from head to toe with copper plates.”

The baby, probably no older than six months, was wrapped in “small fragments of a copper cauldron”.

Archaeologists say the adult’s cocoon is some 5ft 7 inches in length, suggesting the male or female inside was unusually tall for the period.

Experts from Russia and South Korea will now carefully open the burial cocoon at a laboratory in Tyumen to determine the age and sex of the copper clad medieval polar region dweller, as well as the type of fur used to warm the dead on the way to their next life.

They will also date the discovery.

Previous finds at the Zeleniy Yar burial site near Salekhard have included bronze bowls originating in ancient Persia, some 3,700 miles to the south-west.

The burial site so far contains no known remains of adult women among around three dozen graves examined by archaeologists.

All the burials except one female child were male.

The feet of the deceased all point towards Gorny Poluy River, a fact seen as having religious significance, yet scientists are unable to identify the ‘civilisation’ living 18 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

The hope is that the latest find is in better condition than previous mummies.

A macabre feature of some but not all the previous finds were that their skulls were smashed.

One earlier find was a “red haired man” buried with a bronze buckle depicting a brown bear.