The Funeral Complexes with Weapons and Horse Equipment of the 4th - 3rd Centuries BC from Zayukovo-3 Burial Mound (Kabardino-Balkariya)

Abstract

In 2014 the United North Caucasian Archaeological Expedition of the State Historical Museum, the Kabardino-Balkarian State University and the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences carried out works at the Zayukovo-3 burial mound located in the Baksan district of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The excavation area was 107.5 square meters. 11 burials and 4 sacrificial pits were investigated. The analysis of the funeral rite andinventory made it possible to date the discovered 10 graves and all sacrificial pits by the second half of the 4th - 3rd centuries BC and correlate them with the final stage of the existence of the Koban-Kolkhida cultural-historical community. The article is devoted to the publication of 5 funeral complexes (4 graves and 1 sacrificial pit) with weaponsand horse equipment. Overlapping of stone slabs was erected over all burials. In most cases, the burials were pits with a lining from small fragments of limestone slabs. An important detail of the funeral rite of the cemetery was the ritual destruction of the bodies of the buried. Among the inventory it is necessary to note the sword of the Sindo-Meotian type of the 4th - 3rd centuries BC, iron arrowheads, horse equipment, a bronze detail of horse headgear, also dating from this time. The presented complexes partially fill the time gap between the Koban and Sarmatian epochs in the history of peoples inhabiting the mountainous zone of the central regions of the North Caucasus in the early Iron Age.

Keywords

• mountainous zone of the cental regions of the north caucasus
• kabardino-balkaria
• the final stage of the koban-kolkhida cultural-historical community
• funeral complexes
• weapons
• horse equipment