“Frozen” Pazyryk Burial Without Grave Goods on the Ukok Plateau

The burial of a woman in mound No. 2 at the Verkh-Kaldzhin 2 Pazyryk burial ground was studied by V.I. Molodin in 1995. It had not been disturbed by robbers and was in the ice lens at the time of the excavations. However, unlike two other burials from mounds No. 1 and 3, little is known about it. Despite the fact that the burial was “frozen” and undisturbed, no objects which usually accompanied the Pazyryk people to the afterlife were found inside the grave. Thanks to new methods of studying ancient human remains, currently it became possible to obtain interesting information about the woman who was buried in mound No. 2 and the culture she belonged to. During the examination of the woman’s skull using a CT Philips MX-16 tomographic scanner in the Laboratory of Nuclear and Innovative Medicine of the Department of Physics at Novosibirsk State University, it was established that she had undergone a successful surgical operation aimed at restoring mobility of her right temporomandibular joint damaged by trauma. This example reveals the knowledge of the Pazyryk people about the internal structure of the human body and skeleton, which emerged from mummification techniques they practiced. The only find in the burial was a wig. Its study in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Organic Chemistry SB RAS showed that the black filler which was used for creating the hairstyle was the same as that of the wig of the woman buried in mound No. 1 at the Ak-Alakhi 3 burial ground. Wearing wigs was a distinctive feature of Pazyryk women and in the absence of other finds it can be a reliable marker of the cultural affiliation of the buried persons

Afterlife · Grave goods · Human bone · Skull · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Mineralogy and Gemology Studies · Paleopathology and ancient diseases