EARLY AND MIDDLE BRONZE AGE PORTABLE ART PIECES FROM THE FOREST-STEPPE ZONE OF THE OB-IRTYSH REGION

Abstract

Portable works of Early and Middle Bronze Age art from the Ob and Irtysh region, Western Siberia, demonstrate high standards of craftsmanship. This mainly concerns zoomorphic images on stone pestles, hafts of bronze daggers, and gamma-shaped pommels made of bone and horn. Most of the images are those of mammals and birds rendered in profile. The most frequent representations decorating stone and metal objects are those of horses, evidencing the importance of this animal in the economy and religion of that period. Objects representing the human head, a man with a horse, and groups of animals were mostly found in the Irtysh region. This apparently, was the area where this tradition had originated and from whence it spread.