TO STUDY THE WORLDVIEW OF THE POPULATION OF THE TIMBER-GRAVE CULTURE: THE VESSEL WITH SIGNS FROM WESTERN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

An actual direction in historical science is the study of the worldview of ancient man, the key to which can be the analysis of funeral and ceremonial actions, rock carvings, art, rituals reconstructed on the basis of ethnographic observations, and objects used by the population in everyday life. One of these sources is ceramic tableware, which combines two spheres of human activity: utilitarian, related to the economic and cultural type adopted in a particular community; and sacred, reflecting the complex system of relationships between cultures, cultural groups, a person and his community as a whole. The symbols and signs depicted on its surface, as well as on other artefacts, open up space for researchers to study the issues of worldview and worldview of the bearers of ancient cultural traditions and religions. The results of the semantic analysis of objects with images also make it possible to understand the questions that troubled ancient man. Such a source is a ceramic vessel discovered during the study of the settlement of a timber-grave culture on the territory of Western Kazakhstan. The materials of the work carried out were published earlier, however, the artefact of interest to us, as well as the images on it, were not specially consecrated in the scientific literature and need detailed consideration.