МАЭ № 7630-5

Tribal chief of the Great Migration Era from Tugozvonovo

1960s

plaster cast with patina

In 1959, A.P. Umansky excavated an exceptionally rich burial at Tugozvonovo, western Altai. The burial, evidently that of a tribal chief, dates to AD 300—500. It was disrupted by a clay mine. The burial goods included numerous weapons and ornaments made of gold and silver and incrusted in the so-called polychrome style, spanning vast areas of Eurasia from the Yenisei to the Bay of Biscay. The ethnic attribution of the burial is unclear. Like the earlier cranium from the Kenkol cemetery in Kirgizia, also reconstructed by Gerasimov (No. 6080-17), that from Tugozvonovo shows an antemortem circular deformation, practiced by both the Xiongnu and the Alan-Sarmatians. The physical type of the individual, too, resembles that of the Kenkol nomad, combining Mongoloid features such as salient cheekbones with Caucasoid ones (sharply protruding nose)

Anthropological plastic reconstructions, lifetime masks. 19th - 20th centuries