Clay plastic arts of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve in the first half I millennium AD

The paper deals with the early-medieval clay plastic arts of the Ob-Irtysh interfluves. It is an important and informative source that helps to consider some problems of West Siberia archaeology. For more than a century-old-archaeological study of the region, a small but considerably representative collection of clay plastic images referred to the early Middle Ages has been gathered. The paper is devoted to the complex analysis (i.e. morphology, semantics and functional use) of the early-medieval clay plastic arts of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve period. Special attention is paid to the history of the study of clay plastic arts in the Russian archaeology and to ethno cultural peculiarities of the early-medieval Ob-Irtysh interfluve. The paper reviews and generalizes a variety of items of early-medieval clay plastic arts known on the archaeological sites of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve. The items of clay plastic arts have been comprehensively analyzed: their morphological traits have been studied, stylistic analysis has been made and the location of the figurines on the archaeological sites has been described. Semantic analysis of two large types of images has been carried out. It has been suggested that the Potchevash culture bearers had a complicated ideology concerned with the field and stock-raising cults with such attributes as the items of the small statuary imaging horses and moose.