sarykoby (Southeastern Altai) The Ussuriysk Tortoise—A 13th Century Jurchen Monument Turkic Inscriptions in Cyrillic on 14th–15th Century Eastern European Lithic Artifacts The Topography of Ritual Buildings in Villages of the Tobolsk Governorate (Late 19th to Early 20th C Mesolithic Human Teeth from Zamostye-2, Moscow Region The Physical Anthropology of the Odino People, Western Siberia A Study of Human Bones from a Dwelling at Ust-Voikar, in the Subarctic Zone of Western Siberia   

“Portrait” Medallions from the Kazym Hoard

N.V. Fedorova¹ and A.V. Baulo²

¹Arctic Research Center, Respubliki 20, Salekhard, 629008, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

We describe so-called portrait medallions and plaques with similar representations from a hoard found near Kyzym, the Beloyarsky District of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra in the summer of 2014. We introduce 17 artifacts cast of bronze and differing in shape and technological level. These fall into two groups in terms of quality. The principal questions addressed in the article are where, by whom, and based on which prototypes the Kazym artifacts were made. To resolve them, we analyze similar artifacts, including silver medallions representing a Parthian king and found in northwestern Siberia, and a series of bronze items from various sites in the Surgut and the Lower Ob region. These parallels, like the presence of numerous “Sarmatian" bronze mirrors in the Kazym hoard, point to the period between the late 1st century BC and the 1st or 2nd centuries AD. The results suggest that the “portrait" medallions and other bronze plaques depicting anthropomorphic characters are local replicas of imported prototypes. This testifies, firstly, to stable trade links with ancient civilization centers in the beginning of the Christian era, and secondly, to the absorption of certain elements off oreign traditions by the local culture.

Keywords: Medallion, portrait, Siberia, Kazym, hoard, imitation