Museum complex

Sculptures of birds

Ryazan Oblast, Spas-Klepikovsky district, Black Mountain settlement
The end of the IV – the beginning of the III millennium BC
Epoch - the final stage of the Stone Age/Eneolithic
Volosovo culture
Bone (moose)
10 cm, 3,8 cm, 6,8 cm, 4,8 cm, 4,4 cm, 7,2 cm, 5 cm
From: excavations by SHM leaded by I.K. Zvetkova (1952, 1964, 1969)
Showcase 7

Small sculptures of birds made of bones were used as pendants, as they have holes in bodies or grooves in stems crested with birds' heads. The second variant of pendants – a flat sculpture of a full bird with a hole for hanging. They are found quite regularly during excavations of habitation sites of Volosovo culture in-between the Volga river and the Oka river that is why probably every member of a community carried such sculpture on his body or sewed it on clothing or head-dress. Different types of birds are depicted: waterfowls, wading birds, forest birds, and never - birds of prey.
Probably, sculptures depicted ancestors of different communities/tribes, worshiped in the form of different birds.
Especially sculptures of wood grouse were found in great numbers, supposedly, that tribe was the most numerous in the center of the Russian Plain. In the Black Mount habitation site pendants in shapes of heron, hazel grouse, duck and curlew were also found that gives evidence of possibility to choose matrimonial partner from members of other communities/tribes that these ancient people had.
Exhibits' purpose of use – a ritual pendant, an amulet, an ornament.

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