A Russian fisherman catches 4,000-year-old pagan god figurine in Russia from the bottom of a riverbed in the village of Tisul in southern Russia, an area known to have been inhabited in ancient times.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/pagan-god-bronze-age-siberia_n_5397234.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
El siberiano Nikolay Tarasov se hallaba pescando en Tisul, su red trajo una misteriosa estatua que poseía un rostro con ojos almendrados, gran boca y una expresión de enojo. En la nuca de la estatua, el escultor grabó un trenza plateada. Los arqueólogos han identificado a la figura, como la de un dios pagano de 4.000 años, grabado en un cuerno que luego se fosilizó. Sugieren que la estatuilla perteneció a la cultura Okunev o Samus, dos sociedades vecinas, de la Edad de Bronce, del segundo milenio antes de Cristo, en el sur de Siberia. Ambas culturas eran conocidas por haber dejado extraordinarios ejemplos de arte representativo, incluyendo amuletos, estelas de piedra, petroglifos y estatuillas.
Tarasov ha donado su singular hallazgo al Museo de Historia de Tisul
La estatuilla habría sido grabada al principio de la Edad de Bronce. Antes del advenimiento del Cristianismo a Rusia, en el siglo décimo de nuestra era, la gente eslava practicaba varias formas de paganismo. Su religión era politeísta y el panteón de dioses y espíritus estaba directamente conectado con los elementos, las estaciones y la sobrevivencia.
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Pescador ruso coge en su red figurilla pagana de 4.000 años
Un pescador ruso atrapó una estatuilla antigua, increíblemente rara, en el fondo del lecho de un río en el pueblo de Tisul, en el sur de Rusia, una zona conocida por haber sido habitada desde la antigüedad.
El siberiano Nikolay Tarasov estaba pescando en un lago, esperando capturar peces o cangrejos, cuando atrapó con su red una estatuilla de 12 pulgadas que muestra una figura con los ojos almendrados, una gran boca y una expresión de enojo. En el dorso de la cabeza, el escultor había grabado el pelo trenzado. Por debajo de la trenza hay líneas que parecen escamas de pescado. Los arqueólogos la han identificado como una figurilla pagana de 4.000 años, tallada en cuerno y posteriormente fosilizada.
Tarasov dice que utilizó una red, en lugar de una línea, y la sintió pesada y pensó que se había enganchado en una roca. Tiró de ella con un amigo e iba a descartar el contenido como basura. Pero se detuvo al ver una piedra con una cara. La lavó y se dió cuenta que era una estatuilla. La llevó a un museo local y los expertos le dijeron que el objeto fue tallado al comienzo de la Edad de Bronce .
Antes de la llegada del cristianismo a Rusia en el siglo X dC, los pueblos eslavos practicaban diversas formas de paganismo. Su religión era politeísta y el panteón de los dioses , deidades y espíritus estaban conectados directamente con los elementos , las estaciones, y la supervivencia.
Las teorías actuales sugieren que la estatuilla pertenecía a la cultura Okunev o a la cultura Samus, dos sociedades vecinas de la edad de bronce que datan de la primera mitad del segundo milenio antes de Cristo en el sur de Siberia. Se sabe que ambas culturas han dejado extraordinarios ejemplos canónicos de arte representativo, incluyendo amuletos, estelas de piedra, petroglifos y figurillas.
Tarasov donó la estatuilla al Museo de Historia de Tisul sin reclamar recompensa alguna. "La gente debería ver y conocer la historia de su región. La estatuilla es algo precioso para cualquier museo".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2639643/The-4-000-year-old-whopper-Fisherman-accidentally-catches-rare-Bronze-Age-figurine-pagan-god.html
Fisherman catches 4,000-year-old pagan god figurine in Russia
A Russian fishermen has hauled in an incredibly rare ancient figurine from the bottom of a riverbed in the village of Tisul in southern Russia, an area known to have been inhabited in ancient times. The pagan god statue has been described as ‘unique and amazing’ by local archaeologists.
Siberian Nikolay Tarasov was fishing on a lake, expecting to catch fish or crab, when he hauled in his net to find a 12-inch high statuette depicting a figure with almond-shaped eyes, a large mouth, and an angry expression, according to latest news reports. On the reverse side of the head, the carver had etched plaited hair. Below the plait there are lines looking like fish scales. Archaeologists have identified it as a 4,000-year-old pagan god carved from horn that later fossilised.
Tarasov described the experience of pulling in the rare artefact:
I used a net, rather than a line, and was hauling it in when I felt the net go heavy and thought it had snagged on a rock. I pulled it in by getting my pal to help and was going to chuck it away. But then I stopped when I saw it was a stone with a face. I washed the thing in the river - and realised it was a statuette. I took it to a local museum. I needed to sit down when the experts told me that this object was carved at the very beginning of the Bronze Age.
Before the advent of Christianity in Russia in the 10th century AD, the Slavic people practiced various forms of paganism. Their religion was polytheistic and the pantheon of gods, deities and spirits were directly connected with the elements, the seasons, and survival.
Current theories suggest that the statuette belonged to the Okunev or the Samus culture, two neighbouring Bronze Age societies dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC in southern Siberia. Both cultures are known to have left behind extraordinary, canonical examples of representative art, including amulets, stone steles, petroglyphs, and figurines.
Tarasov has donated the statuette to the Tisul History Museum without any request for compensation. “People should see it, and learn the history of their region. It is quite clearly precious for the museums of any country,” he said
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http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/08/hm89_0_0_23_2.html
museum.mmc.nsu.ru
Room of the Bronze Age Russia
Slab bearing the depiction of a human being holding spears
First half of the 2nd millennium B.C.
Okunev Culture, Southern Siberia
Stone; cut and ground
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WHAT AND WHEN WAS THE BRONZE AGE?
The Bronze Age was a period characterised by the use of bronze, early forms of writing, and other early developments of urban civilization.
It is the second period of the three-age 'Stone-Bronze-Iron' system for classifying and studying ancient societies.
The Bronze Age was a time of intensive metal use and of developing trade networks and began around 4,000 years ago.
In order to make bronze, tin is mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make a bronze alloy.
The overall period is characterised by the adoption of bronze in many regions, though the place and time of the introduction and development of such technology was not simultaneous.
Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, but in some parts of the world, the Copper Age is sandwiched between the Neolithic and Bronze Age.
The Altai Mountains, in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia, have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural moment called the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon.
It's believed that climate change in the region around 2000BC and the following ecological, economic and political changes triggered a rapid and mass migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 miles.
This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to people from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same bronze making technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding.
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Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia books.google.com.pe/books?isbn=9027247765 -
Edward J. Vajda - 2004 - Language Arts & Disciplines
V. P. Alekseev (1963b:157-158) identified skulls from Okunev burials as belonging ... It is important that on the Yenisei the early Samoyedic cultural traditions are ...
Okunev culture
The Okunev culture, a Northern Eurasian tradition that is highly important for reconstructing the ideology of the prehistoric people, in the stratigraphic aspect. An overview on the Okunev culture-related features is provided, including the stages in the evolution of the Okunev funerary tradition, the technological features of Okunev ceramics and the four chronological groups of the culture's burials. Moreover, the study shows a continuity in the Okunev cultural tradition from the early post-Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age and justifies certain revisions in the classification of cultures of Minusinsk Basin.
OKUNEV CULTURAL TRADITION IN THE ...
connection.ebscohost.com/.../okunev-cultural-traditi...
EBSCOhost serves thousands of libraries with premium essays, articles and other content including OKUNEV CULTURAL TRADITION IN THE STRATIGRAPHIC ..
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The Afanasevo culture which flourished toward the end of the third
millenium gave way, during the beginning of the second millenium B.C., to
the Okunev culture
http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=007567;p=1
Archaeological culture: Okunev Culture
For the Okunev Culture we have very little information. This culture is from a village in the upper Yenissei Valley and is not distributed over a broad area. The pottery of the Okunev Culture is similar to the Andronovo Culture and the bronzes are more like the Andronovo Culture than the Karasuk Culture.
Burials of the Okunev Culture are similar to the Karasuk with stones covering the coffin; however, these stones are engraved in a fashion similar to independent stones found in the upper Yenissei Valley. These independent stones are on occasion located close to kurgans and at other times found independently. These stones are very large; some are carved with realistic faces; some with rays on their heads; some are dressed in the female costumes worn by modern Turkic tribes.
Description: Monuments of Okunev culture: enclosures with ritual inhumations in stone boxes, joint burial grounds, settlements, mountain fortresses, and also petroglyths and stone statues have been spread over Minusinsk hollow; settlements and burial grounds with ritual inhumations under the stone heaps have been found in Tuva. The complete set of objects of this culture embraces bronze knives, an axe, a lance, stone arrow-and-lance heads and bone harpoons, ceramicware ornamented over the surface of the vessels including bottoms, stone sculptures of people heads, bone plates representing women heads with coiffures. Statues and petroglyths represent three-eyed zooanthropomorphous masks, fantastic beasts and bulls.
At the end of the III c. BC new people from the west came to the Minusa Basin. They brought with them new religious and ideological ideas. The shape and the appearance of the burial structures began to change.
At the same time Siberian tribes with ancient, well-developed shaman traditions and specific decorative style (the so-called Angara Baikal style) came from the east. As a result, an absolutely new and unique mix of different cultural traditions appeared in the isolated space of the Minusa Basin. Their successors had not enough space for territorial expansion, so they headed upwards. That was the origin of Okunevo phenomenon.
The people of Okunevo epoch used all the heritage of their forefathers and worked it into vivid new forms. The burial fences took a rectangular shape. For the first time they contained small steles, anticipating the changes that would take place a thousand years later. The most outstanding burial monument of that time is the famous Tuim Ring, which shows us the cultural traditions of the north-western Europe. Around a square fence with stone diagonals there is a cromlech made by the menhirs, 84 meters in diameter, dug into the ground, similar to the contemporary cromlechs of the megaliths of England, France and Northern Germany. We can only guess who was buried in the centre of this complex.
The skilful use of landscape forms for constructing religious or ceremonial monuments is revealed in all its glory in the building of the most strange and enigmatic structures known nowadays in Khakassia as the mountain fortresses called "Sve". Their walls surround prominent landscape points in the mountains surrounding the valleys. These are cliffs, mountain tops, massive rock outcrops. In some cases the walls radiate from such high points. The walls usually are about 0,5-2 meters in height and were hardly higher in ancient times. Sometimes only small vertical slabs mark the boundaries of a fortress. It is clear that the majority of these structures were worthless for fortification. The hypothesis about the religious purpose of "Sve" is more possible. A splendid panoramic view and the natural beauty of mountains and rocks, towering above the valley, made them a perfect place for performing various rituals. As for the fortresses' walls, nobody knows whether ancient priests and shamans defended themselves from the spirits or from each other. The semi-ring of medieval fortified monasteries to the south and east of lace>Moscowlace> also could hardly stop the hordes of nomadic tribes. It was the other sort of defence - the spiritual defence.
And the most outstanding monuments of Okunevo period - the stone statues and steles - clearly show to us, that people living at that time saw and understood a great deal about spirits. Strange and often monstrous figures look at us from the stones with their three eyes. Many of them have horns or sprouts growing from the three-piece mask. They do not have noses: only nostrils and usually an accented mouth. Above the main masks there are two vertical lines, and between them there are smaller masks and some signs. All this composition is crowned with a sheep's head or with an additional mask. Below the main central mask, the chest and the belly are often depicted, converting into the snout of a beast, if you take a side view. Usually on the chest or on the side of the mask there are circles with four sprouts. Often the "third eye" in the centre of the forehead has the same pattern.
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Who are these monsters? There are many possibilities, but no current hypothesis. The author himself supposes that we deal with various spiritual creatures, belonging mostly to the lower world. And who these creatures were - gods or demons, or simply spirit-allies - I cannot say right now. Two centuries of research did not clarify the problem of Okunevo images. In addition to steles and statues the majority of the pictures on the rocks and funeral stabs also dates back to Okunevo period. There are not only fantastic creatures here, but also human figures, real animals and carts. You can find realistic female figures on small plastics, although their images are stylised. Okunevo ceramics, being different from Afanasievo ceramics, are less expressive than other pieces of Okunev art. At that time the art of repoussage was in its infancy.
It is difficult to overestimate the important role of this period. This land, situated at the crossroads of different cultural worlds, was a perfect field for the creation and the development of different Oriental spiritual streams by priests, shamans and artists. In Okunev art some elements of Indo-Buddhist tradition, Taoism and many kinds of Siberian shamanism were reflected for the first time. Some very important events happened here at those times. There is much speculation about it, but for the time being we will wait for someone who knows, as the ancient said.
We do not know what happened with those northern magicians. We can only say that when a new wave of steppe tribes from the west came to ancient Khakassia, they had no contacts with the old inhabitants of those lands, as we can judge from archaeological finds. Okunevo phenomenon fades away by itself leaving only vague legends about happy northern valleys in the culture of Eurasian people. Recently it was proved that antique legends about the Hyperborean land could partly be traced to these very lands.
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http://www.sayanring.com/tour/view/288/
ROBERTO CHAVEZ ARCE 
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