Dvurechenskaya N. D.

Key words: terracotta figurines, Margiana, late Parthian and early Sasanian periods, genesis, evolution, typology, interpretation.

The most widespread type of anthropomorphic figurines in Margiana with the image of the woman with a mirror is considered. On the basis of a Central Asian archaeological expedition’s collection, numbering more than 43 copies, it was possible to analyse genesis and evolution of the image in details. Three variants have been allocated which consecutive degradation of an iconographic image is tracked. Thanks to the analysis of an archaeological context and also using the results of the archaeological typology of figurines from Bactria, Margiana and Sogdia, it was possible to limit the disorder of offered interpretations, chronological frameworks established within the late Parthian and the early Sasanian periods. Time of the greatest distribution is dated on a basis stratigraphic data to the 2rd–3rd centuries AD.