Snake’s Imagery in Indoor Sculpture of the Eneolithic Period in the Trans-Urals

About the authors:

Natalia Yu. Shuchilina, 2nd Category Engineer, Research Laboratory of Archeology and Ethnography, Institute of Social and Human Sciences, University of Tyumen; n.y.suchilina@utmn.ru

Natalia P. Matveeva, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), Professor, Department of Archeology, History of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, Head of Research Laboratory of Archeology and Ethnography, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tyumen; nataliamatveeva1703@yandex.ru

Abstract:

This article describes the snake imagery in the indoor sculpture of the Trans-Urals in the context of the zoomorphic sculpture of the Eneolithic period. The authors introduce a new source — a clay weight with the image of a snake’s head, discovered during excavations at the Gilyovo-2 monument in the Zavodoukovsky District of the Tyumen Region in 2017.

For a symbolic interpretation of the image, this study employs the data from ethnographic studies and from the ancient Finnish epic, with reference to similar artifacts from Central Asia, the north of Western Siberia, the Baltics, and Finland.

The authors suggest connecting the cult perception of the snake with the carriers of the Andreev culture, as evidenced by the remains of the corresponding ceramics and clay cigar-shaped weights, present on the territory of the sculpture detection. The proposed idea is that a snake imagery was used in commercial magic associated with fishing.

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