Images of Waterfowls in Metal Plastic Arts from Balezinsky Burial Ground, 6th–7th Centuries

The article publishes new finds of metal jewelry depicting waterfowls (ducks). They were found in the burials of an early site of the Polomsky archaeological culture in the Cheptsa River basin. The jewelry is made in different stylistic traditions and attributes to a narrow chronological period (6th–7th century). Considering the peculiarities of the new burial ground funeral rite, items sets and equivalents, the author examines if this category of artifacts can help solve issues of the northern Udmurtia population origins in the early medieval period. The ornithomorphic hollow pendants of the Balezinsky burial ground belong to two stylistic traditions. One of them is western (Volga-Vyatka), the other one is eastern (Upper Kama). The closest equivalents to the Balezinsky jewelry are found in the Vyatka region and the Middle Volga area. They bear the syncretic image of a duck-horse. Another image is a duck-elk. It defines the eastern (late Kharino) impulse. The burial sets with zoomorphic hollow pendants include items typical for women’s embellishments dated the 6th–7th centuries. They were found both in the cemeteries of Western Cis-Ural (Verkh-Saya, Birsk, Petropavlovo) and in necropolises of the Kontsovsky – Tat-Boyarsky – Shor-Unzhinsky – Komintern II circle. Both groups of ornithomorphs in the Cheptsa River basin are associated with the migrations of various ethnocultural groups – carriers of different worldview systems. Their advance into the upper reaches of the Cheptsa River first laid from the south, from the Volga and Lower Kama, along the Vyatka; then it ran through the taiga regions of the Upper Kama region.