The Ukok plateau is considered the most beautiful and mysterious place in the Altai Mountains. It has long attracted the attention of archaeologists - there were found Scythian sites, graves and amazing stone altars of the ancient nomadic civilization. And then one day, employees of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences began excavating an unremarkable burial mound in the Ak-Alakha river basin.
An unexpected find
When the topsoil was removed from the permafrost, archaeologists discovered an ancient plundering manhole that led to the burial of a rich Scythian. In the afterlife that was accompanied by "essentials": three horses, iron knives, clay utensils. Researchers began to carefully lift up what the robbers had not touched, and then suddenly a second burial was opened under the first burial: the remains of six horses in the richest harness and a sarcophagus with a mummy of a woman of European appearance.
Open burials date back to approximately IV-III centuries BC. e. At the same time, the upper one saved from looting the lower one, which was strikingly different in design. It was a larch log house with an area of 3.6 x 2.3 and a height of 1.1 m, imitating a dwelling and all filled with ice. Inside there was a sarcophagus deck in the form of a boat 2.7 m long and 0.68 m high from a solid larch trunk. The sarcophagus was covered with a gable cover made of the same wood, decorated with leather appliqués depicting deer. In two places the lid was nailed to the deck with copper nails, very similar to modern ones, although their age was almost two and a half thousand years.
The amount of work that was done by the ancient builders was striking. Somehow they were able to deliver huge logs to the Ukok plateau, hewed them out, and hollowed out a huge hole in the frozen ground. Moreover, an unusual crypt was made, while the noble Scythians in those days were buried on a huge wooden bed, such as was found in the upper burial. Even nowadays, all this is not easy!
Description of the mummy
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In a deck on her right side - head to the east, facing to the north - a young woman lay on a bed of dark felt, covered with a fur blanket with sewn gold foil ornaments. Her head rested on a felt pillow.
Mummy in the laboratory
The woman was wearing a knee-length silk shirt of brownish-yellow color, woven from wild silkworm threads. All its seams, neck and sleeves are trimmed with red woolen cords. But at that time, even noble Scythian warriors were not put on shirts when buried in Ukok: just a fur coat on a naked body. In addition to the shirt, the mummy was wearing a long woolen skirt, sewn from three horizontally placed panels - two red and one white - and a belt woven from a red woolen cord. Bronze pendants are sewn on the skirt. On the legs of the mummy are long, above the knees, stockings made of white felt, decorated with an applique made of red felt. Perhaps the red color in the decoration and details of clothing served as a talisman.
The woman's neck was decorated with a wooden torch with attached wooden pendants in the form of leopards, which were covered with gold foil, gold hoop earrings in her ears, and colored woolen threads on her little fingers.
In a nearby felt bag they found a bronze mirror in a wooden frame with a deer carved on it, a horsehair tassel, glass beads of various colors, a molar human tooth, and a spilled blue powder - vivianite, a mineral dye that has been used since ancient times (in Europe, however, it became known only in the 19th century).
Most of all, scientists were amazed at the excellent preservation of the embalmed body. The mummy's brain, internal organs, ribs and sternum were removed. The skull and abdominal cavity were filled with some substance like peat, sheep's wool, horsehair, some kind of roots, sand and clay. The body, which was covered in oils and resins with added mercury, clearly showed a remarkably beautiful blue tattoo. She completely covered the woman's arms. On the left shoulder was a fantastic animal: a deer in appearance, but with horns of both a deer and an ibex, the beak of a griffin, a winged creature, half lion, half eagle, completed the face of the animal. The same stylized head of a griffin ended with each antler. In addition, there were images of a ram, a snow leopard and some kind of predator with a tiger's tail and terrible clawed paws.
In the burial chamber, next to the block, two low wooden table-dishes with legs, vessels made of wood and horns, two ceramic vessels with leather applications of a rooster, a leopard and a griffin were found. On a wooden table were supplies for the long journey from the best pieces of meat: the fat-tailed part of a ram and the rump of a foal, into which a large iron knife was stuck.
The unique mummy was delivered to the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and its later restoration was undertaken at the Research Center for Biological Structures (Institute of the Mausoleum) in Moscow.
Who was she?
In appearance, the mysterious woman differed sharply from the Scythians - tall, delicate European features. Who could she be during her lifetime? Where is her homeland? How did you end up in Altai? Indeed, judging by the wealth of the funeral "dowry", the deceased had to occupy a high position in the social hierarchy. And among the Scythians, women never enjoyed influence, let alone power. The Scythians would never voluntarily submit to people from other tribes. And here both honor and influence are obvious.
Mummy of Princess Ukok
At first, the researcher decided that these were the remains of a very noble woman. With the light hand of journalists, they began to call her Princess Ukok, Altai princess or Altai princess. However, over time, the deceased was "demoted". Deputy Academician Vyacheslav Molodin, director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that, judging by the objects found in the burial, as well as by the burial rite, the ancient woman was most likely a priestess.
However, whoever she was, the local population throughout all these years demanded that the mummy be returned to her final resting place. The fact is that in Altai there is a cult of ancestors and it is forbidden to touch their ashes - otherwise the spirits can be angered. Princess Ukok, in the opinion of many, is the progenitor of the peoples living in Altai now, the legendary princess Kadyn.
Moreover, the Altai people who consider the Earth to be a living organism believe that Princess Ukok is the keeper of the planet, and if she is not returned to her native places, a real catastrophe can break out. Some people even claim that they heard the voice of the Princess, who asked to return her to her homeland.
The curse of the Altai princess
Meanwhile, in Novosibirsk, they continued to study the mummy. For a long time, no troubles happened. Mystical events began to occur exactly 10 years after the ancient tomb was disturbed. 2003, September - Altai was shaken by a terrible earthquake, the epicenter of which coincided with the very place where the mysterious ashes once rested. The earthquake was so strong that the nearby village of Beltir was destroyed to the ground.
The deck in which the Altai princess was buried.
After that, the republic was overwhelmed by new troubles: there were many floods, the number of suicides sharply increased. Inhabitants of Altai mountains believed that earthquakes, fires and other disasters hit Altai only because the ancient tomb was disturbed. Shamans also did not stand aside. They assured that all these misfortunes would end only after the shaman's mummy returned to her homeland. After that, the government banned any archaeological work in the south of Altai.
And in 2012, people in charge, as they are called there, climbed the Ukok plateau and performed a special ceremony there. The fact is that in the end they decided to return the mummy to Gorno-Altaysk and the ceremony was carried out so that the spirits of the ancestors asked the Princess not to be angry with those who dared to "wake her up" again, and nothing darkened her return. After all, 19 years ago, the helicopter on which the mummy was transported to Novosibirsk nearly crashed and made an emergency landing.
Perhaps it was thanks to the ceremony, in which shamans from Tuva and Khakassia also took part, that the transportation went well. The mummy was transported by Mi-8 helicopter in a specially equipped sarcophagus. Now Princess Ukok will be kept in the reconstructed Republican Museum of Local Lore named after A. V. Anokhin in Gorno-Altaysk. Especially for the ancient guest, a building in the form of a burial mound was erected near the museum building, in which a sarcophagus with a mummy was placed. All conditions for long-term storage have been created using the latest technology. After all, no one wants to know what will happen if the princess casts a curse again …
Y. Podolsky