LAUSR

This paper addresses rare funerary artifacts— anthropomorphic bronze masks, unearthed in 1973 and 2014 from 5th–8th century AD mounds at Timiryazevo on the Lower Tom River,  southwestern Siberia, by an expedition from the Tomsk State  University. Their detailed description is provided and the  archaeological context is described. Stylistically and technically, the  masks represent a separate group, termed Timiryazevo and  distributed in the Tomsk-Narym area of the Ob basin. In broader  terms, they belong to medieval repousse ritual masks from western  Siberia. As we demonstrate, the Timiryazevo specimens were details  of funerary dolls made of organic materials and resembling those manufactured by Siberian natives in the recent past. They were meant to provide a temporary abode for one of the deceased  person’s souls. The archaeological context suggests that at  Timiryazevo, dolls were buried separately, with their miniature  belongings. We also suggest that other types of dolls were buried  there, too. Those were made of purely organic materials that did not survive, as evidenced by numerous isolated clusters of miniature objects buried in shallow pits inside burial mounds or between them.