Pages: 219-233 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp212219233

The authors address the phenomenon of small plastic — modified bones of hoofed animals in the cultures of Eurasia from the archaic to the present time. The focus of the research is astragalus etc., modified in form, decorated as objects of play, art and magic. The methodology includes reconstruction, typology, semantic analysis, etc. The interpretation of figurines is based on extrapolation into antiquity of ethnographic realities (play, fortune-telling, magic practices) representing the culture of hunters and pastoralists, mainly of the Turkic and Mongol peoples. The research proceeds from the initial integrity and syncretism of culture; the unity of the existence of the human community and its natural environment, the inextricable connection between Man and Animals. The diachronic analysis carried out within the framework of the study allows us to assert that in archaeological and ethnic cultures for three millennia, astragalus were distinguished by the stability of forms and functions. They are used in game, fortune telling and magical practices, and correlated with the idea of vitality — as a kind of entity that unites the world of people and animals. The structural-semiotic approach defines one of the main conclusions of the work, according to which the universalism and stability of ideas about joints are rooted in the initially syncretic mythos-ecological picture of the world, with its characteristic identity of anthropo- and zoomorphic codes of the chronotope.

Keywords: Inner Asia, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Middle Ages, bone modification, anthropomorphic images, worldview, traditional culture

Information about authors:

Irina Oktyabrskaya (Novosibirsk, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Akademik Lavrentiev Ave., 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
Lyudmila Lbova (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Graduate School of International Relations, Humanitarian Institute, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Grazhdansky Ave., 28, Saint Petersburg, 195220 Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]