Buddhist Burial-Memorial Complexes from the Materials of Mayachny Bugor Burial Ground

Abstract

The article is concerned with an analysis of the archaeological residues of three adobe brick structures studied in different years at Mayachny Bugor subsoil burial ground in the Astrakhan Oblast. They are interesting in the light of the issue of studying archaeological traces of the presence of Buddhism in the Golden Horde. V.P. Kostjukov suggested a list of the main features inherent in Buddhist burials, underlining that Mayachny Bugor is one of the most studied necropolises which contain burials with signs of Buddhism. Two of the structures revealed at the burial ground were square adobe brick buildings, one of which contained the remains of a cremated body with burnt seeds of cultivated plants. Next to the second structure, a coin was discovered – one of the earliest in the Ulus of Juchi. The third structure had a complex layout - a rectangular main building with traces of the firing inside was adjoined by burials in crypts with rich inventories from the south, east and the north. The structure was located in the center of a fenced adobe brick wall of the site, where 11 burials oriented to the East were identified. The paper proposes an assumption, based on the presence of Buddhist burials at the burial ground, that these buildings are the bases of Buddhist stupas.

Keywords

• archaeology
• ulus of juchi
• mayachny bugor
• buddhism
• funeral rite
• cremation
• stupa