Title: The Pazyryk Swan
What it’s: A decorative plush figurine of a swan made out of reindeer felt and full of reindeer wool
The place it’s from: The Pazyryk Valley within the Altai Mountains of Russian Siberia
When it was made: About 2,400 years in the past
Associated: Mask of Agamemnon: A gold death mask once thought to be evidence of the Trojan War
What it tells us concerning the previous:
This comfortable figurine is attributed to the Pazyryk tradition, an Iron Age folks thought to have been a part of the Saka cultural group — nomads who might themselves have been an japanese department of the Scythian culture.
Together with other treasures, the almost 12-inch-tall (30 centimeters) swan was found in a burial mound within the Pazyryk Valley of the Altai Mountains, close to Russia’s borders with Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia.
Archaeologists suppose the figurine dates to the fifth or fourth century B.C. The swan’s physique is made out of reindeer wool that has been processed into white felt, whereas the beak, eyes and wing suggestions are made out of black felt. Reddish-brown felt was used for the “ft,” and the figurine is filled with reindeer wool.
The ft additionally comprise wood sticks that help the swan in an upright place. Curators at Russia’s Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the place it’s on show, suppose these sticks have been used to mount the swan on a wood chariot discovered close by, or maybe on the highest of a tent-like structure erected over the burial mound however which rotted away way back.
In keeping with the museum, the swan symbolized life in three spheres: air, land and water.
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The swan or an identical water chook additionally might have featured in a creation delusion: there was “a widespread idea of the creation of the universe by a swan, duck or goose, which was attribute of many cosmogonical conceptions in historic instances,” in accordance with the museum.
Archaeologists from the Soviet Union started excavating the traditional burial mounds within the Pazyryk Valley within the Twenties and located the felted swan in 1949, in accordance with the University of Washington.
As a result of the area is excessive — and subsequently chilly — lots of the burial mounds are perpetually frozen and have preserved many natural supplies, together with human stays.
