It involves the careful inference from material context about the function and significance of specific objects.

For the Ice Maiden specifically, the totality of the animal-style imagery in her burial — on her skin, on her coffin, on her horses — constitutes a coherent visual statement.

The statement is in a language we can partially read: we know the vocabulary (the specific animals and hybrid creatures), we can identify the grammar (the compositional rules that govern how figures relate to each other), and we can sometimes connect the imagery to known mythological traditions.

But the specific meaning of the statement — what the griffin-deer on the shoulder means in the context of this individual’s identity and role, what the deer carved on the coffin means in the context of the afterlife beliefs of her community — remains significantly obscure.