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Siberian Archaeological Finds

KeyserXSoze

Gone But Not Forgotten
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http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=1875880&PageNum=0
St Pete researchers find tattoos on ancient Siberian mummies

St PETERSBURG, March 28 (Itar-Tass) - Infrared photography methods, used for the first time by researchers at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, have made it possible to discover tattoos in ancient mummies excavated in the Pazyryk mounds in the south Siberian Altai Mountains.

The mounds date back to the 8th to 5th centuries BC.

The discovery was made on three mummies – two that used to be female bodies and one male body -- that were produced by special treatment for burial ceremonies.

One more male mummy was found in the east Siberian region of Khakassia. That person was buried at the beginning of this era.

The Pazyryk mummies are very dark and nothing special could be found on them visually. The Khakassia mummy has a lighter color, but it was kept in its burial garments that concealed the tattoo until fairly recently.

The latter mummy was the first one on which the researchers found a tattooed image – the restorers identified oblique bluish figures on its shoulders.

Infrared photography helped find other invisible tattoos.

The ancient man from Khakassia had tattoos on the shoulders, the chest and arms, as well as on the back and near the lowest part of the neck. They resemble commas and rosettes, and a tattooed image on the inner side of the elbow shows a bow and an arrow attached to it.

That discovery prompted the researchers to apply the same method to the Pazyryk mummies. The pictures they got proved the presence of tattooed tigers, leopards, horses, roe deer, birds, and fantastic creatures – winged predators and hoofed animals with birdlike heads.

All the images were made in a specific artistic style typical of other pieces of Pazyryk art, known as the Scythian-Siberian manner. They depict separate animals and the so-called scenes of “tearing to pieces” – predators tearing apart the hoofed animals.

One of the female mummies has the tattoos differing from the classic Pazyryk compositions and bearing indications of a different cultural identity.

It might be Chinese identity, since the Pazyryk culture had periodic contacts with ancient China.
 
I thought that these tattoos were already known? I seem to recall them being discussed in a 'Horizon' (?) documentary about these mummies 5+ years ago...
 
I love Pazyrk art! It would be perfect for modern interior design.
 
Yeah, Jerry. In fact knowledge of tatoos on the bodies of ancient Siberians goes back into the 1950s when well preserved corpses were recovered from perma-frost filled graves.

I wonder what other ancient cultures used to decorate their bodies. Would these infrared techniques work on Egyptian mummies, perhaps?
 
4,500-Year-Old “Rattles” Found in Infant’s Burial

REPUBLIC OF KHAKASSIA, RUSSIA—Live Science reports that a 4,500-year-old burial of an infant less than one year old at the time of death has been found on the northwest shore of Russia’s Lake Itkul, in a kurgan constructed by the Okunev culture. Archaeologists Andrey Polyakov of the Institute for the History of Material Culture and Yury Esin of the Khakassian Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, wrote inArchaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasiathat the child had been buried in what appears to be a birch bark cradle with “eight miniature horn figurines representing humanlike characters and heads of birds, elk, boar, and a carnivore.” The figures, made from deer antlers, bear traces of red paint and were found on the infant’s chest, but they may have been attached to the cradle as toys or charms. “Some of [the figurines] have internal cavities and, upon coming in contact with each other, could produce noisy sounds like modern rattles,” the authors explained. The child had been buried wearing headgear made from 11 small copper plaques and two metallic cones held together with leather laces. An earring was found near the child’s head. To read about infant burials elsewhere in the world, go to "Peru’s Mysterious Infant Burials."

http://www.archaeology.org/news/4026-151222-birch-bark-cradle
 
Live Science reports that a 4,500-year-old burial of an infant less than one year old at the time of death has been found on the northwest shore of Russia’s Lake Itkul, in a kurgan constructed by the Okunev culture. Archaeologists Andrey Polyakov of the Institute for the History of Material Culture and Yury Esin of the Khakassian Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, wrote inArchaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasiathat the child had been buried in what appears to be a birch bark cradle...

http://www.archaeology.org/news/4026-151222-birch-bark-cradle
The mention of birch bark reminds me of north American Indians making their canoes from this versatile material. I wonder if the Okunev culture did the same? If so, perhaps the 'cradle' was a model canoe, so the burial could have links to the later Viking burials...

(Probably just me putting two and two together and getting five! :oops:)

The Song of Hiawatha

"Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!

etc...

http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=281
 
A now extinct species of lion cub at 20,000 to 50,000 years old has been found in the perma frost in Siberia, the cub is described as being in "perfect condition" raising the possibility that it can be cloned ...

cub.jpg


http://siberiantimes.com/science/ca...dition-found-in-siberia-rising-cloning-hopes/
 
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That's a pretty Happy Shopper interpretation of "perfect condition".

If I'd paid £20 to look at that in a zoo, I'd want my money back.

maximus otter
It's missing it's head as well ... I read somewhere that the meat was pretty tasty and kept for a long time although I expect the later factor would be down to the cold environment.
 
This keeps doing the rounds on Pinterest.
Siberian megalithic ruins with shaped stone blocks twice the size of those at Baalbek.
Anyone know if it's been debunked yet? ...

The Mount Shoria / Shoriya 'megaliths' have made the rounds here as well:

The hyper gigantic megaliths of Southern Siberia
forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/the-hyper-gigantic-megaliths-of-southern-siberia.55969/
Title and link are obsolete. The current versions are:


Gornaya Shoria (Mt. Shoria / Shoriya) Megaliths (Southern Siberia)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ria-shoriya-megaliths-southern-siberia.55969/

... though they didn't generate much discussion.

From the first time I ran across this story it seemed pretty obvious to me the apparent blocks were the result of natural geological fracturing / erosion processes, analogous to tessellated pavement.

The cursory Wikipedia entry on these 'megaliths':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gornaya_Shoria_megaliths

... offers a straightforward summary of the geological processes that would explain them, though there's apparently been a behind-the-scenes dispute over the article since 2014.

The Wikipedia article characterizes the Mount Shoriya geo-formation as a tor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tors

... and if you check the photos of prominent tors there (and / or elsewhere) the similarity of these other formations to the Shoriya ones is striking, if not convincing.

In other words, my guess would be there's not been a detailed debunking of the Mount Shoriya formation because no one's ever found the paranormal / artificial interpretation compelling enough to constitute a target worthy of debunking effort.
 
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Yes, the only stone in that link that looks manmade is the manmade one from Baalbek, and it's their main photo for that article though they don't say that's the Baalbek stone.
 
Looks like most people now accept that the Mount Shorya granite features are naturally fractured tors.
This huge block still fascinates me though, due to its rectilinear shape and as it appears to have some vague carvings on one face (the corner nearest our POV).
Could such a massive block have been modified by ancient Siberians for totemic purposes?

IMG_0500.JPG
 
Some fantastic recent finds on show here:

Cave lion figurine made of woolly mammoth tusk found at Denisova Cave
By Anna Liesowska, Svetlana Skarbo
20 November 2019

Aged approximately 45,000 years, this might be the world’s oldest animal statuette.


Cave lion figurine in situ at the Denisova Cave in the Altai mountains. Picture: Institute of Archeology and Ethnography
The sensational discovery was made three months ago in the Altai Mountains by the team of archeologists from Novosibirsk Institute of Archeology and Ethnography.

The precious small - 42mm long, 8mm thick and 11mm high - figurine of a cave lion (Panthera spelaea, lat) was made by an Upper Palaeolithic artist between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago.

It was found inside the 11th layer of the southern gallery of the Denisova Cave.

This is the oldest sculptural zoomorphic image ever found in Siberia and throughout the territory of Northern and Central Asia.
The precise age is yet to be confirmed, but the cautious dating given by Siberian archeologists means that this might be the oldest animal figurine in the world.


Much More Here:
https://siberiantimes.com/science/c...f-woolly-mammoth-tusk-found-at-denisova-cave/
 
How do we know its a cave lion?

I agree - I suggest an alternative reconstruction. If you flip it on the long axis then it's a Nessy floating on the top of the water. Head has long gone of course....

I wonder if the oghamy bits are intended to represent stripes?
 
... I wonder if the oghamy bits are intended to represent stripes?

The Eurasian cave lion is known to have had multiple (perhaps seasonal) layers of hair with different colorings among layers. However, I can't find any solid reference they were believed to be striped in the tiger-like manner the Ogham style incisions would insinuate. Additionally, I can't find any photos of recovered (formerly frozen) cave lion pelts exhibiting prominent striping.

This is probably 'way off the mark, but ... I found myself wondering whether the stripe-like incisions were marks deliberately positioned to illustrate the most effective places to stab a live lion. In other words, I wondered whether the figurine was a teaching tool or reference object related to hunting lore / practice.
 
This is probably 'way off the mark, but ... I found myself wondering whether the stripe-like incisions were marks deliberately positioned to illustrate the most effective places to stab a live lion. In other words, I wondered whether the figurine was a teaching tool or reference object related to hunting lore / practice.

nice!

They all seem to be a group of 4 cuts. So it's four of something rather than a progression, or marking out different values of X.
 
I see no indication of a missing leg there at the front. As shown by the comparison, the back is also very flat and straight for a lion. I'd say they are seeing what they want to see.
 
Good to get the 3D scan and the other photos.
 
Literally a treasure chest of genetic information.

Ancient Woman's DNA Recovered From 20,000-Year-Old Necklace Pendant​


Ancient Deer Tooth Pendant


The pierced deer tooth pendant. (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

A pendant made from a deer's tooth has turned out to be a veritable locket of genetic information left by an ancient woman who lived in Siberia some 20,000 years ago.

Evolutionary anthropologists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany found a way to safely probe ancient artifacts for environmental DNA without destroying them, and applied it to a piece of jewelery found in the famous Denisova Cave in Russia in 2019.

Other than the fragments of her chromosomes, no trace of the woman herself has been uncovered, though the genes absorbed by the pendant with her sweat and skin cells lead experts to think she belonged to an ancient group of North Eurasian individuals from the paleolithic times.

The incredible discovery opens up the idea that other prehistoric artifacts made from tooth and bone are untapped sources of ancient genetic material. They could very well hide information on how our ancestors once used, carried, or wore objects in the deep, deep past.

"Our work redefines how cultural and genetic records can be linked in prehistoric archaeology," write the authors of the analysis.

https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-womans-dna-recovered-from-20000-year-old-necklace-pendant
 
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