The Bear Image in Western Siberian Art of the 2nd Millennium BC and its Relevance for Delimiting the Eastern Periphery of the Samus Culture

The Bear Image in Western Siberian Art of the 2nd Millennium BC and its Relevance for Delimiting the Eastern Periphery of the Samus Culture

I.V. Kovtun.

The paper addresses the artistic features and meaning of clay and metal representations of bears in early 2nd millennium BC art of Western Siberia. These representations are linked to various Bronze Age cultural traditions of the region. Four groups of representations are described: staffs, pendants, containers shaped as bear heads, and heads. The author attempts to identify the context of Bronze Age pendants shaped like bears. Based on the analysis of compositions, a hypothesis concerning the ritual function of the bear image and its relation to bronze casting is proposed. New archaeological fi nds suggest that the distribution area of one of the most enigmatic Western Siberian cultures, the Samus, was larger than earlier believed. The Samus people depicted bears and made complex ideographic signs on clay vessels. Certain petroglyphs in the eastern Kuznetsk Alatau, near the place where a Samus burial was discovered, may have been related to this culture.