is the richest site of prehistoric artBratsk, some 85 km northwest of - PDF document

is the richest site of prehistoric artBratsk, some 85 km northwest of Irkutsk,1928 and became known not only for pre-goods. Directly after the discovery and later,ing, however, revealed that the age of theThe prehistoric settlement of Malta is richpreserved intact. Women are depicted partly (Vasilevski & Malta (Yelinek 1982: 315). pean Palaeolithic Venus figures by clothing, realistic depiction andmore detailed facial features. The shapes of European Venus fig-found in 1956, which depicts an older naked woman (Figure 50).ately small body. Limbs are notaccentuated; even the figure’sThe numerous female figurinesOn some figurines only heads are elabo- Figure 51. A 4 cm tall dressed female 54 A – representation of a flying swan, B – representation of a standing swan,C – a partridge (Abramova 1962: LII–LIII). figures are extremely elaborately modelled. Compared to the restof the body, the birds’ wings are relatively small. The rounded endof the body has a drilled hole, which allowed to use the figurine as apendant. The edges of the opening are indented, depicting a bird’sstretched-out feet during the flight (Figure 53 A). So far, no analo-gous bird representations have been discovered anywhere else inures, the largest nearly 15 cm and the smallest 4.5 cm tall. One ofOne swanlike figure carved in ivory depicts a standing bird. Thefigure’s leg is pierced, which enabled to use it as a pendant (Figure53 B). Two other birds have not been depicted flying – one is a swim-ming ornithomorph of indistinguishable prototype, and another, a plays an engraved mammoth. The other, 14.1 x 8.5 cm large platefrom the central pierced hole. The largest spiral is surrounded bypressions have been found from the Malta site. Items of jewellery –headbands, bracelets, breast-ornaments, necklaces, pendants, etc. –buried child’s skull) and fragments of headbands are made of ivoryon clothes as breast-ornaments. Numer-round but some also triangular, made ofmammoth ivory, reindeer antler, pipe Figure 54. Engravings on an ivory plate (Abramova 1962: L 2, LI 2). LVI). is another famous site of Palaeolithic art in Siberia, located1936–1940 A. P. Okladnikov studied this prehistoric settlement. Findsfinds (PSSSR 1984: 314–315).gous to those found from Malta. One 12.2 x 1.9 cm stick-like ivoryfigurine is very well preserved and has a slender body, leaning for-ward from the waist, and relatively detailed facial features. TheAn analogue to swan figures foundered from Buret. The latter mayThere are other, though less knownsites of Palaeolithic art in Siberia. lunula ornamentation from Buret(Abramova 1962: LVII). moth ivory, a spherical object andthere. Unfortunately, all these ob-jects were destroyed during the 1879fire in the Museum of Irkutsk. An-Verholenskaia Gorathe right bank of the Ushakova river.Object finds from this site, which in-cluded pierced discs, an egg-like ob-ject of mammoth ivory, fragments cave.Krasnyi Yarcourse of the Lena river, have also been dated to the UpperPalaeolithic period by Okladnikov. This claim, however, has not been A – Irkutsk Gospital, B – KrasnyYar, C – Oshurkovo (Abramova of the Palaeolithic period the Western and partly also Central Sibe-important art finds come from the Yenisei and Angara watershed,have also been discovered at the Yenisei and south of Lake Baikal. is located at the Yenisei in the city of Krasnoiarsk,made from the teeth of rein- is situated in themouth of the Kova River, the left tributary of the Angara. The lowerstrata of this three-layered site are surprisingly old (28–32.9 mil-lennia old cultural layer. The most intriguing discoveries are aa nesting bird. The same layer has revealed bone beads and pen-dants of animal teeth (Vasilevski & Drozdov 1983). The ivory mam-from Siberia (Figure 49). Figure 48. Three-holed objects of AfontovaGora II (Abramova 1962: LIX). & COMMENTS ---� & COMMENTS ---�