МАЭ № 6080-21

Woman from Ustrushana (the Shirin-Say cemetery, Tashkent Province, Uzbekistan).

1945, 1947 (casting)

plaster

Ustrushana was an ancient country in southwestern Central Asia. It encompassed part of the Syr Darya valley, where this 2nd–4th century AD cemetery is located. This was a crossroads of caravan routes within the Great Silk Road. The cemetery was excavated by V.F. Gaydukevich, M.Z. Panichkina, and M.M. Gerasimov in 1943. The cranium from burial 1, that of a woman aged 25-27, used for facial reconstruction by Gerasimov, reveals a sharply profiled face and protruding nose – a combination indicative of the Mediterranean type. It is very ancient in southwestern Central Asia.

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