The cast figure of a mountain goat, placed on a bell-shaped final, was made of bronze. This item of burial equipment was discovered during the excavations of Tagar burial mounds of the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. The figurine was taken from the Ai-Dai III burial ground.
The excavations of the monuments of the Tagar culture were carried out by the Beya archaeological expedition of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1992 to 1994 in Sayanogorsk. The research was led by Margarita Nikolaevna Pshenitsyna, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Soviet and Russian archaeologist.
Images of animals, figurines of sheep and goats on knife handles, deer-shaped plaques, small sculptures of deer were the most expressive examples of the Scythian-Siberian animal style in the monuments of the Tagar archaeological culture. This style was a characteristic manner of performing animal images, widely represented in the cultures of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age of the Eurasian steppes, including the territory of Southern Siberia.
One of the common animals depicted by the Tagar was a mountain goat. Scientists came to the conclusion that it was an important totem. Archaeologists have found images of this animal on weapons, combat badges and belt buckles, and numerous pictograms (petroglyphs) of the Tagar culture.
Already at an early stage of this archaeological culture, images of a goat were used as decoration for knives. Bronze figurines decorated standards, knives, pendants, plaques, buckles, daggers, mirrors, bell-shaped finials, which were mounted on columns at the corners of the funeral bed. They were also soldered on top of the ritual torch holder.
