Without a Face: A Silver Plaque from the Eastern Slopes of the Urals

This article provides a description and preliminary interpretation of a unique discovery from a previously unknown burial ground in the Konda River basin (Sovetsky Region of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District–Yugra); the discovery represents a silver plaque from the 9th–10th century. The plaque has a fragment missing that bears the representation of the head (and presumably the face) of a male figure. This suggests that the missing fragment's exclusion from burial was intentional and that the missing fragment was subsequently used to produce a figure of the deceased as a receptacle for his soul. An appendix to this article contains the results of traceological analysis for the plaque's fragmentation during burial ritual.