The burials of the kurgan 2 of the Menovnoe VII burial ground (Eastern Kazakhstan)

Abstract

Emerged in the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, the nomadic confederation of the Kipchaks up until the beginning of the 13th c. dominated the Eurasian steppes, which became known from the 11th c. as Desht-i Qipchaq or Kipchak steppe. The oecumene occupied by the Kipchak tribes covered, according to the experts, vast areas from the Irtysh River to Ural Mountains, but there is no consensus amongst researchers as to where the formation of the Kipchak traditions, which were part of the Kimek Khanate, was taking place. Kipchak sites of the 11th–12th cc. in the steppe zone are very few, but they are considered, as a rule, in the context of the transformation of the earlier traditions of the Oghuz, whereas the medieval burials of the Mongolian period, studied in the steppe zone of Kazakhstan, are considered apriori as Kipchak’s. The materials obtained during the study of the Menovnoe VII burial ground reveal peculiar features, both in the elements of the funeral rites, as well as in specific components of the material culture, allowing one to consider this site as a funerary monument built by a group of the early Kipchak population who lived in the pre-Mongol period in the territory of Eastern Kazakhstan. The burial ground of Menovnoe VII is located 1.5 km east-southeast of the village of Menovnoe of the Tavrichesky District of the Vostochno-Kazakhstanskaya Oblast. Within the burial platform, 24 mortuary structures have been recorded: 5 Early Medieval kurgans and 19 stone heaps of the Late Middle Ages period. The article concerns the kurgan 2, which had a diameter of 8 m at a height of 0.25 m. The mound was spanning over an oval fence measuring 7.1×6.5 m. Two pits were examined within the fence: one, located in the centre, contained a paired burial of a man and a woman; the second, located by the south wall of the fence, contained a paired burial of horses. The deceased were accompanied by a broadsword, iron arrowheads, an iron cauldron, bone buckles, iron knives, and remains of a saddle. The specifics of the funeral rites and the analysis of the material obtained during the study make is possible attributing the burial of the kurgan 2 of the Menovnoe VII burial ground to the Kipchak cultural tradition developing within the final stage of the early Turkic era, which allows it to be dated to the 11th — beginning of the 12th c. CE.

Keywords

• upper irtysh region
• the middle ages
• kipchaks
• burial mound
• funeral rite
• paired burial
• clothing inventory