{"id":"MOLODIN2020-001","label":"Ust-Tartas engraved bone blade","people_or_site":"Ust-Tartas-2, grave 65","country_current":"Russia","historic_region":"Baraba forest-steppe / Novosibirsk region","macroregion":"Asia / Siberia","local_name":"","source_term":"костяная пластина","source_language":"Russian","object_description":"Bone blade engraved on both faces, 130 × 25 × 3.5 mm, with a pierced narrow end and rounded broad end; recovered in two pieces beside a clay figure.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"molodin2020_ust_tartas_grave65","source_type":"academic_publication","source_url":"https://doi.org/10.17746/2658-6193.2020.26.501-509","page_or_plate":"Molodin et al.2020 fig3.3 and grave65 account; Molodin2020 illustrated idol account","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative Vengerovo vicinity anchor; Molodin et al.2019 p472 locates site4.3km from Vengerovo toward Turunovka on Tai terrace. Not an exact site/grave coordinate.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A thin bone blade, 13 cm long and only 3.5 mm thick, widens from a pierced narrow tip to a rounded end. Both faces are engraved in hair-fine lines: bands of hatched triangles, slanting strokes and a fan of cuts across the rounded end. It lay in two pieces over a small clay human figure in a Bronze Age grave of the Odino culture.\n\nThe figure is hollow-bodied, its cheeks crossed by slanting lines like tattoos, and it wore a bear-like mask carved from a horse vertebra; its head had been broken off. It lay at the shoulder of a woman, face down over a man, both wrapped in birch bark and briefly burned in the grave. The bear was a favourite Odino image, on bronze buckles and a necklace of stone bears, and in another Odino grave, at Sopka, a vertebra mask again lay with an engraved bone plate. The excavator, Vyacheslav Molodin, saw the masked figure as a totemic ancestor, sent with the dead woman into the other world and then ‘killed’.","pull_quote":"С обеих сторон пластина украшена гравированным орнаментом, нанесенным тончайшими линиями.","pull_quote_translation":"Both faces of the plate are decorated with engraved ornament applied in the finest lines.","pull_quote_cite":"V. I. Molodin et al., PAEAS 26 (2020), grave 65 account","term_gloss":"kostyanaya plastina: bone plate.","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 3000–2000 BC","date_qualification":"Odino Bronze Age burial context.","date_basis":"cultural_phase","date_confidence":"medium","date_citation":"Molodin et al.2020 conclusion and grave65 account","sources":[{"citation":"V. I. Molodin et al., “Продолжение раскопок грунтовых могильников эпохи бронзы в Барабинской лесостепи,” PAEAS26(2020),501–509, fig3","url":"https://doi.org/10.17746/2658-6193.2020.26.501-509"},{"citation":"V. I. Molodin, “Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи,” Наука из первых рук5–6(90)(2020)","url":"https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260513062809/https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/"}],"source_citations":"V. I. Molodin et al., “Продолжение раскопок грунтовых могильников эпохи бронзы в Барабинской лесостепи,” PAEAS26(2020),501–509, fig3; V. I. Molodin, “Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи,” Наука из первых рук5–6(90)(2020)","source_display":"V. I. Molodin et al., “Продолжение раскопок грунтовых могильников эпохи бронзы в Барабинской лесостепи,” PAEAS26(2020),501–509, fig3; V. I. Molodin, “Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи,” Наука из первых рук5–6(90)(2020)","date_citation_display":"Molodin et al.2020 conclusion and grave65 account","object_display":"Bone blade engraved on both faces, 130 × 25 × 3.5 mm, with a pierced narrow end and rounded broad end; recovered in two pieces beside a clay figure.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ust tartas","display_name":"Ust-Tartas engraved bone blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-full-fig3.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-full-fig3_thumb.jpg","alt":"A source plate shows several views of a clay human figure and bone mask beside a photograph and drawing of a long engraved bone blade.","credit":"Molodin et al.2020, fig3","source_page":"https://doi.org/10.17746/2658-6193.2020.26.501-509","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Ust-Tartas-2 grave 65: engraved bone blade at right, clay figure at left, and bone mask below; complete fig. 3.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-08.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-08_thumb.jpg","alt":"An excavation photograph shows a long bone blade in two pieces lying over a clay figure among dark grave deposits, beside a scale and north arrow.","credit":"V. I. Molodin, Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи","source_page":"https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The broken engraved blade covering the clay figure in grave 65, during excavation."},{"full":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-09.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-09_thumb.jpg","alt":"The clay figure lies in the grave with its round detached head beside its shoulder, next to human skeletal remains and an excavation scale.","credit":"V. I. Molodin, Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи","source_page":"https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The uncovered clay figure in grave 65, with its detached head displaced beside it."},{"full":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-10.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-10_thumb.jpg","alt":"A clay human figure rests in a hand with its head repositioned above a hollow torso; drawings beside it show its face and profile.","credit":"V. I. Molodin, Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи","source_page":"https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The clay figure after excavation, with its head repositioned; photograph and drawing."},{"full":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-12.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/archaeology_four_2026/ust-tartas-figurine-12_thumb.jpg","alt":"Side-by-side photographs show the clay figure with a round bone mask covering its face, then its uncovered face beside the detached mask.","credit":"V. I. Molodin, Глиняный «идол» урочища Таи","source_page":"https://scfh.ru/papers/glinyanyy-idol-urochishcha-tai/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The clay figure with its bone mask fitted at left, and with the mask removed at right."}]},"slug":"molodin2020-001-ust-tartas-2-grave-65"}