How a culture buries its dead provides important understanding of a culture across time periods, across historical divisions, across geographical territories. Some of these ancient and prehistoric practices have been retained by modern humans, being reflected in many modern cultures and religions with cremation and burial being important examples. Recently, a special Bronze Age tomb bone amulet made with a piece of human bone, an unusual object, was found in a tomb in southern Siberia, Haaretz reported.
The grave of the Tagar culture woman, where the “human” bone amulet was found next to her is on the left side of this image, just above the ceramic vase. (Evgeniy Bogdanov/Haaretz)
Tagar culture tombs and human bone amulets
The fertile Siberian Minusinsk Basin is home to countless historic cultures, the most famous being the Tagars of the Siberian steppes. In 2020, the cemetery named Kazanovka 1 (Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age) was excavated. The Tagars were a Bronze Age culture that flourished from the 8th to 2nd centuries BC in southern Siberia, between the Karasuk and Tashtyk cultures. It is widely recognized as one of the largest copper smelting centers in ancient Eurasia, contemporaneous with the Scythians in Crimea and the northern Black Sea region.
Hundreds of Tagar burial mounds have been preserved and recorded. And from these mounds, thousands of exquisitely preserved bronze objects have been excavated and displayed at the Khakass National Museum in Abakan. However, such a find from the early Tagar culture has never been found before in the burials at Kurgan mound No. 15.
In mound number 15 there are two enclosures, the main enclosure has four graves with three adults in the middle of the mound. Mourners dug a hole measuring 2.5 by 4.45 meters (8.2 by 14.5 feet), whose border around the perimeter was decorated with small stones and a skull. The horse is placed on the tomb lid. This is an object of curiosity and wonder, placed with a woman placed on her back, facing west.
She was buried with ceramic vases, a bronze mirror, a leather case, bronze plaques and pins, pieces of meat and the carcasses of a calf and sheep (a continuation of the Karashuk tradition). , and a bronze amulet placed next to her right elbow. In the middle, the amulet contained a fragment of human bone and a bag of silk cloth (now in fragments), while the top consisted of threaded tubular carnelian and bronze beads, and the bottom contained a fang hanging boar!
Incidentally, other graves in the area all show beads, animal bones, wild boar or musk deer fangs, and bird talons, so this is clearly not uncommon. Such amulets have also been found in the basin and are almost always associated with female burials.
The human bone is an unusual object and archaeologists suspect that it had some magical or ritualistic purpose. This may also be an example of how secondary burial, i.e. manipulation of remains and grave goods after burial in the culture may have caused the amulet to be placed next to her later.
The bone amulet next to the woman’s right side (left side of the image), of which one piece is a fragment of human bone, makes this tomb a unique anomaly among all the tombs. tombs belonging to another early Tagar culture. (Evgeniy Bogdanov/Haaretz)
Global burial practices and problems with Tagar documents
While embalming is a way of carefully preserving the dead as they enter the afterlife, cremation is a way of burning mortal remains to ashes (ashes have spiritual and religious significance in many cultures ). Mummification dates back to at least 8,000 years ago, Ancient Origins reported earlier this month, while cremation dates back to at least 17,000 years ago. Secondary burials are places in which the remains of the dead are manipulated, and they are often associated with prehistoric West Asian cultures.
The deceased are often brought with them grave goods for a smooth passage to the afterlife and have valuable material possessions that are “allowed” to smoothly enter the world after this one. These votive offerings are also a way of marking the social status of the deceased in the present life and for archaeologists and historians, they have been shown to be a sign that helps in understanding burial practices. burials of our ancestors. The earliest undisputed good burials date back to the Paleolithic period, some 40,000 to 12,000 years ago!
All of the above-mentioned practices have many rituals and ceremonies that vary across world religions. Nowadays, it is common for a mediator or priest to conduct this ceremony in the presence of family and loved ones. In ancient Egypt, manuals were written to preserve the ritual details of these events for future people, who would follow the same steps when their time came.
Although it is one of the most widely studied ancient Siberian cultures, the ethnographic burial practices of the Tagars remain largely unknown, mainly due to grave looting, which caused pose a huge threat to archaeological reconstruction.
Russia’s Siberian Minusinsk Basin is not good for preserving post-depositional organic and other materials, making historical reconstruction more difficult. Ultimately, the early stages of the tomb’s discovery were marked by shoddy analysis and documentation, leading to the loss of priceless artifacts and documents.
