Scientists from the Humanities Institute of Siberian Federal University, led by Dr. Eva Kietmanova, rediscovered a collection of artifacts from an ancient burial site dating back to the times of Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire. The artifacts, which include Mongolian arrowheads known as Sryzni, axe heads, a distinctive Y-shaped fork, and long armor-piercing arrows with spiked tips, were found while cataloguing undocumented items in the storerooms of the Kytmanov Yenisei Museum-Reserve in Siberia, Russia.
Originally discovered in the 1960s during construction work near the city of Yeniseisk in Central Siberia, the artifacts were lying unnoticed in the museum’s storerooms since then. “We have the opportunity for the first time to present these items to the scientific community,” said Ksenia Biryuleva, senior researcher at SFU’s Yenisei Siberia Archaeology Laboratory, according to HeritageDaily.
The artifacts were part of a destroyed burial site containing the ashes of a cremated person. Some finds show signs of burning, indicating they were extracted from this site. The collection includes flat arrowheads characteristic of the Mongolian period and long armor-piercing arrows with barbs, typical for local peoples.
Experts associated these artifacts with taiga populations during the later phase of the Lesosibirsk cultural period, which coincided with the expansion of the Mongol Empire. Based on the artifacts, this phase of the Lesosibirsk culture is dated to the 13th and 14th centuries, corresponding to the era of the rise of the Mongol Empire.
The Lesosibirsk culture is considered part of the complex indigenous Siberian groups who came under Mongol influence. The discovered artifacts are associated with the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, who unified several nomadic tribes in the Mongol heartland.
The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of several nomadic tribes under the leadership of Temüjin, known by the title of Genghis Khan (1162–1227 CE).
“The study was conducted with the support of the Siberian Federal University Development Program for the period 2021–2030 as part of the implementation of the Strategic Academic Leadership Program Priority 2030,” said Biryuleva. The study was carried out within the framework of the project Scientific and methodological support of the Institute of Digital Humanities Research and preparation of historical and cultural heritage databases for scientific work and publication.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.
