Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (1) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.1.093-099

Annotation:  Findings from the Paleolithic Studies in Siberia The Earliest Paleolithic Assemblages from Denisova Cave in the Altai Upper Paleolithic of the Yenisey: New Discoveries, Old Debates Middle Neolithic Burials in Baikal-Yenisey Siberia: Problems of Cultural Identity and Genesis The Most Important Archaeological Discoveries Relating to the Neolithic to Early Iron Age Cultures o Possibilities of Direct Dating of Rock Art in the Khakass-Minusinsk Basin On the Chronological Position of Siba Culture Metal Artifacts, Northwest China The Current Model of Historical and Cultural Processes in the Stone and Bronze Ages of the Ob-Irtysh The Pazyryk Dwelling D.G. Messerschmidt’s Collection of Siberian Antiquities in Drawings at the St. Petersburg Archive of The Final Bronze Age in the Minusinsk Basin A Study of Silk Fabric from the Xiongnu Age Under-Headdress Discovered at Yaloman II Mound 51 in the Origin and Evolution of the Earliest Iron-Smelting Technologies in the Khakass-Minusinsk Basin “D.G. Messerschmidt’s Cups” Use of Parts of Ram Carcasses in the Funerary Practices of the Baikal Region Population in the 13th–   

The Pazyryk Dwelling

N.V. Polosmak

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

Archaeological findings suggest that the Pazyryk burial chambers made from larch logs replicated dwellings, being a key symbol of culture. Log structures were built on both winter and summer pastures. Parts of them were placed in graves as substitutes for entire houses. Their inner structure corresponded to that of the house. All artifacts in the graves had been used in everyday life, being intrinsically related to the owners’ earthly existence. Felt artifacts functioned in the same way in elite burials and in those of the ordinary community members, although their quality was different. Felt carpets decorating the walls of the Pazyryk leaders’ houses were true works of art, while those found in ordinary burials were simple and rather crude. The typical form of the late 7th-3rd century BC wooden burial chambers in the Altai-Sayan was pyramidal. In the Southern Altai, this form survived until the 1800s-early 1900s in Telengit aboveground burial structures.

Keywords: Pazyryk culture, transhumance, funerary logwork, dwelling features, interior furnishing, felt carpets