The archaeological expedition "Secrets of the ancient artists of Siberia" organized by the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IIMK RAS) and the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) made a unique find. At the excavations of the Itkol II burial ground in the Shirinsky district of Khakassia, a ritual incense bowl was discovered. This gypsum vessel for burning aromatic herbs will for the first time allow dating a whole layer of the ancient fine art of Southern Siberia.
Censer of Okunev culture with a "mask". Photo: press service of IIMK RAS
The fact is that the find is decorated with images of the so-called "sun-faced masks" - before they were found only in the form of rock paintings.
“The Okunev archaeological culture is a unique phenomenon of the Early Bronze Age in Southern Siberia,” says the head of the expedition, Andrei Polyakov. - She left a huge layer of artistic heritage in the form of numerous images, “masks”, carved or engraved on stones. However, their connection with burial monuments has not been proven for a long time. Prior to that, only one case of the discovery of a fragment of a vessel was known, on which part of the "mask" was preserved. Now, thanks to the studies of the Itkol II burial ground, we can say for sure that these images were made by representatives of the Okunev culture. Thus, it was possible to determine the period when the "masks" were made.
Archaeologists discovered an incense burner during excavations of an ancient necropolis, in a previously undisturbed burial of a woman and a child of the Okunev archaeological culture (XXV-XVIII centuries BC). Judging by the rich accompanying inventory, the woman occupied a special position, notes Andrey Polyakov. Fortunately, this later burial in the mound was not noticed by the robbers. We can say that a noble woman, most likely, died during childbirth or at a later stage of pregnancy. And later a child was buried in her grave.
Burial of a woman with a child in the Itkol II burial ground, Khakassia. Photo: press service of IIMK RAS
The unique find is not large in size - its height is about 12 cm. It needs restoration, which will be carried out by specialists from the Institute for History and Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In the same burial, in addition to the censer, many more interesting finds were found: more than 100 pendants from the teeth of various animals, including musk deer, ritual objects made of bone and horn, two vessels, two needle holders with bone needles inside, a bronze knife and more than one and a half thousands of beads that were used to trim the clothes. Now the employees of the expedition have to carefully string the beads on a special thin line so as not to lose a single bead.
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“For such an ancient era, this is a very numerous inventory,” says Polyakov. - An indirect confirmation of the ritual purpose of objects is the fact that nothing of the kind was found in other burials of that time. Archaeologists are counting on even rarer and more impressive finds next year, when the exploration of this unique mound will continue and the central burials will be uncovered.
Excavations of the Itkol burial mound is part of the joint project of the Institute for History and Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Geographical Society "Secrets of Ancient Siberian Artists". Its task is to expand the circle of scientific knowledge about the Okunev culture and to acquaint young people - volunteers of the Russian Geographical Society with the primitive art of this mysterious culture. There are no cultures in this region comparable to it in terms of the richness and diversity of artistic heritage. The project is financed by the Russian Geographical Society, which is also responsible for recruiting volunteers for the expedition.
In the course of research in 2016, a find was also made that allowed scientists to put forward a hypothesis that representatives of the Okunev culture could have come from the territory of modern Kazakhstan. This is indicated by a stylized image of a bull, made in a rare manner.
- The style of depicting a bull with an elongated rectangular body is not typical for the Okunev archaeological culture (the Early Bronze Age - XXV-XVIII centuries BC), - explains Andrey Polyakov. - Probably, this drawing belongs to the still little studied period of the formation of the Okunev culture. A bull of this shape indicates a connection with the territory located to the south, the lands of modern Kazakhstan, and therefore on the way by which the Okunevs came to South Siberia."
On the stone ceilings of the burials in one of the burial mounds on Itkol, the II expedition found "masks" carved on the stone, most likely representing some kind of spirits, gods or other supernatural beings in which these people believed. These images contain attributes that indicate the supernatural nature of the subject - for example, some of them have three eyes. These are not portraits of people: the expedition found two such drawings, they have nothing to do with "masks".
Finds of the Itkol II burial ground. Photo: press service of IIMK RAS
Okunevskaya culture is an archaeological culture of the early Bronze Age, widespread in the Minusinsk steppes on the Middle Yenisei (XXV-XVIII centuries BC). It got its name from the Okunev ulus tract in the south of Khakassia, where the burial ground of this culture was first excavated in 1928. Experts consider the Okunev culture one of the brightest cultures of the Early Bronze Age in all of Northern Eurasia. Her art is represented by rock carvings (petroglyphs), numerous objects of small artistic plastics and "Okunev steles" - anthropomorphic stone statues sometimes reaching a height of several meters. These figures have a general scheme that reflects the myth of the division into three worlds: the top is made in the form of a bird's beak, in the middle part there are images of one or more anthropomorphic creatures, and the lower one is the open mouth of a snake,facing down. Studies of burial grounds on Lake Itkol have already allowed scientists to restore an almost complete pantheon of deities that existed among these people: birds, animals, human-like creatures were present in it, and ideas about the afterlife were very developed.
According to a number of researchers, the population of the Okunev culture had a mixed Caucasian-Mongoloid type. Modern anthropologists believe that representatives of this culture have the greatest kinship with American Indians for the whole of Siberia.