Sarmatian and Early Medieval Burial Mounds of the East Azov Region (Based on Security Excavations in 2014)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the publication of security excavation materials of three burial mounds from the Peschanokop district of Rostov-on-Don region. Each burial mound contained only one looted tomb. The tomb in the shaft-in-chamber from the mound Bogoroditsky IV with featureless inventory and western orientation belongs to sarmatian culture of the 3rd – 1st century BC. Infill of the tomb contained parts of two unevenaged men’s skulls, handmade pottery parts and a gray-clay wheeled bowl. The pottery has North-Caucasian origins, but it is not exactly dated. The tomb from mound 6 of the burial mound Peschanokop belongs to the undermound Sarmatian catacombs dated by Roman period. A censer and a gray-clay wheeled bowl have meotian analogies, dated by the 2nd century AD. The dating of the tomb is confirmed by the golden pendant-medallions incrusted by the red carnelian insertion which belonged to the Greek-Roman polychrome style. The analogies are found in the Volga-Don and Kuban regions. The tomb from mound 6 of the burial mound Peschanokop belongs to the Bulgarian variant of Saltov-Mayaki culture and is dated by the 8th – 9th centuries AD. The main features of the mound include the western orientation of the man’s skeleton, horse remains in particular and parts of the sacrificial sheep, remains of the coffin and mat. There was also a shaft-in-chamber near the feet of deceased in the end wall – the feature of the proto-Bulgarian tombs. The ways of the mound’s looting are also various. A tomb from the burial mound Bogoroditsky IV was destructed with the triangulation station mark. Early medieval mound 7 of the burial mound Peschanokop was looted in ancient times with the excavated vertical shaft in the center, under the tomb. The Sarmatian catacomb of mound 7 was looted by the knowledgeable contemporary looters with only enrichment motivation. They got exactly into the shaft of the catacomb and pull out the bones and the artefacts from the burial chamber through the inlet. Although it might be a tomb desecration by the unfriendly families’ members.

Keywords

• east azov region
• burial mound
• early iron age
• early middle ages
• sarmatian cultures
• bulgarian variant of saltovo-mayaki culture
• looting