«Тесинский богатырь»: возвращение к оригиналу
“Tesinsky Hero”: Return to the Original

Summary/Abstract: The authors analyze history of studies on the early medieval stone statue “Tesinsky Hero” with a runic inscription, the context of its discovery, the iconography of the monument, the content and existing interpretations of the text of the epigraphic document. The statue was found in January 1722 in the area between rivers Tes’ and Erba in the Yenisei steppes by captain Ph. J. Tabbert (von Strahlenberg), and sketched by K. G. von Schulmann, who were the participants of the first scientific expedition to Siberia led by D. G. Messerschmidt. The new archival sources are introduced into scientific discussion: the sketches of the statue from D. G. Messerschmidt’s personal papers, stored in the academic archive in Saint-Petersburg, and the letter by Ph. J. Strahlenberg dated 1724, from the city library in Linköping (Sweden), with drawings. The statue stood on a high earthen mound, surrounded by specially made fences (?) or made of stone slabs removed from neighboring barrows. Such memorial construction has no analogues in southern Siberia. According to the authors, attempts to connect the “Tesinsky Hero” with the old Turkic sites from the area of the Yenisei River finds no sufficient grounds. This is a representation of a foreigner — a noble Turgesh, who could be a military leader (advisor?) in the allied army of the Kyrgyz or a leader of the military unit of the Turgesh, acting on the side of the Yenisei Kyrgyz. His activity became so significant that it was noted (after his death?) by the installation of a memorial monument. The date of the Turks’ campaign over the Sayan Mountains, which led to the defeat of the Kyrgyz and Turgesh, can be considered the time when the statue “Tesinsky Hero” was erected, together with all the accompanying memorial structures — the beginning of the 8th century, after 711.

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