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Opening of the permanent exposition after reconstruction: Old Siberia. The Fifth Pazyryk Barrow 7 December 2010 the permanent exposition Old Siberia. The Fifth Pazyryk Barrow, from the collection of the State Hermitage, exploring the history and culture of tribes of the Scythian times of Altai was opened during the Hermitage Days. The central place of the exposition is occupied by a burial chamber, an old cart and a big felted carpet. Presented are also items of Altai’s craftsmen and things testifying that the local population had contacts with civilizations of the Central Asia and the Ancient East – Chinese silk, woolen fabrics and the world’s oldest felted carpet. All items are exhibited in new shop windows with new illumination emphasizing the uniqueness of archaeological finds. In the early 1st millennium B. C. in Eurasia’s steppes there emerged cultural traditions determining the image of the entire age which lasted for more than five hundred years and was referred to as "Scythian". One of the prominent archaeological monuments of this age is the Pazyryk burial mound located in the southern slope of the Chulyshmansky range in the Eastern Altai. The research on the monument was started in 1929 when, under the guidance of M. Gryaznov, the first of “tsar’s” barrows of this burial mound was excavated. Due to the frozen ground, items made of wood, felt, leather, fur, fabrics and other organic materials were well preserved in the burial mound. In 1947 S. Rudenko continued works on the monument. For two years he conducted excavations of another four "tsar’s" barrows. In 1949 the Fifth Pazyryk barrow was examined. At the time of excavations, it was a rockfill, 42 m in diameter, with a pothole in the center. The height of the rockfill along the pothole edges was 3.75 m. On the bottom of a grave, 6.65 õ 8.25 m in dimensions and 4 m in depth, there was a burial chamber consisting of two frameworks installed in one another. The internal framework housed a block with mummified bodies of a man and a woman. The barrow was looted in old times. Undisturbed was only the equine burial located in the northern part of the burial pit from the external side of the burial structure. Remnants of four coach horses and five riding horses were found here. A rich dressing of one of the horses included a leather mask covered with a deer’s head, carved of wood, with beamy leather horns and a horsecloth (cover under a saddle) sewn with Chinese silk. A horsecloth of another horse was sewn with a woolen Persian fabric. Along with horses there were placed a staircase, drag harrow elements, wheels, a towbar and axles of a disassembled wooden cart, felted figures of swans, a big felted carpet, elements of a burial "marquee" and a woolen felted carpet. The finds not only represent a high social status of the buried. They
testify of the contacts between the local population of the Scythian times
with civilizations of the Central Asia and the Ancient East. Materials
of the discovery enable a sufficiently full reconstruction of various
aspects of life of tribes of Gorny The burial in the Fifth Barrow was the last of the “tsar’s” burials made in the Pazyryk land. The exposition curator is Nikolai Nikolaev, senior research associate of the Department of Archaeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia of the State Hermitage, Ph. D. in history. |
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© 2011 State Hermitage Museum |
