МАЭ № 6080-17

Nomad from Kirgizia (Kenkol cemetery).

before 1952

plaster

The cemetery on the Kenkol River in the upper reaches of the Talas River was excavated in 1939 by A.N. Bernstam, who erroneously attributed it to the Xiongnu age (following him, Gerasimov called the man whose appearance he had reconstructed a Hun). Actually the cemetery dates to a later period (2nd–4th centuries AD) and is associated with local nomadic tribes. The male skull on which the reconstruction is based represents a mixed type combining features of local Caucasoid populations of southwestern Central Asia and those of Mongoloid migrants from eastern Central Asia. The man’s head had been artificially deformed during childhood. The custom of artificial cranial deformation was rather common worldwide. A circular bandage was applied to the head, rendering the braincase tower-like for the rest of the individual’s life. That the custom was indeed practiced during childhood is evidenced by deformed crania of children from the same cemetery.

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