(Based on the excavation of the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground)

The article analyzes ornaments from women's burials of the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground, located on the right bank of the Edigan River, a right tributary of the Katun River in the Altai Mountains. The head and neck ornaments discovered during the excavations were worn by representatives of the nomadic population, who left behind monuments of the Airydash type. Some women were buried with a set of head ornaments, including bronze and iron plates, pendants, plaques, beads, and bronze plaques. The study of these finds allowed us to reconstruct jewelry for head capes and braids, earrings and necklaces, and make assumptions about the ownership of various sets of jewelry to women of different ages.

Keywords: women's jewelry, headdresses, hairstyles, necklaces, monuments of the Xiongno-Xianbian era, Edigan, Gorny Altai.

Introduction

Jewelry is an important part of women's costume in the traditional cultures of many peoples of the world. They are widely represented in the subject complexes of ancient and medieval nomadic ethnic groups of the steppe belt of Eurasia. These things largely determined the ethno-cultural appearance, social status, and belonging of a woman to a certain age group. In many nomadic cultures, jewelry carried an aesthetic and symbolic load, served as amulets-amulets, symbolically protected women, in particular their reproductive function, from potentially harmful external influences. Some metal products, such as silver, had bactericidal properties, so they were widely used as amulets in traditional cultures of ancient and medieval ethnic groups [Khudyakov, 1996, p. 27; Khudyakov and Borisenko, 2003, p.103-04]. A special group consists of items used for decorating hats, hairstyles, ear and neck ornaments (Mikhailova, 2005: 75-90).

Researchers who studied the ornaments of women's headdresses in some Turkic peoples of Eurasia noted that they preserved original patterns that are not found in the ornamentation of other types of costume complexes. According to the prevailing scientific ideas, in the cultures of the Eurasian nomads, headdresses played a particularly important symbolic role during marriage rituals. In the traditional cultures of some Turkic ethnic groups, richly decorated, patterned headdresses were symbols of marriage, they were designed to promote the reproduction of healthy offspring by women entering into marriage [Davletshina, 2006, p. 37]. In the periods of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the nomadic population of the Sayan-Altai and the entire Central Asian historical region was divided into two groups.-

The work was carried out according to the research plan X. 100.2.2. " The Sayano-Altai mountain country in the Paleometallic and Medieval period. Block 2. The Hunnic Era".

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The Rico-cultural region used various types of jewelry to design women's hats, hairstyles, and necklaces.

Researchers of ancient and traditional cultures of Northern Asia-archaeologists and ethnographers-have repeatedly turned to the study of women's headdresses, the remains of which were found during excavations of funerary complexes of different peoples of Siberia [Okladnikova, 1995, p.171, 174, 176]. They examined and analyzed head ornaments such as headbands, plates, crowns, ear rings, earrings, and temporal pendants of many indigenous peoples of North Asia, including the Sayano-Altai region (Mikhailova, 2005: 64-73). In some cases, the analysis of these ornaments allowed scientists to reconstruct women's headdresses.

During excavations of late medieval women's burials on the funerary monument of the Selkup ethnic group Migalka in the Middle Ob region, metal head plates were found - glasses and pendants attached to them. Based on their study, a set of ornaments of the female headdress of the Selkups, a Samoyedic people who inhabited the taiga regions of the Middle Ob region in the Middle Ages, was reconstructed [Chindina, 1995, pp. 180-183].

Jewelry Description

A variety of items used to create headdresses, hairstyles, and necklaces that are characteristic of the female costume complex of the ancient nomadic population of Gorny Altai of the Hunno-Xianbian era were recorded during excavations of women's burials at the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground, located in the valley of the Edigan River , a right tributary of the Katun River, in its middle course. Earlier, employees of the South Siberian Branch of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences unearthed several women's graves on this burial ground, the accompanying inventory of which included metal and stone ornaments. Most of these objects were found in the area of the skull and cervical vertebrae of buried women (Khudyakov, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009; Borisenko and Khudyakov, 2008).

The deceased are buried under gentle oval layouts of rock fragments. The area of the oval mounds is from 2x1 to 3x2 m, the height is 0.1 m. The bodies of the deceased were placed in rectangular burial pits with a depth of 0.8-1.1 m, oriented along the long axis along the west - east line. In most of the grave pits, stone slabs were placed along the walls, which formed stone boxes with non-closed walls. In some of them, the remains of decayed wooden frames and ceilings of graves are recorded. At the bottom of the grave pits were skeletons of adult women and girls of different ages. As a rule, the deceased women were buried singly. Rarely is the backbone of a woman in the same grave pit with a man or children. According to the location of the bone remains, the deceased were laid at the bottom of the grave pit on their backs, in an elongated position, with their heads most often to the east and very rarely to the west. In some cases, during the burial, the head was turned face north, the arms were bent at the elbows, and one or both legs were slightly bent at the knees. Bronze and iron plates, plaques, clips, pendants, and beads were found near the skulls and cervical vertebrae of most of the buried women. In some cases, pendants and buckles were found among the bones of the chest and pelvis of the deceased.

According to the features of tombstone structures, the shape of grave pits, stone boxes and wooden structures, the burial rite, the composition and appearance of the accompanying equipment, the burials excavated at the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground can be attributed to the Ayrydash type monuments that became widespread in the middle Katun in the second quarter of the first millennium AD, within the Hunno-Xianbian time. This type of monument was identified by A. S. Surazakov in the early 1990s based on the study of the Airydash burial ground located in the vicinity of the village of Kuyus in the Katuni Valley [1992, pp. 96-97]. Some researchers consider such monuments to be of the Kok-Pash type, or the Kok-Pash group of monuments [Edin, 1990; Bobrov, Vasyutin A. S., Vasyutin S. A., 2003, pp. 33-34, 42-43]. Other archaeologists suggest associating all the monuments of the Xiongno-Xianbian era in Gorny Altai with the Bulan-Kobin culture (Tishkin and Gorbunov, 2003, p.137).

A variety of objects found in several single female graves of the Ulug-Choltukh monument (mound N 15, 29, 38, 44, 46; 1-3), allow you to reconstruct sets of women's head and neck jewelry.

In mound No. 15, a female burial site was unearthed with a set of ornaments designed to be worn on the head and neck. In front of the frontal part of the buried woman's skull was a curved frontal plate made of bronze. At both ends there are holes for attaching the plate to the cloth base. In the area of the occipital part of the skull and the cervical spine, a bronze curved plate holder with holes at both ends and two bronze rounded, hemispherical patch plaques with holes were found. Below it were two bronze penetrations. On the bones of the left arm, in the place of the elbow bend of the buried person, there was a stone spherical disk with a rounded hole in the center (Fig.

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Fig. 1. Plans of women's borders N 38 and 44. Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

2. Burial No. 38. Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

3. Burial No. 44. Ulugh-Choltukh burial ground.

4. A set of ornaments from a female burial in mound No. 15. The Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

A female burial site with various head ornaments has been excavated in Mound No. 29. Bronze plates with holes at the ends were found along the contour of the frontal and parietal parts of the severely damaged skull and under it. On the frontal bone, a curved rectangular eyeglass plate with holes at both ends was found, the surface of which is decorated with three rows of punches. Under the skull were long, narrow plates with holes at both ends. The end of one of them was broken off. Behind the parietal part of the skull were fragments of a curved iron plate with rounded ends. In the occipital region of the skull was a flame-shaped bronze plate with two holes and a notch on the outer edge, as well as a stone pendant with a hole in which a thin strap is threaded. In front of the front part of the skull and under it were musk deer tusks with holes for hanging, a badly damaged horn ridge, the surface of which is decorated with Christmas ornaments. An iron clip and a bronze pendant in the form of a two-part ball with leather filling were found in the skull area (Fig. 5).

Burial of a young woman was recorded in mound No. 38. On her skull was a bronze curved frontal plate with holes around the perimeter and a leather winding in the central part.

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5. A set of ornaments from a female burial in mound No. 29. The Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

The skull was delineated by bronze hemispherical and double spherical plaques, conical bronze tubes with two-part balls and leather filling inside, and a large stone lobed bead (Fig.

Fig. 6. A set of ornaments from a female burial in a burial mound. N 38 Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

In mound No. 44, an iron head plate, bronze plates, and hemispherical plaques were found in the area of the buried woman's skull. Behind the parietal part of the skull, ten bronze clips were arranged in a single line (see Figs.

A large set of jewelry is recorded in a female burial site in mound No. 46. Along the contour of the skull of the buried lay bronze objects-clips with holes, hemispherical patch plaques with holes, tube pendants with a two-part spherical end and leather filling, a curved plate, a wire ring with a spiral end, and stone beads. Under the lower jaw and in the chest area there was a large bronze plaque with a spherical protrusion in the center and a horn plate with protrusions on the sides, decorated on the outside with a circular ornament. Separate pendants and plaques were found in the area of the pelvic bones and the left leg of the buried woman (Fig. 7).

Several more excavated single female burials in burial mounds N 39, 47, 48 revealed individual women's head ornaments, bronze and iron head plates, bronze pendants, plaques with a spherical protrusion in the center, plaques and clips. These finds show a fairly close typological similarity with head and neck ornaments from all other single graves. Sets differ only in the content of individual parts. Unique objects are very rare in women's burials. In graves where women are buried with men or children, there is very little or no decoration.

In the mound. No. 1 was a pair burial of a man and a woman. The woman's skeleton was lying there

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7. A set of ornaments from a female burial in mound No. 46. The Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

along the southern wall of the grave, south of the man's skeleton. There was a stone bead in the chest area of the female skeleton, an iron ring under the pelvic bones, and an iron awl and bone tubes between the femoral bones.

In mound No. 23 in the center of the grave pit was the skeleton of a woman without any belongings. The complete skeleton of the child was located to the north of the female skeleton, along the northern wall of the grave pit. Jewelry and a belt buckle were found among the bones of the child's skeleton. Near the bones of the left leg, the bones of the limbs of the second child were found.

In mound No. 37, the bodies of three deceased persons-two men and one woman-were buried in one grave consecutively, one on top of the other. The body of the woman was placed in a grave pit on top of the bones of the limbs of the first buried. The woman was placed on her back, with her hands folded under her chin "in a prayer pose". Around her skull were bronze and iron plaques and rods, which, most likely, were part of the decorations of the headdress. Another man was buried above.

The presence of similar details allows us to reconstruct several variants of a set of head ornaments, as well as products for decorating the hairstyle and neck, characteristic of a certain category of women of the ancient nomad ethnic group that inhabited the Edigan Valley in the Xiongno-Xianbian era, which includes monuments of the Airydash type.

The presence of a bone comb in one burial site of the Ulugh-Choltukh monument, and in most of the women's burials - bronze open clips suggests that women wore their long, combed hair in a single braid or gathered it into a bun, which was then fastened at the back of the head with bronze, much less iron, clips. From one to ten such clips were required to preserve the hairstyle. The woman buried in mound No. 15 had her hair held together with a single clip (Fig. 8, 1). In addition to the clip, the lower end of the braid was decorated with a flame-shaped pendant and a bronze two-part ball (Fig. 8, 2). A woman from mound No. 38 had two bronze clips attached to her braid (Figs. 8, 3). The scythe of a woman buried in mound No. 46 was decorated with six clips (Figs. 8, 4). The braid of a woman from mound No. 44 was fastened with the largest number of clips - ten. In all cases where it was possible to determine this, metal clips fastened one braid or a bundle of hair.

Women probably covered their combed and plaited or bun-like hair with a cloth cape, decorated with a bronze or iron arched frontal plate, which served to decorate and fix the cape on the head. In a study about Sel's head ornaments-

8. Reconstruction of sets of women's head and neck ornaments from the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground. 1 - mound N 15; 2-mound N 29; 3 - mound N 38; 4-mound N 46.

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In the case of Kupsk women, a similar plate is called an ochel (Chindina, 1995, p. 181). The presence of holes suggests that the head plate was attached or sewn to the front of the cape. In the mound. No. 29 had two plates at once - a bronze one with a punch pattern and an iron one. They were located on the skull of a buried woman. Probably, the plates were attached to the cape sequentially one after the other, and did not overlap one another. Most of the capes were decorated with bronze hemispherical plaques. It can be assumed that such plaques decorated the edges of the cape on both sides of the head plate. The decorations of the cape from mound No. 29 included three oblong bronze plates with holes at the ends. How exactly they were attached to the cape is hard to imagine. They may have been sewn to the edge of the cloth covering hanging from the sides and back (Figs. 8,1, 3, 4).

Such hemispherical plaques are quite widely known in the kit as patch ornaments attached to the silk cape that covered the head of the bearer of the Bulan-Koba culture of Gorny Altai in the previous historical era. Very similar gold plaques were found on the headdress of a mummified woman in a burial site at the Ust-Edigan burial ground, located in the same archaeological microdistrict as the Ulug-Choltukh monument [Khudyakov, 1991, pp. 63-64; Khudjakov, 1995, Fig. 9, 10].

The front part of some capes was additionally decorated with various pendants. In the headdress of the woman from Kurgan No. 29, these were tusks, probably musk deer. The set included four such pendants with oval holes for hanging. Taking into account the location, these suspensions were attached to the cape under the head plate (Fig. 8, 2). The women buried in mounds N 38 and 46 have their head coverings supplemented with bronze pendants in the form of tubes and two-part balls strung on leather straps (Figs. 8, 3, 4). In the set of head ornaments of women buried in mounds N 38, 39, 46 and 47, there were from two to ten such pendants. The pendants were presumably attached to the lower edge of the head plate and hung down to the woman's eyebrows or even eyelashes.

No earrings were found in most of the women's graves. For the woman buried in mound No. 46, bronze wire rings (one broken off, the other spiral) may have served as ear ornaments (Figs. 8, 4).

In the area of the head, neck and chest of the buried women, large plaques, pendants, piercings and beads were found. They could be part of neck ornaments. Such ornaments of a woman buried in mound No. 15 may include two bronze penetrations and a stone spherical disk with a rounded hole in the center (Fig. 8, 1). In the set of jewelry of the woman buried in mound No. 29, there is a stone pendant with two holes, in one of which a piece of leather cord has been preserved. It is quite possible that the woman wore this pendant on a string around her neck. A large stone bead with a ribbed surface, most likely a neck pendant, was found in the area of the collarbone of the woman buried in mound No. 38 (Fig. 8, 3). In mound No. 46, under the lower jaw of a woman, there was a large bronze plaque with a spherical protrusion in the center, two stone beads, and a horn plate with side protrusions decorated with a circular ornament (Figs. 8, 4). A similar shaped bronze plaque with a spherical protrusion and a hole in the center is included in the accompanying inventory from the female burial site in mound No. 47. In two graves, a stone spherical disk and a bronze plaque with a hole in the center were located on the bone of the left hand (in the place of the elbow bend) of women.

Discussion of the results

The objects found in the course of excavations of women's burials at the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground, which were part of necklaces, headdress ornaments and hairstyles, allow us to get an idea of the functioning of such accessories of the female costume complex in the culture of the Airydash nomadic population that lived in the Hunno-Xianbian era in the valleys of the Katun and its tributaries in the territory of Gorny Altai. Taking into account the composition of sets of women's jewelry in most of the excavated graves, it can be assumed that among the ancient nomads who inhabited the Edigan Valley in the second quarter of the first millennium AD, great importance was attached to decorating the heads and hair of women and girls. It was customary to comb the hair, braid it, or put it in a bun at the back of the head and fasten it with one or more clips. In rare cases, the ends of the braids were decorated with pendants. An ornamental comb found under the skull of one of the buried women may have not only combed her hair, but also held it together. Airydash women covered their heads with cloth capes with head patches, plaques, and overlays. The front part of the cape was decorated not only with a head plate, but also with bronze pendants, animal fangs. Representatives of the Airydash nomadic population rarely used ear ornaments; only items resembling earrings made of wire twisted into a spiral were found. In a set of women's neckbands

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the decorations included large rounded bronze and stone plaques, pendants, beads, and piercings.

Among the nomads who left monuments of the Airydash cultural type, it was probably the woman's hair that was associated with her reproductive function, the ability to give birth to healthy offspring, and procreation. Reconstructed sets of ornaments are typical for single burials of mature and young women of childbearing age. Some differences in the sets of decorations may be due to the belonging of those buried to different age groups in the tribal group that owned the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground. In the traditional cultures of the peoples of Southern Siberia, the jewelry that girls and married women were supposed to wear differed [Mikhailova, 2005, p. 101]. The most "rich" sets of jewelry could belong to unmarried girls: their ability to procreate had to be passed on to living female tribesmen.

The assumption that the set of ornaments revealed in the course of research was usually placed in the graves of not all women, but only young girls, is confirmed in ethnographic materials. According to the data on the traditional funeral rites of some peoples of the north of Siberia, jewelry intended for wedding clothes was also included in the complex of funeral accessories [Ibid., p. 26].

It is more difficult to explain why in those graves where women are buried together with men or with children, there is little or no decoration. Perhaps the Ayridash cultural tradition forbade some married women who had repeatedly given birth and had children who died to put jewelry on them, in order to interrupt unhealthy heredity. In the traditional cultures of some of the Turkic peoples of Southern Siberia, the set of jewelry that was supposed to be worn by elderly women who lost the ability to give birth to healthy offspring was very modest. For example, among the Tuvans, it consisted of a minimal number of ornaments characteristic of young children [Ibid., p. 102]. Perhaps the lack and small number of ornaments indicate the mature age of women buried in the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground.

Conclusion

Differences in the quantity and material value of jewelry among many peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, including nomadic ones, are an important sign of gender, age, property and social differentiation. In this respect, the population of the Gorny Altai of the Xiongno-Xianbian era was probably no exception. However, unlike the ancient nomads of the Bulan-Kobi culture, who inhabited the Edigan Valley in the previous period, the Airydash population, who left the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground, did not present precious metal products among women's jewelry of the second quarter of the first millennium AD, which could serve as an indicator of belonging to the tribal nobility. The Ulug-Choltukh monument, unlike the burial ground of the Bulan-Koba Ust-Edigan culture, did not reveal mounds with large mounds and other structural features of grave structures, as well as with signs of differentiation of funeral rites, on the basis of which it would be possible to distinguish burial complexes of tribal nobility. Therefore, there is reason to assume that the differences between the sets of jewelry from the excavated women's graves at the Ulug-Choltukh burial ground reflect not the social and property affiliation, but the different age status of the buried.

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The article was submitted to the editorial Board on 09.10.2013, in the final version-on 27.11.13.

Abstract

Head and neck ornaments from mid-1 st millennium AD nomadic (Airydash type) female burials at Ulug-Choltukh on the Edigan River (right tributary of the Katun) in Gorny Altai are described. Some women were buried with a rich set of head ornaments, which included bronze and iron plates, pendants, beads, and variously sized plaques. Based on the analysis of these artifacts the decoration of shawls, braids, earrings, and necklaces is reconstructed. Various ornament sets could have been worn by women of various ages.

Keywords: female ornaments, headgear, hairdo, necklace, Xiongnu-Xianbei period, Edigan River, Gorny Altai.

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