Partridge

The item is made on a bar blank. The figure has a clearly defined head, wings, legs and tail, highlighted by deep relief lines. The eye is found on one side of the head, on the other side it is smoothed. The wings are embossed and covered with C-shaped ornament, which is also located on the expanding part at the tail, thus it imitates the feathers. The abdomen is almost flat, there is a hole between the legs.



Manufacturing technique

The first step of making the figurine was made with a burin. Traces of work with a burin with a wide working edge, which are overlapped with traces of push-plane, were found in certain areas. Traces of grinding (probably, on abrasive material) are found on the surface of the item. In the “neck” and cheeks areas, traces of a burin's moving in different directions during the work were found. The wings of the bird were made with a planing knife presumably after making the ornament. The ornament on the wing is probably made by a cutting tool (due to the selection of excess volumes), or by a burin with a narrow working edge. On the legs, traces of polishing overlap the traces of shaping. According to macro criteria, it can be assumed that the oval hole between the legs formed during the process of making the legs. The bird's beak is decorated with push-plane and abrasive tool. The relief of the head and the eye's orbit is formed due to the difference of planes.


Use-wear traces

Traces of general polishing are found on all protruding parts of the item. On the concave planes, the traces of polishing are found near the tail and overlap the traces of the shaping tools. The assumption about the possible hanging of the item abdomen down is based on stated traces of smoothness with intense polishing inside the hole and on the abdomen. Traces of contact with solid items are not found.


Storage location

The State Historical Museum of Russia

Inventory number

1820-192

The Museum KAMIS

no

Size

Length - 76.43 mm

Width - 2.47 mm

Thickness - 8.5 mm

The diameter of the hole - 09.08 х 06.47 mm

The diameter of the beak - 1.98 mm

Head size - 2.78 х 1.69 mm


Material

Ivory

Dating

19 - 23 th. years BP

Culture

Mal'ta-Buret' archaeological culture

The author of the excavations

Gerasimov M. M.
1956

Publications

Abramova Z. A. Paleolithic art on the territory of the USSR. Archaeological Sources. Moscow-Leningrad, Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962, - P. 48. Tabl. LIII,2 (In Russian)

Volkova Yu.S. The Art of Small Forms of Northern Asia in the Upper Paleolithic. - Thesis for the competition. degree of candidate ist sciences. - Kemerovo, 2011. P. 65, 78, 171. Fig. 11 - 2. (In Russian)

Gerasimov M.M. Paleolithic site of Malta (excavations 1956–1957) // Soviet Ethnography. - 1958. - № 3. P. 39. Fig. 12, b. (In Russian)

 Stone Age of the Southern Angara region. Belsky geoarcheological area. / Medvedev G.I., Slagoda Ye.A., Lipnina Ye.A., Berdnikova N.E., Generalov AG, Rogovskaya E.O., Oshepkova Ye.B., Vorobeva G.A., Shmygun P.E. - Irkutsk: Publishing house of ISU, 2001. - T.II. - P. 77, 81, 83. Fig. 29 - 1. (In Russian)

Lbova L.V., Volkov P.V., Pankina A.I. Technological aspects of the production of mobile plastics in the Upper Paleolithic (Malta's zoomorphic sculpture) // V (XXI) All-Russian Archaeological Congress: a collection of scientific papers / ed. ed. A.P. Derevianko, A.A. Tishkin. - Barnaul: Altai State University, 2017. - P. 608.(In Russian)

Lbova L.V., Pankina A.I. Mal'tinskaya ornitomorfnaya plastika kak kul'turnyj kod paleoliticheskogo naseleniya Sibiri // Iskusstvo Еvrazii. – 2018. – №4(11). – S. 16. Ris. 2.

Lipnina E.A. Maltinskoe mestonahojdenie paleoliticheskih kultur: sovremennoe sostoianie isuchenosti I prespectivu issledovania. Aftoref. diss. kand. istorii 07.00.06. [Maltese location of Paleolithic cultures: current state of knowledge and prospects of research. Author's abstract of PhD in history]. Novosibirsk, 2002. p. 24 (In Russian)

Pankina A.I. Ornithomorphic sculpture of the Malta site: classification based on technological analysis // Modern problems of studying the ancient and traditional cultures of the peoples of Eurasia: materials LVII Ros. (with international participation) archaeological.-ethnogr. conf. students, postgraduates and young scientists, Surgut, April 17–21, 2017 - Novosibirsk: Publishing House of IAET SB RAS, 2017b. - P. 291. (In Russian)

At the origins of art: catalog of the exhibition / [comp. Z. A. Abramova, M. V. Anikovich, M. D. Gvozdover, and others.]. - Leningrad: Hermitage, 1979. - P. 30. (In Russian)