About the Social Status of the Woman from Barrow 34 of the Kalinovskiy Burial Mound

Abstract

The paper is devoted to determining the social status of a young woman buried in barrow 34 of the Kalinovskiy burial mound which is located on the left bank of the Volga river within the Volgograd region. The peculiarity of this burial is the presence of the armaments such as sword, arrowheads and horse harness. These items mark the lifetime status of this buried woman as a mounted warrior. The analysis of the funeral rite testifies to the rare cases of existence of armaments and the details of horse harness in female burials. Written sources of earlier time related to Sauromatian history testify to the participation of Sauromatian women in the military actions. According to the custom of that time, they were supposed to kill three enemies before getting married. This information can be regarded as a kind of initiation at transformation of a girl to the status of a married woman. Probably, such a rite was preserved in Sarmatian culture of the first centuries of the new era. This event can be confirmed by archaeological parallels, the burial rite, the Sauromatian and Middle Sarmatian material cultures, and in their similarity in anthropological data.

Keywords

• the sarmatians
• burial
• barrow
• kalinovskiy burial mound
• armament