Faces of Eternity

We know plaster best for its setting qualities—an ideal material for mending what is crushed, fractured, or otherwise repairable.

Yet history occasionally reminds us that plaster has also served to envelop the broken forever, or at the very least, to fix it in place for the world to come.

The plaster masks of the Tashtyk culture offer a wondrous glimpse into the funerary rites of an ancient people whose original name has been lost to time. These people interred their dead in Southern Siberia around the fifth and sixth centuries CE.

The Tashtyk deceased were laid to rest in some 300 known sites, placed within burial mounds of wood and earth. Alongside them were the practical tools of a riding and hunting culture, as well as miniature replicas of weapons and everyday items. Notably, and unlike other cultures of the steppe or forest-steppe, the Tashtyk went to the trouble of crafting leather mannequins for the deceased, filling them with the cremated remains of the departed.

The most striking elements of these graves are undoubtedly the plaster masks. Crafted by skilled hands, many display remarkably realistic facial features, and some still bear traces of vibrant pigments.

Isotopic analysis of hair found at these sites suggests the Tashtyk thrived on a mixed economy of grains—likely millet—meat, dairy, and a significant amount of fish and local flora.

Perhaps most intriguing is the diversity of the facial features. Contrary to the hasty generalizations often made by Western observers, the masks appear to represent a mix of phenotypes and distinct ethnic types. This variety evokes the ancient memory of the steppe peoples as "those who speak nine languages." It also suggests the capacity of plaster to set people of different nations into a single political framework, much as it fixed the dead for their journey into the afterlife.