Homo Eurasicus: New Scholarly Views of Siberia and Inner Asia

By Richard L. Bland

This volume contains five chapters that present highly original research on Siberia’s unique history by five Russian scholars. The volume is edited by Prof. Elena A. Okladnikova, a faculty member of the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. The articles include discussions of seafaring along the Siberian coast, ethnolinguistic considerations, the worldview of inner Asian nomads, and ethnocultural understandings of civilization crossroads.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academica Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781680536362

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Picture of the World

Seafarers as Shipwreck Victims on Faddei Island at the Beginning of the 17th Century: Experience at Reconstruction

Elena A. Okladnikova

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Abstract: The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the basic components of the picture of the world of the participants of the maritime expedition that was wrecked on Faddei Island and wintered in Simsa Bay around 1617, based on the analysis of materials from Collection No. 0-3710 GMAA. Archaeological material from this collection, studied by historical and ethnographic (A. S. Gerd, G. S. Lebedev), functional (B. Malinovskii, T. A. Bernshtam), and structural-semiotic (Yu. M. Lotman, V. N. Toporov) methods, made it possible to single out four basic meanings that underlie the reconstructed picture of the world. These meanings were epistemological, ontological, existential, and practical.

Key words: North Asia, Russian North, Pomors, picture of the world, collection of A. P. Okladnikov at the RGAA.

To address the issue of reconstructing the picture of the world of the sailors who were wrecked on northern Faddei Island in the Laptev Sea, we were inspired by work with materials from one of the unique collections (No. 0-3710) that are stored in the RGAA.³ Much of the material in this collection were items discovered by members of the East Taimyr Expedition of 1941. These are things collected by members of the hydrographic expedition of the ship Nord. It was they who discovered this site, as well as the hut located 20 km to the west in Simsa Bay in 1940–1941 (Fig. 1); the bulk of the artifacts in this collection are items from the excavations of A. P. Okladnikov that were carried out by his expedition in 1945 (Fig. 2). It was a joint expedition of the Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic and the Institute of the History of Material Culture consisting of A. P. Okladnikov (head), V. D. Zaporozhskaya (artist, photographer), and two workers, I. Krestovnikov and V. Krasikov; the collection was supplemented by materials acquired by the head of the research parties in the community of Dikson, geologist V. A. Troitskii (1957) (Okladnikova 2020).

Figure 1. A group of topographers at the find on Faddei Island. Photo from the book of A. I. Kosoi (1944, p. 126).

Figure 2. A. P. Okladnikov (second from left) near the ruins of the hut in Simsa Bay (Okladnikov 1951, p. 23).

After the discoveries of hydrographers and excavations of A. P. Okladnikov on Faddei Island and in Simsa Bay, historical science was enriched with convincing documentary evidence in favor of the fact that Russian sailors were the first to bypass the Taimyr from the northeast. The uniqueness of the collection is determined by the following circumstances (Figs. 3, 4).

Figure 3. Place of finds on Faddei Island.

Figure 4. Excavation site on Faddei Island (drawing by V. D. Zaporozhskaya).

First, these are the materials of the archaeological research conducted by A. P. Okladnikov. The information that the remains of ancient merchants’ huts have been preserved on the coast of the Arctic Ocean is contained in the works of sailors who at the beginning of the 19th century were engaged in the study of these territories (L. Zagoskin, N. A. Begichev). Nevertheless, systematic archaeological excavations at the site of one of these huts were first carried out by the archaeologist A. P. Okladnikov in 1945.

Second is the size of the collection. The total composition of the collection for 1945–1948 was more than 3,900 items. Today, the RGAA contains 118 archaeological artifacts and more than 3000 coins (treasury). Working with the materials of the collection provides grounds for stating that today only a small part of the artifacts is kept in the RGAA. These artifacts are divided into three groups: 1) things that can be observed in showcases at the museum’s exposition (chess pieces, a knife with an inscription, a comb, etc.); 2) things held in the storerooms (tools, bronze items); and 3) things that are in special storage (treasury, jewelry). Many things from the excavations on Faddei Island and in Simsa Bay have been lost (for example, copper pots and pans were scrapped) or are in the collection of other museums (for example, a caftan or zipun, which is currently on display at the State Historical Museum. There are probably fragments of fabric and shoes in the State Historical Museum’s storage). In the collection of the RGAA there are currently no German counting tokens,⁴ bone remains (animal bones, fragments of human skeletons), etc. Some of the items from the excavation site on the Faddei Island and in the hut in Simsa Bay were lost as a result of pot hunting, which was carried out by mushers with A. A. Shirokikh after the departure of hydrographers in 1941 (Okladnikov and