Turkic cenotaph from Central Kazakhstan
(based on the materials of the Ketaban burial ground)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52967/akz2023.3.21.125.135Keywords:
archaeology, Central Kazakhstan, Ketaban, early Middle Ages, Turkic culture, Items of armaments and horse harnessAbstract
Early Middle Ages in Central Kazakhstan are marked by the spread of fundamentally new cultural stereotypes, connected with the Turks. These are as follows: characteristic quadrangular fences, the statuary tradition of a new iconographic appearance, changes in funeral rites, spread of new types of products, mainly stirrups. The structure no. 2 of the Ketaban burial ground was an octagonal complex of two stone barrows. It contained two fences with burials of horses accompanied by weapons and horse harness. According to the totality of the features presented in the ritual practice (presence of an intra-grave structure connected with the decoration of a human burial; items not related to the equestrian equipment, etc.), this object is interpreted as a cenotaph. Radiocarbon dating was carried out on a sample of horse bone at the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology (Vilnius, Lithuania), using accelerated mass spectrometry. It has established the age of the structure within 1 half of 7th century (calibrated interval – 595–657). This agrees with typological analogues of iron stirrups and udis and allows to consider the structure no. 2 of Ketaban burial ground as one of the most ancient monuments of Turkic culture in Central Kazakhstan.
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