In 1936 the statue was relocated
St. Petersburg, where it is exhibited in the Hall of Culture and Art of the
Hermitage Museum. Before the
nationalization and transfer to the Hermitage, for generations it was kept by the Ingush clan (
teip) Mamilov, who used it as their coat of arms. V.B. Vinogradov wrote about the special reverence that strong birds enjoyed among the local
Ingush highlanders, as the eagle may have been the totem of the inhabitants of
Erzi. The statue's height is 38 cm. It is hollow on the inside, inlaid with silver and copper. The neck is engraved in Arabic with the
Tasmiyyah: Translated into English:
"In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful." Embossed on the opposite side is the name of the master-manufacturer, "Suleyman", as well as the date of creation - year 189 of the
Hijri calendar (equivalent to years 796–797 of the
Gregorian calendar). The official website of the Hermitage specified that the information about the place of manufacture of figurines can not be read, but the scientific community widely believes that this relic is made in
Basra (now
The Republic of Iraq) - one of the cultural and craft centers of the Arab Caliphate. Only three similar in shape figurines exist in the world: in the
Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin; in the city of
Lucca in Italy; and in
Saint Catherine's Monastery in
Egypt. ==References==