The discussion and research of archaeologists around the Iron Age artifacts discovered in the Southern Urals were summarized in the article by Chelyabinsk archaeologists “New Figures from the Trans-Ural Forest-Steppe”, published in the Ufa Archaeological Bulletin journal, Volume 24, No. 2, July 30, the press service of the South Ural State University (SUSU) reports.
In the Southern Urals, ancient copper figures of warriors with quivers, weapons and a bird (an ornithomorph, in archaeological terminology) are periodically found. According to the time of manufacture, they are attributed to the early Iron Age.
The authors of the article, Director of the SUSU Research Center for Eurasian Studies, Doctor of Historical Sciences Alexander Tairov and his colleague from the State Museum of the History of the Southern Urals Alexey Shapiro, answer in it what folk monuments these artifacts belong to and what beliefs and cultural contacts they indicate.
In the Southern Urals, different landscapes came into contact: steppes, mountains, forest-steppes, and this made it in ancient times a place where steppe nomads met with forest-steppe inhabitants: semi-nomadic cattle breeders with permanent winter settlements, and metallurgists – representatives of the Gorokhov and Itkul archaeological cultures.
The steppe nomads spoke Indo-Iranian languages and worshipped the sun and fire, while the Ugric peoples living north and west of the Southern Urals worshipped anthropomorphic and zoomorphic deities. At the same time, representatives of the Gorokhov culture found themselves on the “cultural frontier”, as they were connected both with the steppe inhabitants and with the Itkul metallurgists by economic and marital ties.
Two figures of warriors with a bird on their shoulder, which are the subject of research by Chelyabinsk archaeologists, were accidentally found 10 years ago on the banks of the Sinara River near the village of Karino in the Kunashaksky district of the Chelyabinsk region.
The figures covered with a green coating were examined by members of the SUSU Department of Metallurgy and Foundry, Professor Leonid Znamensky and Associate Professor Olga Ivochkina, and found to be made of “pure” copper (98.3–99.4%).
Tairov and Shapiro described these findings in their paper: “The model probably represented a standing man with short, extended and downward-facing arms, slightly bent at the elbows. Straight legs, widely spaced, sexual characteristics… somewhat hypertrophied. Hanging from left to belt obliquely, from right to left, there is obviously a quiver. The head is small, the face round, the eyebrows, eyes, long nose, mouth are shown in relief… The elongated neck smoothly turns into sloping shoulders. A long, slightly curved “process” extends almost vertically upwards from the right shoulder… A figure of an ornithomorph is placed on the left shoulder.”.
Archaeologists compared these artifacts with other similar figurines found in the Southern Trans-Urals. The most famous set of similar figurines was found in the early 20th century near the village of Sapogovo and was therefore named the Sapogovsky treasure. Originally it consisted of “of twelve idols of copper”.
Today this village no longer exists, but the place where the treasure was discovered is located one kilometer south of the village of Novoburino in the same Kunashaksky district. Before this, similar figures were found near the village of Elevator in the same region, as well as near Dalmatovo, a town in the Kurgan region.
At the same time, it is clear that the Karin finds were made according to similar models to those of previous finds, on the same subject, but in different casting moulds. This suggests that they were all made by different craftsmen. They also have differences from figurines found in other regions of the Urals and Western Siberia.
However, the images of faces, quivers (gorits) and daggers resemble these details on figurines found further south, in Ustyurt, Kazakhstan. Summarizing these data, Chelyabinsk scientists come to the conclusion about a special type of “Sapogov anthropomorphs” – cast images of warriors. Presumably, these figures personified fallen warrior heroes, representatives of the semi-nomadic Gorokhov culture.
Researchers note that Soviet archaeologist Konstantin Salnikov, who studied the Gorokhov archaeological culture in the post-war years, considered the “Gorokhov people” to be the same Issedons described by the ancient historian Herodotus.
The Gorokhov culture includes elements of Iranian culture, such as burial mounds. Other Ugric peoples did not have such a custom. But the figure of a bird on the warrior’s shoulder contradicts the fact that the steppe inhabitants did not worship animals.
But the Khanty tattooed a bird on their shoulder, which did not allow the soul of the bird to leave the person’s body, saving him from final death. In addition, images of a bird (ornithomorph) are not uncommon in the Itkul culture, and sometimes a small bird was depicted on the shoulder of a large one.
“The top of the Gorokhovo people was probably Iranian; when they were pushed south, the Gorokhovo tribes mixed with the steppe people. The steppe nomads were in the Southern Trans-Urals from May to August, and then left, and the Gorokhovo people stayed here for the winter and controlled the extraction of metals, the manufacture of implements and weapons, representing the interests of the steppe peoples.”“, explained Alexander Tairov.
Summarizing the results of their research, the authors of the article noted: “Analysis of anthropomorphic figurines found in the vicinity of the village Karino, allows you to combine them into one group with figures from the Sapogovsky hoard village Elevator and Dalmatovo, highlighting it as a separate type of Sabokov anthropomorphs from the Trans-Ural forest-steppe of the early Iron Age.”.
Thus, they introduced a new concept into scientific circulation – “Sapogovsky anthropomorphs” – as another evidence of the uniqueness of the Gorokhov culture, which, formed on the Iranian-Ugric border, combined elements of two different civilizations.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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