This is a gilded bronze earring from a tenth-century burial investigated by an expedition of the Academy of Sciences in the Sayan Mountains of southern Siberia

The grave, discovered as long ago as 2014 during preparations for the building of a railway, contained the remains of a woman, a newborn infant, the spine of a sheep, and the skull, limbs and hide of a horse. Such attributes belong to a rare ritual practice of the steppe nomads of the early Middle Ages.

The woman had a pair of gilded bronze earrings, a ritually broken mirror, an iron knife and a stone spindle whorl. The motif of a twining vine and bunches of grapes on the fragments of the mirror suggests that the object was probably brought from China. Some of the items of horse harness were already antiques at the time of the burial.