Spearheads from the Museum of Altai State Pedagogical University: Funeral Rites of the Upper Ob Peoples in the Early Iron Age

Abstract

The Museum of History and Local Lore (Altai State Pedagogical University) contains a vast collection of weapon items from the Early Iron Age. Most of the artifacts were obtained by the famous Siberian archeologist Alexei P. Umansky. This article introduces the burial semantics of two iron spearheads from archeological sites Novotroitskoye 2 and Maslyakha 1. These artifacts have already been described in several theses on the ancient military art of the Upper Ob Valley. However, they remain understudied in terms of local funeral rituals in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. The author used some rare archival materials from the museum of the Altai State Pedagogical University to give a new perspective to the spearheads from the Upper Ob. The contextual analysis involved related finds from the burial sites of Bystrovka 1, Bystrovka 2, and Kamenny Mys. It made it possible to interpret the role of weapon in the rite of passage. Unusual and symbolically broken items could represent event sacralization, which was a widespread adaptation strategy for integrating objects and ideas into the funeral practice of a multicultural community.

Keywords

• funeral rites
• spearheads
• weapon
• the early iron age
• upper ob river region