МАЭ № 6080-23

Woman from early medieval Sogdia

1945, 1947 (casting)

plaster

Sogdia was an ancient country in southwestern Central Asia, in the Amu Darya – Syr Darya watershed. During the early Middle Ages, a new religion – Zoroastrism – began to spread there. According the Zoroastrian rite, corpses were not buried; instead, they were left in special vaults. After the soft tissues had decomposed, bones were taken out of the vault and placed in clay boxes, known as ossuaries. One of such ossuaries, dating to the 5th – 6th centuries AD, was discovered in the Tashkent Oasis. The bones were those of a young woman, who died at the age of 18-20. The cranium reveals slight signs of ante mortem deformation. The woman’s physical type is southern Caucasoid, known as Pamir-Fergana. It is typical of modern Uzbeks without Mongoloid admixture.

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