Issue 3 (92)

A SHIGIR FIND (AN ORNITOMORPHIC FIGURE FROM THE MOUNTAIN-FOREST TRANS-URAL)
Year	2026	Number	3 (92)
Pages	132-139	Type	scientific article
UDC	902(470.5)”637”	BBK	63.442.6(235.55)
Authors	Korochkova Olga N. Chenchenkova Olga P.	Topic	ARCHAEOLOGICAL MOSAIC
Summary	The publication focuses on the unique discovery of a fragment of a circular sculpture found during the study of the Shigirsky Istok III multilayer archaeological site. The fragment was a light gray talcum silhouette image of a bird’s head with bulging eyes, throat, neck, and other individual parts of the bird’s head highlighted by the clearly marked volumes. The characteristic details of the exterior corresponded to the general description of the grouse tribe species (grouse, partridge). In their tentative attempts at cultural and chronological verification of the item, in a situation of the absence of any known analogies to similar sculptures, the authors relied on the stylistic characteristics of the image, the material used, and the preferred contexts of the archaeological site. The stylistic features corresponded to a group of images forming the core of the stone sculpture phenomenon of the Late Bronze Age of Eurasia (the South Ural tiles with a ram’s head, the Irtysh region stone bars with a horse, and the North Kazakhstan anthropomorphic images). This style was characterized by the use of two main techniques. One of them was a geometric simplification of the shape: the head of an animal (ram, horse) took the form of a horizontal prism, and the details (eyes, nostrils, lips) were placed along its edges. The second technique was the maximum generalization of the shape and the complete elimination of details, the latter could only be guessed at in the volume created with the help of depressions with exaggerated convex edges. The chronological position of the find was confirmed by the abundance of the Bronze Age talcum items in the cultural layer of the site (numerous molds, a mace, a disk, a boot-shaped pestle, an ornamented block, etc.).
Keywords	Urals, ancient sculpture, talcum, Late Bronze Age
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