Shigir idol: Origin of monumental sculpture and ideas about the ways of preservation of the representational tradition

Abstract

The article presents some new ideas about the Big Shigir Idol erection, ways of positioning and fixing the wooden sculpture on a Mansy sanctuary in trans-Uralian taiga. According to art study criteria, the Shigir Idol can be referred to monumental sculpture. Its Mesolithic age allows to put it at the beginning of the pre-literate period monumental sculpture range in Eurasian history – sculptures of Yamnaya, Chemurchek and Okunevo cultures, Scythian deer stones and Middle Age stone idols. The Big Shigir Idol's anthropomorphic iconographic characteristics, synthesis with its decorative features demonstrate a fully formed representational tradition. In spite of the idea of Ural Mesolithic Age origin, the author believes that the Shigir Idol's representational tradition could have been formed in the local Taiga environment unlike the art and craft tradition. The discussion concerning the problem of the long existence of this tradition follows the part about the spreading of anthropomorphic representations in cultures of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages in Northern Europe, the part about the representational traditions trends. As for the problem of Mesolithic representational tradition preservation in wooden sculpture up to modern and contemporary times in modern indigenous peoples in Western Siberia, it is not possible to solve it with archaeological sources yet. The author justifies this idea and suggests an original way to solve it.