Bone found by archaeologists in the Siberian valley of Touran-Uyuk belonged to a woman of the Scythian culture of Aldy-Bel warriors who ԀιeԀ at the age of 50.\

Archaeologists have found a 2,500-year-old skeleton of a 2,500-year-old woman in the Touran-Uyuk Valley in Siberia, accompanied by a gold breastplate ornament and a bronze mirror. The finding was disclosed in January by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science.

The Polish-Russiαn team was studying the Chinge-Tey archaeological site in northern Tuva, in the region also called the Siberian Valley of the Kings, when they located the bone inside a wheelbarrow-like compartment. In the area there are many tombs, some even attributed to royalty.

The woman’s bones were found in 2021 during archaeological work that revealed two graves. Researchers at the Jagiellonian University in Poland detected the first tomb using laser scanning.

The wooden burial chamber, built into the structure of solid beams, contained two remains. One was that of the woman, who ԀιeԀ at age 50, and the other was that of a child who ԀιeԀ at 2 or 3 years old. Next to the adult, the experts found gold artifacts, an iron knife, a bronze mirror and a wooden comb decorated with engraved ornaments.

There was also the golden pectoral ornament in the shape of a sickle or crescent moon hanging around his neck. According to Łukasz Oleszczak, head of the expedition’s Polish team, objects of this type were known to have mounds in southern Siberia, but until then had only been found in men’s graves.

“They were considered symbols of belonging to a social group, caste, perhaps warriors,” says Oleszczak in a statement. “In any case, men. His presence at a woman’s grave is a very interesting departure from this custom. This certainly confirms the deceased’s unique role in the Valley of the Kings community.”

Another curious fact is that the woman was buried in the central part of a tomb, in the vicinity that belonged to a nomadic prince. “It seems that, like the others buried in this tomb, she belonged to the prince’s entourage”, the researcher surmises.

The second grave contained the skeleton of a child or teenager, placed in a small grave surrounded by stones without any artifacts. Oleszczak explains that children’s graves on the perimeter or outside of the woman’s grave were part of funerary rites in an early Scythian culture.

Archaeologists also found evidence of a bronze treasure deposited next to the tomb. Using a metal detector, they located what may be part of this relic: pieces of horse harness, a bronze ice axe, as well as a goat-shaped ornament.

The tombs in the locality date back to the 6th century BC. and they are from Scythian warrior peoples, from the Aldy-Bel culture, according to the researchers, who also found the remains of a young warrior equipped with weapons there. At the beginning of the Scythian period, the Touran-Uyuk Valley was one of the most important centers of the Siberian world.