Celestial bodies on the Ob Ugrian ritual artifacts (based on archaeological and ethnographic sources of the 2nd millennium ad)

This study explores the religious role of celestial bodies depicted on Ob Ugrian ritual artifacts from several Russian museums, with reference to ethnographic, folkloric, and artistic sources. While neither the sun nor the moon play a major role in Ugrian religion, they are personified and feature in legends and myths. Khanty and Mansi rites refer to lunar phases (new moon) and the position of the sun. Solar signs are mostly present on ritual artifacts relating to the Celestial Horseman cult, possibly derived from early cosmogonic ideas. In western Siberia, the symbols of the sun and the moon appear no earlier than AD 800. In the 10th-12th centuries, such artifacts were cast in the eastern Ural. The 13th-14th-century silver plaques from western Siberia, showing a falconer, evidence the Vogul (Mansi) migration from western Ural to their current place of residence. The scene featuring a falconer surrounded by animals, the sun, and the moon is still being represented on cloth paraphernalia of Mir-Susne-Khum, the Ob Ugrian cultural hero. Solar signs have been used by the Mansi and Khanty to decorate the sacrificial offerings to the goddess Kaltas, the gables of ritual barns, and burial structures. Also, they stood for signatures on documents.