The system of ornamental elements in animal-style images from the Ulandryk I burial ground

Grigoreva Alina ORCID: 0000-0003-1473-6184 Postgraduate student, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University 127427, Russia, Moscow, Russia, 17k1 Botany Street grigorieva.1997@mail.ru

Ornament in the artistic language of the cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world played a fundamental, formative role. Animal style samples are largely ornamental in nature – they, being an ornament of an object, are unthinkable without it. In animal-style art, as in ornament, there is no pictorial background. The background is the decorated object itself. The absence of a background implies a second feature common to ornament and animal style – they do not require the viewer to be included in their visual space, the world of the image.

The connection between the art of animal style and ornament is noted, for example, by D.S. Rayevsky, highlighting "the direct continuity between pre-Scythian ornamental and Scythian zoomorphic art" ^{[7, p. 413]}. The general "geometric" frame" highlighted by Rayevsky in animal-style images and Cimmerian ornaments, according to the researcher's estate, facilitated the replication of images. Such versatility, the absence of unique, "portrait" features for any image, among other things, was the reason for the lack of an "image world" for the viewer.

The ornament also acted as a vivid artistic characteristic, defining the stylistic features of the art of the cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world. It is on the basis of ornament as a feature of the art of the Pazyryk culture that many researchers have identified the influence of the "Altai style" on the art of Tagar culture ^{[16, pp. 135-143]}, Filippovsky mounds ^{[17, p. 232]}. Thus, the analysis of ornament plays a key role in the study of the art of this culture.

The relevance of the work is due not only to the marked interest of researchers in the ornament of the Pazyryk culture as a characteristic of its stylistic originality, but also, with such interest, the weak elaboration of the terminology of ornament in the context of Pazyryk art. This study does not aim to comprehensively describe the problems of the methodology of ornament in the art of the Pazyryk culture, however, in the context of the subject of research stated in the title of the work, we will outline some provisions of the methodology of describing ornament presented in the works of S.I. Rudenko, since his studies of the art of Bashadarsky, Tuektinsky and Pazyryk mounds have become fundamental for the formation of methods of analyzing ornaments in art culture. It was S.I. Rudenko who made the first and actually the only attempts to classify the ornament of the Pazyryk culture at the present time ^{[9, pp. 125-133].}

However, the early works did not strictly define the characteristics of the ornament. In particular, describing the images of roosters on the sarcophagus deck from the First Pazyryk kurgan, Rudenko notes that in the first version of the image, despite all the conventions, "all the typical features" of the wings and tail of birds are transmitted, while in the second version they represent "a completely conventional ornamental motif" ^{[9, p. 45]}. At the same time, describing the design of the images of sheep on the sarcophagus deck from the Second Bashadar kurgan, Rudenko does not mention the ornament, but characterizes the motifs filling the bodies of animals as "a system of curls and triangles between them"^{[9, p. 49]}. Describing a similar series of walking deer on a sarcophagus from the Second Tuektin mound, the researcher calls the entire composition an ornament, without focusing on the elements and motifs filling the images ^{[9, p. 111]}.

The indicated trends – the absence of strictly distinguishing elements within zoomorphic images as ornamental, the description of the general nature of ornamental compositions, without sequential division into elements and motifs – were also continued by V.D. Kubarev in a 1987 monograph devoted to the burial grounds of Ulandryk.

Currently, this publication is the most complete catalog of finds from these burials. Later, the materials of the Ulandryk I and IV burial grounds were republished by G.V. Kubarev in a series of publications in 2013-2016, since "the vast majority of the archaeological collection from Ulandryk <...> at the time of publication remained not restored, and, therefore, was not fully presented"^{[2, p. 286]}. Since the purpose of the new publications was, first of all, the most complete introduction of the monument into scientific circulation, these articles do not change the methodology originally used by V.D. Kubarev for studying ornaments in burial materials.

In the images of the animal style of Ulandryk, V.D. Kubarev identifies separate ornaments, characteristic, first of all, for the Pazyryk burial ground – for example, the motif of the "running wave"^{[1, p. 34]}. The researcher also notes in the art of Ulandryk a tendency to schematization, in which some figures are "perceived as an independent ornament" ^{[1, p. 38]}, for example, applications depicting a scene of a fish being tormented by a lion^{[1, p. 89]}. However, the researcher does not define the elements in the images of animals as ornamental ^{[1, p. 118]}, which leads to a lack of a holistic understanding of the repertoire and options for the use of ornamental elements in the materials of this complex.

V.D. Kubarev identifies a special type of ornamented belt buckles, which are available, among other things, in the materials of Ulandryk I. Kubarev's typological division of buckles emphasizes another methodological feature of the study of ornament in the cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world – it is excluded from the category of animal-style objects. In particular, Kubarev, highlighting the ornamented buckles, notes that there are no buckles "decorated in the animal style" in the burial ground ^{[1, p. 81]}. Such an exception is logical – textiles and wood products, indeed, may not contain a single zoomorphic image. However, it was precisely this distinction that became one of the reasons for the actual absence of a unified methodology for the study and classification of ornaments in both the Pazyryk culture and the cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world as a whole. The researcher, analyzing the ornament on them, does not define its components as elements or motifs, but only formally describes the ornament as "rows of alternating brackets, rows of triangles inscribed in a square, a four-petalled flower inscribed in a rectangular frame"^{[1, p. 80]}. From the description, it can be concluded that Kubarev describes both the elements and the motifs of ornamental compositions. For example, rows of alternating brackets represent the "crescent" element, but a triangle inscribed in a square is a motif consisting of the "triangle" elements and a series of parallel lines.

The description of the elements allows you to identify a strictly limited repertoire and combine ornaments on buckles and other objects with ornaments as part of zoomorphic images into a common system. So, the highlighted elements are "crescent", "triangle", "parallel lines" (in two versions: with corrugation in shape and against shape) are found and are characteristic of images of animals. At the same time, such a combination in one motif of a triangle and fluting in a composition of symmetry of rotation is not peculiar to images of animals, as well as a composition with rows of crescents, where the lower row is mirror-symmetrical relative to the vertical axis relative to the upper one. Such a variety of compositions seems to create a feeling of infinite variability of the Pazyryk ornament, while the analysis shows that the whole variety is created by a combination of a limited repertoire of ornamental elements used in compositions created according to a limited set of symmetry rules. In addition, the identification of individual elements of the ornament allows them to be compared with other categories of images in the art of the Pazyryk people – signs on fangs, mirrors, objects of horse equipment ^{[6, pp. 76-91, and 2, pp. 286-306]}.

Thus, a brief analysis of the history of the methodology for studying the ornaments of the Ulandryk I burial ground, which also reflects some methods of analyzing ornamental compositions common to the Pazyryk culture, shows the need for a stricter separation of ornamental elements and motifs, clarifying their classification in order to identify specific and non-specific elements for animal-style images.

The method of formal description chosen by V.D. Kubarev seems to be the most optimal, but requires some clarification and greater rigor in definitions. As E. Panofsky notes, at this pre-iconographic level of the monument description, the identification of "pure forms, namely, certain configurations of line and color, takes place.. <...> by identifying their mutual relations..."^{[5, pp. 45-46]}. It is the level of form analysis that makes it possible to distinguish between a motif and an element in an ornament and to highlight the latter in animal-style images.

Although in art studies, in general, "formal analysis <...> is primarily an analysis of motives and combinations of motives (compositions)..."^{[5, p. 46]} in the narrower context of ornament, the concepts of "element" and "motif" must be separated. Accordingly, when describing and systematizing the features of an ornament, it is proposed to use the term "ornamental element" as the smallest indivisible part of any (figurative or non-figurative) composition. The use of the term element avoids the characteristic of repeatability inherent in the concept of "motive", the desire for strict symmetry.

The ornamental element has a stable shape, subject to only minor changes. It does not carry a specific meaning, but it can be associated with other components of the visual world of a given culture – specifically within the framework of animal-style art with details of zoomorphic images. This is due to numerous steady repetitions – for example, the head of a bird of prey, the claws of a predator. An ornamental element can not only form a "pattern", but also be an integral part of a figurative image. These coincidences allow us to mentally correlate elements with animal images in any context, including in the absence of a figurative image.

The definitions of "ornament element" and "composition element" can be considered synonymous, while "ornamental motif" and "compositional motif" can be perceived in different ways. An "ornamental motif" involves repeating a motif within an ornament, primarily on one object. Rather, a "compositional motif" suggests a motif characteristic of compositions within a given culture or style. Moreover, if an element can be defined as part of a motif, then it is the element that is an atomic unit, refers to the system underlying the art of culture.

In the materials of the Ulandryk I burial complex published by V.D. and G.V. Kubarev, ornamented objects are known in mounds 1-7 and 12. According to the latest chronology of the burial ground, also presented by G.V. Kubarev, the monument was built in 346-298 BC (according to tree-ring analysis)^{[12. pp. 247-249]}. In the context of the subject of the analysis of this article – ornamental elements in zoomorphic images, we note that, according to I.Y. Slyusarenko, all burial mounds with animal–style images (1-4, 6, 12) were built within 10 years - in 308-298 BC ^{[12, p. 249]}

The chronological data make it possible to compensate for the fact that the finds of zoomorphic ornamented images in individual mounds are rare. The largest number of images were found in 12 and 6 mounds – five and four, respectively. A short time interval for the creation of mounds allows us to consider the ornamental system presented in their images as a single whole, without dividing into separate mounds.

This approach will allow not only to highlight the repertoire of ornamental elements used in the images of the animal style by the creators of this group of monuments, but also to analyze which elements were characteristic within the framework of an integral ornamental system for different categories of animals – predators, birds of prey, ungulates, which stand out in the materials of the Ulandryk I. burial ground.

Three types of images belong to the category of birds of prey. The first type is the head of a griffin ^{[1, vol. XIV]}. It is characterized by the image of the double element "circle" of the eye, the image of the ear in the shape of a drop, as well as the designation of the spiral beak. The second type is a griffin figure (fixed on a children's costume) ^{[1, Fig. 30]}. Of the ornamental elements in the image, only one can be distinguished – the development of wings with parallel lines, hereinafter referred to as "longitudinal fluting". This element can be described as a series of parallel stripes located in the direction along the contour of the object/image or its ornamented part. A similar technique is observed on the third type – the head, where the beak is transformed into another element – a spiral ^{[1, Vol. XXVII]}.

There are three types of predators in the category. The first type is the wolf's head ^{[1, vol. XIV]}. The teeth are depicted in rows of triangles. The ear in one image is represented in the form of two spirals, in the other – in the form of a triangle. The eye is transferred by a drop.

The second type is a feline predator ^{[1, vol. XXVIII]}. This is the most rich in ornamental elements of the image. The ear is transmitted by a double drop, the teeth by a scaly ornament (each tooth is one "scale"). The wing and body are longitudinally and transversely grooved, triangle elements on the paws and spirals on the tail are also used. The "transverse fluting" element is also used to depict claws. The principle of its selection corresponds to the selection of the "longitudinal" – a series of parallel lines located diagonally / transversely with respect to the contour of the object / image or its ornamented part.

The third type is the head of a predator in the scene of tormenting a camel ^{[1, Vol. IV]}. Longitudinal fluting and triangles are used as ornamental elements in the image of a camel. A schematically opened mouth is shown behind the image of a camel. It is difficult to identify the image as a cat or dog type of image, however, it should be noted that the eyes and nostrils are schematically rendered by the ornamental elements of a triangle and a drop. At the same time, the shape of the elements is not strictly observed, but it obeys the general contour of the object and image.

There are four types of images in the herbivore category. The first is the heads of horned ungulates. The type includes two connected heads – a goat and a ram on the rump of a deer ^{[1, vol. XIV]}. The horns of ungulates are represented by a scaly ornament. The second type is the lying deer ^{[1, vol. XXVII]}. His horns are conventionally transferred by a number of "flame-shaped curl" elements, although strict symmetry and transfer of the shape of the element in the image are not observed. The third type is the standing deer ^{[1, vol. XXVIII]}. On his croup, the thigh and shoulder blade are marked with spirals. Each spiral rotates 180°, forming an S-shaped shape. The fourth type is probably a deer (horns are missing, but there are holes for them), whose legs are decorated with triangles ^{[1, Vol. IX]}.

Table 1. Repertoire of ornamental elements in the images of the animal style of the Ulandryk I burial ground

Thus, the Ulandryk I burial ground presents three categories and ten types of ornamented animal images. Note that predatory images (bird of prey, feline predator, wolf, predator) in total have the richest ornamentation of the seven elements. The set of elements for herbivores is four (Table 1). The elements "drop", "circle", "transverse corrugation" are specific for predators, and "flame–shaped curl" for ungulates. It is significant that in the image of a camel, "fluting in shape" and "triangle" are used, which are more characteristic of predatory images.

The identification and analysis of ornamental elements in the images of the animal style in the art of the burial ground allows us to show that their repertoire is limited, but specific to each category of zoomorphic images. The description of the elements also revealed the absence of the "cross" element in the images of animals, highlighted by G..In Kubarev, for example, for diamond-shaped wooden plaques ^{[2, p. 299]}. This observation is important in the context of the signs also noted by V.D. Kubarev in the form of straight and oblique crosses on canine pendants ^{[2, p. 303]}. The presence of crosses on fangs and plaques, but their absence on the images of the animal style suggests that semantically the meaning of the cross both as an ornamental element and as a sign did not correspond to the system of meanings embedded in the animal style.

In conclusion, we note that the results obtained allow us to lay some foundations for the methodology of identifying and classifying ornamental elements in the art of not only the Ulandryk I burial ground, but also the Pazyryk culture as a whole. The presented methods of working with ornamental composition in animal-style images, tested on the material of the mounds of one burial ground, can also be used to analyze zoomorphic images in other cultural complexes. In particular, to clarify the system of ornamental elements in the images of the Bashadar and Tuektin mounds. Identifying the specifics of the Pazyryk ornament and clarifying its repertoire will make it possible to more accurately determine the similarities and differences between it and the ornaments of other cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world, for example, the Uyuk. The introduction of a unified and strictly justified terminology for the description of ornamental elements may also contribute to the "formation of a single "language" in the description of the works of zoomorphic art of the nomads of the Eurasian steppes"^{[18, p. 12]}, one of the urgent tasks of modern science.