Interpretation of the images on the Big Shigir Idol revisited

This paper on the Big Shigir idol which is the earliest monumental wooden religious cult sculpture (Fig. 4) reviews various interpretations of its carved images. The system of mythological concepts of hunters and gatherers inhabiting the forest belt during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene was mirrored in a whole series of characters represented on the sculpture (Fig. 4: B). Some characters find parallels in earlier and later archaeological materials (Fig. 5; 6). Turning to the concepts of the world developed by the Ugric populations which were indigenous people inhabiting the Urals, the author proposes another possible interpretation of the images on the Big Shigir idol. Anthropomorphic figures of that time carved in a «skeleton» style have not been known before. Images depicted on the sculpture demonstrate emergence of a new figurative tradition during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene that continued in the subsequent period.