Siberian Mummies in Copper Masks Pose Mystery
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/siberian-mummies-in-copper-masks-post-mystery-140416.htm
Siberian Mummies in Copper Masks Pose Mystery
Apr 16, 2014 09:37 AM ET
by Rossella Lorenzi
Russian archaeologists have resumed excavations in a remote site near the Arctic Circle in the attempt to understand a perplexing find of medieval mummies clad in copper masks.
Roughly 1,000 years old, the mummies were found during a series of excavations that started in 1997 in a Siberian necropolis near the village of Zeleniy Yar, at the base of a peninsula local people called "the end of the Earth."
The archaeologists found 34 shallow graves with seven male adults, three male infants, and one female child wearing a copper mask. Buried with a hoard of artifacts, most of the bodies had shattered or missing skulls, and smashed skeletons.
Five mummies were unearthed still shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur, while three copper masked infant male mummies were found bound in four or five copper hoops two inches wide.... MORE