A unique bone anthropomorphic figurine from the complex of the ancient Ust-Poluy sanctuary (1st century BC - first centuries of the new era), located within the city of Salekhard, is considered. A detailed description of the find and the conditions of its discovery is given. In a wide chronological range (from the Early Iron Age to the ethnographic modernity), analogs of sculpture can be traced. The date of the figurine is determined (approximately the end of the Kulai era), and its use in rituals involving "feeding" with fat or blood is noted.

Keywords: anthropomorphic image, bone sculpture, ancient Ust-Poluy sanctuary, Kulay era, iconography, engraved images, Samoyeds, Ob Ugrians, cult paraphernalia, three-headed image, masks, archaeological complex of the village of Zeleny Yar, Kholmogorskaya collection.

Introduction

An archaeological site named " the ancient sanctuary of Ust-Poluy "(official name: "ancient settlement (sacrificial place)"). Ust-Poluy"), located within the city of Salekhard. It was discovered in 1932 during the construction of the hydroport building and was excavated in 1935-1936 (V. S. Adrianov, Leningrad), 1993-1995 and from 2006 to the present (Yamal Archaeological Expedition, Yekaterinburg, Salekhard). The collections include more than 50 thousand finds. The main massif is dated by dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating to the first century. BC-the beginning of our era, a small complex (including ceramics of the so-called Bichevnitsa type) - the Early Middle Ages. The collections are kept in the MAE (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the I. S. Shemanovsky Yamalo-Nenets Regional Museum and Exhibition Complex. Thanks to the publications of V. N. Chernetsov and V. I. Moshinskaya (Chernetsov, 1953; Moshinskaya, 1965, 1976; Chernetsov and Mozhinskaya, 1974), bronze castings in the form of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, as well as carved bone products with zoomorphic decor, are known. Until 2009, anthropomorphic bone sculpture was not found either in Ust-Polu or in other monuments in the north of Western Siberia.

Description of Yandex. Nakhodka conditions

The monument is located on the high bank of the Polui River, not far from its confluence with the Ob River, on a promontory formed by two small dens that cut the terrace from the northwest and southeast. The 2009 excavation was laid on the northern slope of the cape close to the 1995 excavation, which recorded an unusually thick cultural layer for this monument - up to 1.5 m. Due to its proximity to the permafrost level, the sediments uncovered in 2009 contain artifacts made of wood and birch bark that were not previously found on the monument.

The figurine was discovered at uch. K / 11 at a depth of approx. 80 cm from the modern surface (see fig.

The work was carried out within the framework of the RFBR project (09 - 06 - 00286).

page 77

Bone sculpture from the cultural layer of the Ust-Poluy sanctuary.

sunok). Stratigraphy of strata on the site at the time of discovery was as follows: a small thick layer of turf; an abundant layer of debris of the XX century with pieces of bricks and broken glass; a humus layer formed during the period from the end of the operation of the settlement to the beginning of construction on this site in 1932; a dark gray cultural layer with inclusions of embers, burnt bones, wood residues, small fragments of burnt birch bark, layered ceramics; brown-brown cultural layer with abundant inclusions of wood dust and fragments of wooden products and structures. The figure lay in a dark gray layer at an angle of about 30-40° to the horizontal surface, face up, head to the northwest. No traces of structures or somehow organized complexes of artifacts were recorded. In the same layer, three more unique bone objects were found at uch. K/11: a fish figurine depicting one of the sturgeons, an arrowhead in the form of two intersecting crescents, and a piercing with the image of a deer's head.

Description of the figurine

Sitting figure (?) a human head is carved from the antler (deer) with an iron knife. Its height is 7.3 cm, its maximum width is 2.3 cm. It shows a man with a characteristic hairstyle-with braids, in full face, with his knees raised just above the waist, and hands folded at the level of the stomach. At the top, the head is flattened, smooth, the headdress or the edge of the hairstyle hangs like a roller over the plane of the face. Braids start from the level of the ears, hang down to the level of the stomach, the weaving is transmitted by vertical zigzag lines cut with a knife. The upper part of the braids is separated from the headdress by a deep carved line. The face is flat and broad, with slightly overhanging eyebrows forming a single line with the straight nose. The eyes are large, almond-shaped, with deep grooves, and the pupils are not shown. Under the eyes - semicircular depressions that follow the contour of the eyes. Deep lines are cut from the wings of the nose to the cheekbones. The mouth is flat and wide, and the chin is also wide and rectangular. On the left side, between the scythe and the neck of the figure, a round hole is cut, in which traces of scuff are visible, obviously from the strap. The hands are three-fingered, the fingers separated by a groove from the rest of the hands. On the waist there is a printed belt with large rectangular plates. The knees are brought together, tightly pressed to the stomach, the shins of the legs are placed together. The legs are also three-toed, the toes separated by a groove. The figure was slightly smeared with dirt when removed from the layer. When cleaning it, according to the restorer I. A. Karacharova, traces of some greasy and liquid grease were noticed, which were not visually fixed.

Analogs

Anthropomorphic bone sculpture in the complexes of Iron Age monuments in the north of Western Siberia is not known. The exception so far was a bone figurine from random finds from Barsova Gora, depicting a sitting humanoid creature that leans its hands on its knees. In profile, the creature is "humped", with a head resembling the head of an owl (Ugric Heritage, 1994, p. 129, fig. on pages 75-31]. The figurine was probably suspended from a strap that was pulled between the arms and stomach. Unfortunately, it is not known from what complex and what time this figure can be dated. It, like the Ust-Poluisk sculpture, is made of deer antler, conveys the image in a sitting position, which is not typical for anthropomorphic images of Western Siberia; it is designed to be worn on a strap that is pulled through the hole.

Outside of Western Siberia, the equivalent of the Ust-Poluy figurine is a bone anthropomorphic figure.

page 78
a sculpture found in border 19 of the Shikhovsky burial ground in the European North-East (lower reaches of the Pechora River) [Vaskul, 2002, p. 42, Fig. 15]. The burial belongs to the extreme complex of the burial ground, dated to the Late Ananyin period [Ibid., p. 16]. The figure depicts a man standing in the full face, with his hands pressed to his chest. The face is oval in shape, the eyebrows and nose are outlined in a single line, the limbs are three-toed [Ibid., p. 12].

Material and technology

Products made from reindeer bones and antlers, including those decorated with sculptural (zoomorphic) images, are found in the Ust-Poluya complex in a fairly large number. The technique of their manufacture was studied by the trasological method, the conclusions were verified experimentally (see: [Aleksashenko, 2006] , description of experiments: [Aleksashenko, 2008, p. 52]). It was found out that all the work was done on softened bones or horns soaked in water with an iron knife. Many products show traces of cutting (see, for example, [Moshinskaya, 1976, Table 19]). Bone sculpture, in particular, flat spoons with the image of birds or mammals, are decorated with grooves, in which convex rectangles are inscribed [Ibid., Table 20], such grooves convey the belt on the figure.

Plot and iconography

What is meant is not so much the plot - it cannot be reconstructed based on the study of anthropomorphic images-but the very fact of their presence. Bone products of the Early Iron Age and the Middle Ages have been preserved very little outside the Northern Ob region; the anthropomorphic plot (except for the Ust-Poluisk find) is known only on a horn plate depicting a fragment of a disguise and a part of a figure of a man with a dagger in his raised hand from the Dubrovinsky Borok-3 settlement (Troitskaya, 1979, p. 26). fig. on p. 105]. In practice, this is a complete analog of the famous plate from the whale intervertebral disc found by V. S. Adrianov on Ust-Poluy [Ust-Poluy..., 2003, p. 65, cat. N 183]. In both cases, the figures are depicted rather generically, with disproportionately large "heads"emphasized. On the Ust-Poluy plate, the hands are interpreted in the form of animal heads, on the character's head - a headdress with prongs-points, eyes and mouth are depicted in the form of rectangles with short strokes extending upwards, the oval of the face is almost correct, the weapon is depicted quite realistically.

Much more often, anthropomorphic images are found in the form of bronze castings. The collection of V. S. Adrianov (excavations at Ust-Polu in 1935-1936) includes an anthropomorphic bronze figurine: a large head on a small, very conventionally depicted body [Ibid., p. 22]. The mask is very similar to the face of a bone figure discovered on Ust-Polu in 2009: semicircular eyebrows forming a line with the nose; large, double-outlined almond-shaped eyes; a rather realistic nose, from which sharp deep lines extend to the cheekbones; a slit-shaped mouth. The casting undoubtedly belongs to the main Ust-Poluy complex, dated, according to the latest data, to the time of ca. I century BC - I century AD [Ust-Poluy-ancient sanctuary..., 2008, p. 65]. In the cultural layer of the sanctuary, several round bronze plaques were found with anthropomorphic characters drawn with a knife. Almost all of them have large almond-shaped eyes and characteristic lines from the nose to the cheekbones [Ust-Poluy..., 2003, pp. 18-19]. Almost all the anthropomorphic animals depicted on the engravings are three-fingered. Similar iconographic characters are drawn on mirrors from "destroyed pagan sanctuaries" on the Kazym, Lyapin and Sev rivers. Sosva [Prystupa, Starodumov, Yakovlev, 2002, p. 7; Chernetsov, 1953]. Many have the same deep lines from the nose to the cheekbones and three-toed limbs (see, for example, [Pripoda, Starodumov, Yakovlev, 2002, p. 69]). True, there are also vertical lines, as if cutting off a segment of the cheek [Ibid., p. 80]. Similar lines are found on the cheeks of anthropomorphic larvae of the Kholmogorsky collection (Zykov and Fedorova, 2001: 96-97).

Hairstyles in the form of braids appear in anthropomorphic characters cast in bronze, a little later - at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The only known image of a mask with braids, dated by the authors of the publication to the Kulay period, is a find from the Aidashinsky cave [Molodin and Ravnushkin, 1978, p. 46; Molodin, Bobrov and Ravnushkin, 1980, p.207]. An indirect confirmation of the assumption about the existence of hairstyles in the form of braids is found in bronze plaits found in the burials of the Kamenny Mys burial grounds [Troitskaya, 1979, p.13; Borodovsky, 1987, p. 117-118], Near Elbany - 7 and Ust-Abinsky [Shirin, 2003, p. 181, 236].

Several "slanting" figurines are found in the Kholmogorsky collection, dated to the III-IV centuries AD (Zykov and Fedorova, 2001, p. 145). In one figure of a standing anthropomorphic creature, the braids are ornamented with a rhombic grid and descend from under the headdress to the middle of the chest [Ibid., p. 105]. The second figure of a standing character flanked by two

page 79
animals, also with braids decorated with a rhombic grid and descending from under a smooth headdress to the elbows of the hands [Ibid., p. 102]. Both characters have their hands folded in the lower abdomen. A three-headed creature in the form of a bird figure with open wings from the Kholmogorsky collection has two profile bird heads and one anthropomorphic one [Ibid., p. 104] with braids descending to the chest and also decorated with a rhombic grid. In the composition of three figures of birds, an anthropomorphic mask in a flat headdress is placed on the central chest. Her braids are not fixed, but distinct deepened lines are drawn from the nose to the chin [Ibid., p. 103].

Anthropomorphic figures with braids are found in monuments dating back to the VI-VIII centuries. One was recorded in the Relka burial ground, and several-in the monuments of the Ust-Ishim culture (Chindina, 1977; Mogilnikov, 1987, p. 330, Tables LXXXII, 3, 4). But in figures of the VI-VIII centuries, the braids, shown in a highly stylized way, only vaguely resemble the hairstyle on the bone figure from Ust-Poluy. V. A. Mogilnikov wrote about the three-toed limbs characteristic of medieval anthropomorphic images [1987, p. 226].

All the characters discussed above are depicted strictly in the full face; the figures with arms and legs, with rare exceptions, have their hands folded in the lower abdomen, and their legs are placed with their feet facing inwards [Zeleny Yar..., 2005, p.53, 58]. In the "sitting" position, only two fantastic anthropomorphic creatures are shown [Treasures of the Ob Region..., 2003, p. 80; Oborin and Chagin, 1988, p. 85], which hold fur - bearing (?) animals with three or four-toed paws. This story is embodied in cast-in-bronze penetrations. The figure from the Cherdynsky district of the Perm region, published by V. A. Oborin and G. N. Chagin [1988], conveys an absolutely fantastic image of a man with a bird's head. A piece from the collections of the Yamalo-Nenets Regional Museum and Exhibition Complex depicts a humanoid creature with such important features for the plot in question as large almond-shaped eyes with a double contour, three-toed lower limbs, and a belt at the waist. Attention is drawn to the image of a certain tourniquet, which seems to be tied to the character's knees, bent at an acute angle. This permeation was found in the burial of the Kheto-se burial ground in the south of the Yamal Peninsula. The second piercing (from the same complex), very similar to the first, conveys the image of an anthropomorphic character who stands in profile to the viewer and, clutching a small animal, eats it (?). I note that both figures - both the animal and the humanoid creature - are connected at knee level with a tourniquet.

Discussion of the results

In recent years, as a result of excavations of monuments with the so-called frozen cultural layer, quite a lot of samples of wooden anthropomorphic sculpture have become known. However, all the complexes with wooden sculptures are dated to the XVI-XVII centuries. Nevertheless, these finds allow us to build a chain: modern (ethnographic) wooden sculpture of the Ob Ugrians and Samoyeds [Ivanov, 1970, p. 40, Fig. 28; p. 42, fig. 29; p. 44, fig. 31; p. 50, fig. 37; pp. 78-79, figs. 62-64] - finds on the above-mentioned monuments and medieval bronze castings - the bone sculpture of Ust-Poluy. In other words, anthropomorphic images from the Early Iron Age to ethnographic modernity were a characteristic feature of the cult attributes of the population of the Lower Ob region. They share some common features in iconography, such as helmet-shaped headdresses, but the most prominent one is the image of a disproportionately large head. Modern northern Khanates perceive medieval bronze masks as elements of "their" culture, for example, they are used as" faces " of patron spirits (Baulo, 2005, p. 347).

The author has repeatedly written about the established iconography of anthropomorphic bronze images with military realities [Fedorova, 2002, p. 67]. Now we can confidently speak about the formation of this iconographic type on the territory of the Lower Ob region starting from the Ust-Poluisk time. Masks and figures from the Surgut Ob region only resemble human figures, and often have zoomorphic motifs as decoration (Borzunov and Chemyakin, 2006, pp. 106-107). The well-known Murlin and Parabel images belong to a somewhat later time.

Information about the location and circumstances of the discovery of the Ust-Poluy figurine is scarce. It is known that most of the known medieval bronze anthropomorphic images were found either in funerary complexes, or in complexes that can be associated with burials of posthumous images of the deceased [Zykov and Fedorova, 2001, pp. 60-62]. In this connection, it is interesting that bronze anthropomorphic characters are depicted in the same pose as those buried, for example, on the necropolis near the village of Zeleny Yar [Zeleny Yar..., 2005, p. 69]. At the same necropolis, we found the remains of the deceased, who were tied with straps at the level of the shoulders, chest, knees, and feet during burial [Ibid.]. Traces of such bandaging at the knee level are visible on the penetrations in the form of anthropomorphic creatures from the Kheto-se burial ground.

page 80
Conclusions

The skill of the ancient bone cutter, embodied in the Ust-Poluy figurine, suggests that such sculptures were not isolated, but for various reasons have not come down to us.

The figure can be dated to the beginning of a new era, or rather, the very end of the Kulai era. This definition corresponds to the image of a hairstyle in the form of braids, which became widespread from the III-IV centuries AD. This conclusion is not contradicted by radiocarbon dates for Ust-Poluy: I century BC - the first centuries of the new era [Ust-Poluy-ancient sanctuary..., 2008, p. 65].

According to the available data, it is difficult to judge the purpose of the figurine, but it is obvious that it was hung on a strap and, apparently, "fed" with fat or blood. It is quite likely that it was used in some rituals accompanied by "feeding" images of spirits and similar actions at modern shrines of the Ob Ugrians [Mythological Time..., 2003, p. 94]. Whether the figurine could have been used in the rites of veneration of the dead, like early medieval bronze castings , is a question to which there is no clear answer yet.

List of literature

Aleksashenko N. A. Ust-Poluy: tehnika khudozhestvennoi rezby po kosti [Ust-Poluy: technique of artistic bone carving]. to lead. - 2006. - Vol. 14. - p. 105-115.

Aleksashenko N. A. Report on the work of the experimental grassological group at the ancient Ust-Poluy sanctuary in 2007. to lead. Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 2008, Issue No. 9, pp. 52-54.

Baulo A.V. Cult attributes of the indigenous population of the Russian Far East. Poluy // Green Yar: an archaeological complex of the Middle Ages in the Northern Ob region. - Yekaterinburg; Salekhard: Publishing House of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2005. - pp. 347-361.

Borzunov V. A., Chemyakin Yu. P. The Early Iron Age of the taiga Ob-Irtysh region: results and prospects of research. Yekaterinburg; Khanty-Mansiysk: Charoit Publ., 2006, pp. 68-108.

Borodovsky A. P. Interpretatsiya oboim-nakosnikov i nekotorye voprosy ritualnogo znachenija volos v rannem zheleznom veke (po materialam Novosibirsk'skogo Priob'ya) [Interpretation of hair clips and some questions of the ritual meaning of hair in the Early Iron Age (based on the materials of the Novosibirsk Ob region)]. Art and ideology. Novosibirsk: Nauka Publ., 1987, pp. 117-121.

Vaskul I. O. Shikhovskiy mogilnik rannego zheleznogo veka (pervye rezul'taty issledovaniy) [Shikhovsky burial ground of the early Iron Age (first results of research)].

Zeleniy Yar: an archaeological complex of the Middle Ages in the Northern Ob region / N. A. Aleksashenko, A.V. Baulo, A. G. Brusnitsyna, M. N. Litvinenko, P. A. Kosintsev, E. V. Perevalova, D. I. Razhev, N. V. Fedorova / ed. by N. V. Fedorova. - Yekaterinburg; Salekhard: Publishing House of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2005. - 368 p.

Zykov A. P., Fedorova N. V. Kholmogorsky treasure. Collection of antiquities of the III-IV centuries from the collection of the Surgut Art Museum. Yekaterinburg: Sokrat Publ., 2001, 175 p. (in Russian)

Ivanov S. V. Sculptura narodov Severa Sibiri XIX - pervoi poloviny XX v. Sculpture of the peoples of the North of Siberia of the XIX-first half of the XX century.

Mythological time: album-catalog, Moscow: Epifaniya Publ., 2003, 215s.

Mogilnikov V. A. Ugrs and Samoyeds of the Urals and Western Siberia / / Finno-Ugrs and Balts in the Middle Ages, Moscow: Nauka, 1987, pp. 163-262. - (Archeology of the USSR).

Molodin V. I., Bobrov V. V., Ravnushkin V. N. Aidashinskaya cave. Novosibirsk: Nauka Publ., 1980, 208 p. (in Russian)

Molodin V. I., Ravnushkin V. N. Novye nakhodki kulaiskogo oblika iz Aidashinskaya caves [New finds of the Kulai appearance from the Aidashinskaya cave]. Tomsk: Publishing House of the Tomsk State University, 1978, pp. 43-50.

Moshinskaya V. I. Arkheologicheskie pamyatniki severa Zapadnoy Sibiri [Archaeological monuments of the North of Western Siberia], Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1965, 88 p. (SAI; [issue] D3 - 8).

Moshinskaya V. I. Ancient sculpture of the Urals and Western Siberia, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1976, 130 p.

Oborin V. A., Chagin G. N. Peipsi antiquities of the Riphean. Perm animal style. Perm: Kn. izd-vo, 1988, 183 p. (in Russian)

Prystupa O. I., Starodumov D. O., Yakovlev Ya. A. Window to infinity. Bronze mirrors of the Early Iron Age. - Khanty-Mansiysk: [B. I.], 2002. - 88 p.

Treasures of the Ob region. Western Siberia on the trade Routes of the Middle Ages: exhibition catalog. - Salekhard; St. Petersburg: [B. I.], 2003. - 96 p.

Troitskaya T. N. Kulay culture in the Novosibirsk Ob region. Novosibirsk: Nauka Publ., 1979, 123 p. (in Russian)

Ugric heritage / A. P. Zykov, S. F. Koksharov, L. M. Terekhova, N. V. Fedorova. Yekaterinburg: Vneshtorgizdat. 1994. - 159 p.

Ust-Poluy-an ancient sanctuary on the Arctic Circle. to lead. Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 2008, issue 61, 89 p.

Ust-Poluy: I vek B.C.: exhibition catalog. - Salekhard; St. Petersburg: [B. I.], 2003. - 76 p.

Fedorova N. V. West Siberian Middle Ages in the mirror of artistic metal // Northern Archaeological Congress: reports. Yekaterinburg, 2002, pp. 63-71.

Chernetsov V. N. Ust-Poluiskoe vremya v Ob'ye [Ust-Poluiskoe vremya v Ob'ye]. MIA. - 1953. - N 35. - pp. 221-241.

Chindina L. A. Relka burial ground on the middle Ob River, Tomsk: Publishing House of Tomsk State University, 1977, 192 p.

Shirin Yu. V. The Upper Ob region and the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau at the beginning of the first millennium AD (Funerary monuments of the Fominsk culture). Novokuznetsk: Kuznetskaya Fortress Publ., 2003, 287 p. (in Russian)

Chernetsov V.N., Mozhinskaya V.I. The Prehistory of Western Siberia / translated by H.N. Mchael. - L.; Montreal: Arctic Institute of North America: McGheel-Queens University Press, 1974. - 256 c.

The article was submitted to the Editorial Board on 19.10.09.

page 81

Permanent link to this publication: