5 replies to this topic

[Anew]

Here's something that came up on megalithic.co.uk . Their member, jess, recalls a BBC documentary on the Ice Maiden as what sparked her passion for archaeology . The video, (in five parts) is well worth a watch . Jess has provided the first part in-line . Here are links to the five at YouTube :

part one
part two
part three
part four
part five

This site's Archaeo News forum also has topics which include the Altai region, as a search will reveal . Here are three links :

New tomb for 'Altai Princess' to be built in Siberia .
Ancient 'warrior' found in permafrost .
Traces of hunting magic discovered in Altai caves .

Of special interest to me is that the woman, who had many tattoos, and whom "DNA tests and facial reconstruction have suggested [...] was ethnically European", carried a mirror at her belt ~ (video #3 @ 4 minutes) ~ with the image of a deer carved on the back . The symbolism of the mirror is said to have been important to the ancient Chinese . It was also demonstrably important to the distant Picts, an enigmatic and roughly contemporaneous people in Scotland, who carved its image into some of their stones along with that of a comb . As well, (per the reconstructed model), her face had a large nose ~ something ubiquitous in profile representations of people within Pictish carving ; and, (video #2 @ 9 minutes), that some of the carved wooden animals found with her bear a u-shaped cut, (representing the musculature of their haunches), the form of which can strongly recal the Pictish symbol of the u-curve .

A gallery of Pictish stones .
Wikipedia on Pazyryk burials .

Her best displayed tattoo, (on the left shoulder), is of an animal ~ said to be part horse, part goat and part deer ~ whose antlers become flowers at their points ; (video #4 @ 4'40") . It is a good tattoo, and i would like to know where photos of the rest can be found . Of interest in this context might be the Scottish Goddess of creation and Queen of Wintertime, Beira :

Quote

The only tool that Beira used was a magic hammer. When she struck it lightly on the ground the soil became as hard as iron; when she struck it heavily on the ground a valley was formed. After she had built up a mountain, she gave it its special form by splintering the rocks with her hammer. If she had made all the hills of the same shape, she would not have been able to recognize one from another.

After the mountains were all formed, Beira took great delight in wandering between them and over them. She was always followed by wild animals. The foxes barked with delight when they beheld her, wolves howled to greet her, and eagles shrieked with joy in mid-air. Beira had great herds and flocks to which she gave her protection -- nimble-footed deer, high-horned cattle, shaggy gray goats, black swine, and sheep that had snow-white fleeces. She charmed her deer against the huntsmen, and when she visited a deer forest she helped them to escape from the hunters. During early winter she milked the hinds on the tops of mountains, but when the winds rose so high that the froth was blown from the milking pails, she drove the hinds down to the valleys. The froth was frozen on the crests of high hills, and lay there snow-white and beautiful. When the winter torrents began to pour down the mountain sides, leaping from ledge to ledge, the people said: "Beira is milking her shaggy goats, and streams of milk are pouring down over high rocks."

~ from sacred-texts.com

If these people held similar beliefs, a female shaman may have been highly regarded . The videos also mention she could have been the peoples' storyteller ~ an archivist of the local heredity, lore, and beliefs such as is still important today . The roles do not seem to be mutually incompatible . Without calling her a Pict, it seems possible that there were common hereditary and/or cultural threads between these peoples ~ which combined with local cross-pollination of ideas, (and possibly more) ~ to form similar but separated cultures .




Postscript : If deer were abundant, (and i note that the deer also played a prominent role in the Scottish poet Sorley MacLean's poem Hallaig), it would likely have meant a different and more forested landscape back in their time . In this vein, i consider the rock carving shown in video #4 @ 1'48", (beyond the Statue Menhir @ 1'43"), to be a Toadstool Diety with a collecting basket ~ perhaps for the soul of the deceased, or to carry those who would wish to commune with them ...I harp on this, i know... It seems possible to me that Amanita muscaria was used in the religious and/or communing-with-ancestors practice of ancient times in temperate and boreal Eurasia .




Postscript 2 : The subtitle should read : "including the Ice Maiden / Altai Princess" . Double 's' ; my bad .

[tiompan]

Anew, on 8 January 2011 - 03:59, said:

[left]


Of special interest to me is that the woman, who had many tattoos, and whom "DNA tests and facial reconstruction have suggested [...] was ethnically European", carried a mirror at her belt ~ (video #3 @ 4 minutes) ~ with the image of a deer carved on the back . The symbolism of the mirror is said to have been important to the ancient Chinese . It was also demonstrably important to the distant Picts, an enigmatic and roughly contemporaneous people in Scotland, who carved its image into some of their stones along with that of a comb . As well, (per the reconstructed model), her face had a large nose ~ something ubiquitous in profile representations of people within Pictish carving ; and, (video #2 @ 9 minutes), that some of the carved wooden animals found with her bear a u-shaped cut, (representing the musculature of their haunches), the form of which can strongly recal the Pictish symbol of the u-curve .

Anew ,  The Altai "Princess " burial was dated to 2500BC , the earliest Class 1 Pictish stones i.e. those that bore the mirror symbol date from a millenium later , 6 th C. AD .

George

[Anew]

tiompan, on 9 January 2011 - 00:49, said:

Anew ,  The Altai "Princess " burial was dated to 2500B[P]* , the earliest Class 1 Pictish stones i.e. those that bore the mirror symbol date from a millenium later , 6 th C. AD .

George

*edit

Acknowledged, to a point . Though Pazyryk culture is generally felt to extend from "(ca. 6th to 3rd centuries BC)", a 2007 find may move that window forward :

Quote

Russian archaeologists have uncovered the 2000-year-old remains of a warrior preserved intact in permafrost in the Altai mountains region. The warrior was blond had tattoos on his body. He was wearing a felt coat with sable fur trimmings and was buried in a wooden frame containing drawings of mythological creatures with an icepick beside him.
Local archaeologists believe the man was part of the ruling elite of a local nomadic tribe known as the Pazyryk. Numerous other Pazyryk tombs have been found in the area. "This is definitely a very serious discovery. It's incredibly lucky that the burial was in permafrost so it was very well preserved," Alexei Tishkin, an Altai archaeologist, was quoted as saying.

~ Ancient 'warrior' found in permafrost

While from the other direction :

Quote

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest of Britain until the 10th century, when they merged with the Gaels.

~ Wikipedia on Picts

Thus the gap might be narrowed enough to make the ends meet, though this wouldn't by itself make the cultures contemporaneous . However, that region of Scotland ~ with some overlap in Ireland ~ was idiosyncratic :

Recumbent Stone Circles
Carved Stone Balls
Painted Pebbles

; implying that the culture which produced the Picts had a deeper history of exceptionalism .

Also ~

Quote

The early Picts are associated with piracy and raiding along the coasts of Roman Britain.

~ Wikipedia on Picts

; and as for the Scythians, (the überculture of the the Pazyryks), in addition to being noted traders ~

Quote

[they] had a reputation for their archers, and many gained employment as mercenaries.

~ Wikipedia on Scythians

If there was a relationship by contact, it seems possible that (with license) the Proto-Picts and the Pazyryk Scythians became aware of each other by and by ... and not contesting the same ground, came to hold one another in friendly esteem . This could have set the stage for emigration in both directions over the years, and such might have influenced these cultures . It might also help explain the Pictish Beast, which seems to be a cross between a dolphin, (perhaps representing nimble ability at sea), and a horse, (the same on land) . One may bear in mind that it mightn't take a large-scale migration of people to move a culture . An exchange which influenced the customs & practices of some centrally placed individuals could have made a difference beyond its weight in numbers .



~ Prehistoric Art ~ Early Nomads of the Altaic Region ~ from the Hermitage Museum

[alivErtom]

This is the lovely topic. Located in southwest Russia along the borders of Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan, the Altai is considered to be the crossroads of the ancient world. The region is home to the critically endangered snow leopard, rich indigenous cultures, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

photo restoration

[Anew]

Anew, on 8 January 2011 - 03:59, said:

Postscript : If deer were abundant, (and i note that the deer also played a prominent role in the Scottish poet Sorley MacLean's poem Hallaig), it would likely have meant a different and more forested landscape back in their time . In this vein, i consider the rock carving shown in video #4 @ 1'48", (beyond the Statue Menhir @ 1'43"), to be a Toadstool Diety with a collecting basket ~ perhaps for the soul of the deceased, or to carry those who would wish to commune with them ...I harp on this, i know... It seems possible to me that Amanita muscaria was used in the religious and/or communing-with-ancestors practice of ancient times in temperate and boreal Eurasia .

Here is a screengrab of the "Toadstool Diety" from the BBC video, (#4 in the linked post) :


 toadstoolspiritwithbasket.png   282.81K   7 downloads


I note that wild goats are represented . The toadstool spirit extends its free hand toward them, (the hand carries the basket mentioned above), and it may be significant that they approach the spirit with apparent respect . The hind quarters of one of these goats is absent, perhaps lost to a fracture of the rock –– however, the oxidation state of the newly exposed face seems, (though perhaps blemished), similar to that of the rest of the outcrop, raising the possibility that the goat is emerging from a space beyond . Please note that the toadstool spirit's legs are bent, as though in a burial position . This may be indicative of funerary/communing beliefs about the fly agaric .

The wild goat was an element, (with the deer and the horse), of the Altai woman's mystical-animal shoulder tattoo –– its horns embellished with U-shapes, as can be seen clearly in the reconstruction @ 6:00 in video #4 . The wild goat has also appeared on a Greek oenochoe, first mentioned in post #23 of the Shamanism and Megalithic Tombs thread . These two widely separated examples may be relevant to each other if there was a long enough cultural bridge, (which may have been triangular, branching form contact in their pasts), and here it may worth noting that the Scythians, (known to Herodotus), could have served as intermediary/conductor . I find it worth considering whether the Altai carvings lend weight to the hypothesis that the Greek oenochoe had held an entheogenic drink which included fly agaric, (or perhaps the urine of a priest/shaman who had eaten it –– detoxifying it within his/her body), or included designs reflecting beliefs which were descended from such traditions .

The woman's tattoo's deer antlers have three petaled flowers at their tips, bringing up (again) the possibility of beliefs that triads/trinities were charmed or divine . The twisting of the mystical beast's hind quarters by 180˚, mentioned at the outset of video #2, may have had to do with the principle of inversion –– also apparently expressed in some British Isles sites, notably Seahenge –– as may the mirror she carried . By rendering the animal this way, the implication may have been that it, (and perhaps she), was able to travel in both the realms of the living and the dead .

The principle of inversion/reversal may also have factored into an equine burial shown on pages 1 & 156 of the (long) PDF available through this Archaeo News post, regarding Yorkshire . The file also shows finds of Peterborough Ware, (p. 67, 248-9), which, as it to some extent resembles a basket and has designs which have turned up in mortuary contexts, (and those i believe to be so), may (speculatively) have been for Amanita muscaria collecting & drying .

[Anew]

The thread Deer Stones, which branched from this one, has material which may be of interest here .