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Name : The Pazyryk Swan
What it is : An ornamental plush statuette of a swan made from caribou felt and filled with reindeer wool
A felted swan from Iron Age Siberia was crafted from reindeer wool and symbolized life in three spheres: air, land and water.
Where it is from : The Pazyryk Valley in the Altai Mountains of Russian Siberia
When it was made : About 2,400 years ago
touch : Mask of Agamemnon : A gold last masquerade party once thought to be grounds of the Trojan War
What it tells us about the yesteryear :
This soft statuette is assign to the Pazyryk culture , an Iron Age people think to have been part of the Saka ethnical radical — nomads who may themselves have been an eastern branch of theScythian culture .
Along withother treasures , the nearly 12 - in - tall ( 30 centimeters ) swan was discovered in a burial pile in the Pazyryk Valley of the Altai Mountains , near Russia ’s borders with Kazakhstan , Chinaand Mongolia .
Archaeologists suppose the figurine date to the fifth or quaternary 100 B.C. The swan ’s body is made from reindeer wool that has been processed into snowy felt , while the nib , eyes and annex tips are made from smuggled felt . cerise - brown matte was used for the " feet , " and the figurine is stuffed with reindeer fleece .
The groundwork also contain wooden stick that support the swan in an vertical position . Curators at Russia’sHermitage Museumin St. Petersburg , where it is on display , intend these sticks were used to mount the swan on a wooden chariot found nearby , or perhaps on the top of atent - ilk structureerected over the burial mound but which rot away long ago .
concord to the museum , the swan typify life in three sphere of influence : air , country and water .
— Phaistos Disk : 3,000 - class - old inscriptions from Crete that have never been decipher
— Nabta Playa : A cryptic stone lot that may be the world ’s oldest astronomical lookout
— Scythian on horseback : A 2,400 - class - old gold carving of a warrior heading into battle
The swan or a similar water bird also may have featured in a creation myth : there was " a widespread concept of the creation of the universe of discourse by a swan , duck’s egg or goose , which was characteristic of many cosmogenic conceptions in ancient times , " consort to the museum .
archeologist from the Soviet Union began excavate the ancient burial mounds in the Pazyryk Valley in the 1920s and find the felted swan in 1949 , according to theUniversity of Washington .
Because the region is high — and therefore cold — many of the burial cumulation are constantly frozen and have preserved many constitutional textile , including human remains .
