Leather Artifacts from Tara, Western Siberia, Excavated in 2012–2014

Leather Artifacts from Tara, Western Siberia,
Excavated in 2012–2014

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.1.112-120

D.O. Osipov¹, S.F. Tataurov^{2, 3}, S.S. Tikhonov², and M.P. Chernaya^3
1State Historical Museum, Krasnaya pl. 1, Moscow, 109012, Russia
²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
³National Research Tomsk State University, Pr. Lenina 34, Tomsk, 634050, Russia

We describe 1083 leather items found during the excavation of Tara, one of the oldest Russian fortified towns in western Siberia. Their preservation is excellent, owing to the high humidity of the habitation deposits and the presence of natural preservatives in the soil. Most items are parts of footwear (64 %) and scraps of material (26 %); other leather items are mittens, scabbards, and belts. Unique finds include saddle holsters and a compass case. Most artifacts date to late 1600s–early 1700s. The most popular categories of footwear were soft multi-piece shoes and stiff hi gh-boots worn by garrison members. Fashiona ble shoes were rigid. On the basis of this collection, we reconstruct certain aspects of the early Russian settlement of the Irtysh region at the time when it became part of the Russian Empire.

Keywords: Western Siberia, early Russian colonization, Tara, leather footwear.