Images in Bronze from the Sarovka Ritual Complex: Reconstructing Semantics

Images in Bronze from the Sarovka Ritual Complex: Reconstructing Semantics

L.V. Pankratova.

The article reconstructs the semantics of imagery appearing in metalwork used in rituals performed by the Kulaika people in the 2nd–1st centuries BC at the Sarovka archaeological complex. The simultaneous and deliberate burial of objects at the ritual site makes it possible to view this collection of bronzes as a text. Here that text is compared with the mythological and folkloric texts of the Selkup people, who have been shown by Tomsk archaeologists to have their ancestors in the ancient Kulaika population. The heroes of Selkup mythology have much in common with fi gures depicted on Sarovka metalwork. They are consistently and systematically united by the fi gure of the celestial deity Kok. The ritual complex probably served as a place of worship to the ancient prototype of the Selkup god, whose veneration rituals were timed to celebrate the New Year. Evidently, rituals marking marriage between members of different clans were also at the site.

Keywords: Western Siberia, Early Iron Age, Kulaika culture, ritual bronze casting (metalwork), ritual place, semiotics,
semantics, philosophy, reconstructions.