The article deals with wooden anthropomorphic sculptures found on peat bogs of the Trans-Urals. Their archaeological context, dating, and image stylistics are analyzed. Data on anthropomorphic sculptures of Western and Eastern Europe are presented. In revealing the semantics of Trans-Ural sculptural images, the method of retrospective analysis of the myth-ritual practice of the Ob Ugrians is used.
Keywords: Trans-Urals, peat bog monuments, wooden anthropomorphic sculpture, archaeological context, dating, iconography, semantics.
Sources, archaeological context, and sculpture style
Probably, ten wooden anthropomorphic sculptures and one item classified as anthropomorphic were found on the peat bog monuments of the Trans-Urals: on the cult site of the VI Section of the Gorbunovsky peat bog (six), the Robber Island site (one) and among random finds from the Shigir peat bog (four)*. There is a mention of another idol found on the Gorbunovsky peat bog in 1932-1933 during the repair of a capital ditch located 300 m to the west of the VI Section. It has not been preserved, and its exact location, the complex of accompanying finds, and stylistic features are not known (Eding, 1937, p. 138).
Three whole sculptures and fragments of three sculptures were found in the VI Section (Eding, 1937, 19406, pp. 66, 102, Fig. 63; Gadzhieva, 2004; Chairkina, 2004, pp. 121-123]. In 1927, a wooden anthropomorphic sculpture lying face up was discovered at sites 68 and 69 at a depth of 250 cm, on sapropel. A piece of birch bark covered his face. The 123 x 9 x 9 cm figure is cut from a curved trunk with a knotted end for a stake. A specially selected head of an elongated shape is located on flat shoulders, a curve of the back is outlined; other details are not worked out, arms and legs are not depicted (Fig. 1). According to D. N. Eding, the safety of the idol is unsatisfactory: only the mouth opening is hardly visible on the front of the head. Next to the anthropomorphic sculpture, in areas 6 ...
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