Archaeologists studying a medieval burial in the Sayan Mountains have identified a rare elite woman’s grave containing gold-plated earrings, a newborn child, a horse-skin ritual deposit, and a rich set of riding equipment.
The burial was found at Sayany-Pogranichnoye-4, a cemetery near the Idzhim River in southern Krasnoyarsk Krai. The site belongs to a wider group of archaeological monuments recorded in the Idzhim River valley. It was investigated by the Sayan Expedition of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, under the direction of Andrei Polyakov, during preparatory archaeological work for the planned Kyzyl–Kuragino railway line.
The grave stood out because it was not disturbed. Inside Mound 4, researchers found the remains of an adult woman, about 40 years old, and a newborn child placed near her body. Above the burial were the skull and limb bones of a horse. This arrangement is usually described as a “horse-skin” deposit, a ritual in which selected parts of the animal were placed with the hide rather than the whole horse.
Gold-Plated Earrings Beside the Skull
The most personal finds were two bronze earrings with traces of gilding. They were discovered near the woman’s skull, close to where they had been placed during burial.
The earrings have a ring-shaped form, long pendants, small decorative rings, and bead-like terminals. Their shape has close parallels in elite female burials with horses from the Altai Mountains and Mongolia. Similar ornaments are known from ancient Turkic and Inner Asian burial contexts.
Scientific analysis showed that the earrings were not made from a single metal composition. The main ring and upper bead were based on copper alloyed with tin and lead. The lower bead, apparently made to imitate a pearl, consisted mostly of silver, with smaller amounts of copper, gold, and lead.
For the researchers, this detail matters. The earrings were not just decorative objects. Their form, material, and placement link the woman to a wider tradition of high-ranking female burials across southern Siberia and Mongolia.
A Horse-Skin Ritual in the Sayan Mountains
The burial also contained an unusually large group of horse-related objects. Researchers recorded 83 items in the grave, most of them connected with riding gear and harness decoration.
The assemblage included stirrups, iron bits, gilded bronze fittings, bridle ornaments, belt terminals, pendants, buckles, and plaques. One stirrup was especially elaborate. It was decorated with silver wire inlay on iron, a technique known as damascening. The ornament covered the neck, arch, and footrest on both sides.
Researchers compare the style of this decorated stirrup with Chinese decorative art of the late Tang period, especially the late ninth and early tenth centuries. The second stirrup was plain, a contrast that may reflect a steppe display habit in which the more visible side of the horse carried the richer object.
The horse gear gives the burial a public character. While the earrings belonged to the woman’s personal appearance, the riding equipment projected wealth and authority through the horse, one of the strongest symbols of life on the medieval steppe.
Chinese-Style Objects in a Siberian Grave
Another important find was a fragment of a cast metal mirror. Although broken, it preserved part of a “grape” ornament, with vine tendrils, leaves, grape clusters, and a bird. Mirrors with this type of decoration are associated with Chinese artistic traditions and were popular among Tang elites in the seventh and eighth centuries.
The fragment was made from a copper-based alloy with high tin content, consistent with similar Chinese-style mirrors found across the Eurasian steppe. Its broken edges were smoothed, which suggests the piece may have been kept for some time before it was placed in the grave.
The mirror was found with other personal objects, including a spindle whorl and a knife. Together with the earrings, these items form a small but meaningful set of objects linked to the woman herself, distinct from the much larger group of horse equipment.
A Grave from the Medieval Steppe Frontier
Radiocarbon dating places the burial broadly between the second half of the ninth century and the early thirteenth century. The style of the earrings, mirror fragment, and horse gear narrows the most likely date to the second half of the ninth or tenth century.
The researchers avoid assigning the woman to a single ethnic group. By this period, objects and styles moved widely between Turkic, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, and Chinese cultural spheres. Jewelry, mirrors, and horse equipment could travel far from their original workshops and be reused in new social settings.
What the burial does show clearly is social rank. The combination of gold-plated earrings, a Chinese-style mirror, a horse-skin deposit, and ornate riding equipment places the woman among the small number of known high-status burials from the Sayan-Altai region.
More than 1,000 years later, the grave offers a precise view of how rank was displayed in death: near the head, through jewelry; above the body, through the horse; and among the grave goods, through objects that connected southern Siberia with the wider world of Inner Asia.
Novosibirsk State University
Amzarakov P.B., Lazaretov I.P., Poliakov A.V., Mitko O.A. Gold-Plated Earrings and Personal Items from a Medieval Burial on the Idzhim River (Western Sayan, Usinsk Basin). Vestnik NSU. Series: History and Philology. 2025;24(3):115-129. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.25205/1818-7919-2025-24-3-115-129
Cover Image Credit: Press Service of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences