Petersburg archaeologists found figurines in Khakassia that children used to play 4,000 years ago

"When processing the finds made by the expedition in the field season of 2017, two heads were sorted - one made of steatite (the so-called "soap" stone) resembles a human in shape, the other, made of a horn, is zoomorphic, but which animal it depicts , difficult to identify.The head of the doll is larger than similar things that we met earlier, its height is about 5 cm.It is difficult to talk about who her owner was, but there are no details that would indicate the elite nature of the burial, so Andrey Polyakov, the head of the Sayan expedition of the IIMK RAS, said.

Archaeologists suggest that the toys themselves were made of organic materials - fabric or leather, and the heads were made of stone, in this case, steatite, or horns.

The Sayan expedition has been working for the second season within the framework of the project "The Mystery of the Ancient Artists of Siberia". The project is financed by the Russian Geographical Society, which is also responsible for recruiting volunteers for the expedition from all over the country from St. Petersburg to Yakutia. In the field season of 2017, the objects of the expedition's work were two burial mounds of the Okunev culture (XXV-XVIII centuries BC) at the Itkol burial ground.

In 2016, the expedition made a number of interesting finds, including a clay censer - a vessel for burning herbs, decorated with images of the so-called "solar faces", previously found only on the rocks. Scientists believe that this discovery will for the first time make it possible to date a whole layer of ancient fine art of the Okunev culture. A stylized image of a bull, made in a rare manner, was also found - this find made it possible to put forward a hypothesis that representatives of the Okunev culture could come from the territory of modern Kazakhstan.

The Okunev culture is an archaeological culture of the early Bronze Age, common in the steppes on the Middle Yenisei (XXV-XVIII centuries BC). It got its name from the tract Okunev ulus in the south of Khakassia, where in 1928 a burial ground of this culture was first excavated.