Issues:
Sections:
Issue 94
HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY
UDK: 902/904
THE ZMEYSKY BURIAL GROUND: SOME ISSUES OF THE NECROPOLIS PLANNING, THE SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC AND CONFESSIONAL APPEARANCE OF THE POPULATION OF TATARTUP
LEONTYEVA Anna S.
The Zmeisky cemetery is the largest burial ground of the Alanic culture of the late Middle Ages in the North Caucasus. The site was actively studied in the second half of the XX - first quarter of the XXI centuries. In the last century, only catacombs and several non-catacomb burials were known at the site and it was dated to the X-XII centuries. As a result of excavations in 2013-2014, new types of burial structures were massively discovered at the cemetery: burials in the walls (undercuts), filling and floor of the dromoi of the catacombs, pit burials with southern and western orientations. Recent studies have significantly changed the view on the history of the cemetery. It is now known that from the middle of the XII century there was a change in the funeral rite and material culture. The catacomb burial rite dies out, it is replaced by the pit burial rite. Christian and Islamic pit graves are among the catacombs. At the 2nd excavation there is a noticable Muslim section. Under the influence of the Golden Horde, Christianity penetrated deeper into the consciousness of the Alan population of Tatartup; the followers of Islam appeared among the citizens. However, monotheism did not completely displace the pagan beliefs but integrated into them. Based on the reported data, the plan of all the burial structures discovered during the archaeological excavations has been made for the first time. Identified have been the early section of the cemetery, dating back to the last third of the X - first half of the XI centuries, and the late one - the middle of the XII - early XIII cent. According to the anthropological data from the excavations of 2013-2014, it is obvious that the small-nuclear families transform into the large ones. Groups of catacombs with different age and gender composition have been reported. Calculated have been the average areas of the chambers, the space per one deceased, the average number of people in one catacomb in two chronological groups, reflecting changes in the social organization of the Alan family.
Pages: 59 - 72
Date: 15.11.2024