ARTISTIC METALWORK FOUND NEAR THE TOMSKAYA PISANITSA

Abstract

We describe rare toreutic items found in the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s near the Tomskaya Pisanitsa rock art site—a zoomorphic fi gurine, two anthropomorphic masks, and an ornithomorphic pendant. Parallels among the ritual and funerary artifacts from Southern and Western Siberia are discussed. The fi gurine representing a horse or an onager resembles certain examples of ritual toreutic art of the Tagar and Kizhirovo cultures (500–300 BC). Anthropomorphic masks represent the Tomsk-Narym variant of late Kulaika toreutics (100 BC to 500 AD) but may be as late as the sixth century, being associated with the post-Kulaika early medieval tradition. The ornithomorphic fi gurine, dating to 500–700 AD, belongs to the early medieval trans-cultural tradition that had originated from late Kulaika art. The Tomskaya Pisanitsa site resembles Early Iron Age and early medieval sanctuaries of Western and Southern Siberia with votive hoards of artifacts including toreutic ones. Such sites are part of the Northern Asian tradition of offerings made near rock art galleries. Hypotheses are advanced about the attitudes of the late Kulaika people to rock art sites in the fi rst half of the fi rst millennium AD.