[MR] RE: [sig] Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1, 000 years old

[Jeanne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/06/science/06MUMM.html
At Trading Crossroads, Permafrost Yields Siberian Secrets
By CHARLES Q. CHOI

Published: January 6, 2004


EKATERINBURG, Russia — In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of
the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000
years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates — burial rites that
archaeologists say they have never seen before.

Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of
reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian
pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by
accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may
have helped prevent oxidation.

The discovery adds to the evidence that Siberia was not an isolated
wasteland but a crossroads of international trade and cultural diversity,
Dr. Natalia Fedorova of the Ural branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
said in an interview in her office in this central Russian city.

Among the artifacts discovered at the site were bronze bowls from Persia,
dated by style from the 10th or 11th century.

Dr. William Fitzhugh, chairman of the department of anthropology and
director of the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian, who in 1997 took
part in the first expedition to the site, said the findings filled "a gap we
really need to know a lot about."

The medieval cemetery, named Zeleniy Yar after a nearby village, is at the
base of a peninsula called "the end of the earth" by the native Nenets
people. Archaeological surveys in 1976 uncovered ceramic remains suggesting
an ancient settlement. On the 1997 expedition, Dr. Fedorova, Dr. Fitzhugh
and their colleagues dug up a male in a wooden coffin with an iron combat
knife, a silver medallion and a bronze bird figurine, from the seventh to
ninth century.

Later digs turned up still more graves. Eleven of the 34 remains had
shattered or missing skulls and chopped skeletons. This may have been done
right after death, "to render protection from mysterious spells believed to
emanate from the deceased," Dr. Fedorova said in a report, or it may have
been a result of ancient grave robbing.

Added evidence of what contemporary societies of the area consider
"protective magic" include leather straps wrapped tightly around the bodies,
as well as beads or chains and humanoid or birdlike bronze figures broken
into pieces at time of burial, said another researcher, Dr. Dmitri Razhev.

The legs of the dead all point toward the nearby Gorny Poluy River, a
position that Dr. Fedorova said might have had religious significance.
Nearly all the graves have traces of coffins made of logs or boat parts.
Several were apparently warriors buried with iron knives; others apparently
died in battle, as suggested by arrowheads lodged in eye sockets and stab
wounds in their backs.

In 2000, the archaeologists found their first copper-shrouded mummy, a child
with a face masked by copper plates. Three more copper-masked infant mummies
were found in 2001, each bound with four or five copper hoops two inches
wide. In the remains of a metalworking shop, the researchers excavated a
wooden sarcophagus with the best-preserved mummy of all, a red-haired man
covered chest to foot in copper plate and laid out with an iron hatchet,
well-preserved furs and a bronze bear's head buckle.

The researchers are continuing digs on another Siberian settlement south and
west of Zeleniy Yar. Dr. Niels Lynnerup, director of the Laboratory of
Biological Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, who is not
connected with the research, said in a telephone interview that the findings
were remarkable. "Archaeology is most important in those places where you
don't have good written records," Dr. Lynnerup said. "So here, archaeology
is terribly important."

He added: "Often we find skeletons and nothing else. Here we have not only
very detailed human remains, but excellent preservation of all their
materials."