Place of storage. Seversk Museum, town of Seversk, Tomsk Oblast. Material. Stone. Place of discovery. Rural locality Samus IV (Western Siberia, right bank of the river Tom). Context of discovery. The object was discovered during the excavation of rural locality Samus IV under the supervision of Yevgeny Vasilyev (Seversk Museum expedition) in 1994. Dating. 15th–14th cc. BC.
The sculpture was discovered at the very edge of rural locality Samus IV, where it had been intentionally buried face down. It is worth mentioning that Samus IV is one of the most peculiar archaeological monuments in Northern Eurasia. Its modern interpretation is based on the model of an intertribal center visited by bearers of different cultural traditions. The cultural layer of the site contains multiple traces of ritual activities, unique ceremonial ceramic tableware and anthropomorphic sculptures of various styles.
The exhibited artwork is a sculpture in the round made of soft stone (agalmatolite). The small statue depicts a naked man in a typical praying position: kneeling, his arms pressed close against his body, his back crooked. The small parts were carved carefully with a tool bit and then polished. Back in the ancient times, the artifact was used as a pendant, as evidenced by the hole under the man’s knees. The ritual character of the position, the feeling of praying and obedience allow for naming the sculpture “The Supplicant from Samus IV”.
“The Supplicant” was manufactured by a talented craftsman, who wasn’t, perhaps, too much constrained by the traditions. On the whole, the statue is proportionate, and the body is perceived realistically. The wide and short face changes into narrow, slouched shoulders and has meticulously crafted details: a sculptured short, moderately prominent nose, slanting or squinty eyes, a firm chin underlined by thin, tightly pursed lips. The chest and lower stomach show a tattoo (?), whose graphical intricacy makes the artwork even more refined and accurate. However, it doesn’t seem to be a lifelike portrait; the sculptor was rather interested in the character’s position than in his physiognomic characteristics.
“The Supplicant” differs from all previous Samus IV discoveries with its artistic peculiarities. The Mongoloid face features and the material of the sculpture (the nearest agalmatolite deposits are known to have been in Tuva and at the foothills of Kuznetsk Alatau) indicate that there is a perceptible south-eastern component to Samus cultural phenomenon.
PUBLICATIONS
Vassiliyev Y. (2004) Kul’tura drevneyshikh obitateley nizoviy Tomi [The Culture of the Earliest Inhabitants of the Lower Reach of the River Tom]. Po reke vremeni. Putevoditel’ k ekspozitsii [Adown the Stream of Time. A Guide to the Exposition], Seversk, pp. 5–18.
Vassilyev Y. (2007) Samus IV: starye problemy na fone novykh issledovaniy [Samus IV: Old Problems in the Light of New Studies]. Arkeologicheskiye materialy i issledovaniya Severnoy Azii, drevnosti i srednevekovya [Archaeological Materials and Studies of Northern Asia, Ancient Times and Middle Ages], Tomsk, pp. 114–127.
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