Kropotov V.V. Sarmatian Burial Monuments of the Steppe Crimea
Viktor V. Kropotov, Candidate of Sciences (History), Senior Researcher, Institute of Archaeology of the Crimea, RAS
Prosp. Vernadskogo, 2, 295007 Simferopol,
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Abstract. The article is devoted to the general characteristics of kurgan graves of the Sarmatian time that are located in the Steppe Crimea to define their cultural and chronological origins. Today we are aware of 19 suchmonuments. All of them are included in embankments of more ancient barrows. Almost all corpses are directed to the northern sector and only one corpse – to the southern one. The burial items that accompanied them are characterized by chronological frameworks of the 2nd century BC – 1st century AD. Thus, the formation time of 12 complexes refers to the period of AD boundary, and only three burials are dated by the next period. Four burial places cannot be dated exactly.
The analogous inlet burials with North-oriented corpse are widespread in Pontic Steppes to the north from the Crimean peninsula. The objects that had been found in them are basically characteristic for the end of the 2ndcentury BC – first half of the 1st century AD. The things, which had been reliably dated by second half of the 1st – beginning of the 2nd centuries AD, may be found in burial places of other funeral tradition (the main sub-barrow burials). So, all described here Crimean monuments are referred to the middle of the 1st century AD. Their main distinctive properties are: use of more ancient barrows for a burial place, primary orientation of the dead in northern sector, insignificant depth of burial places, modesty of funeral stock, etc. All of the above features are also typical for Early-Sarmatian monuments of the Northern Pontic Region, therefore the similar Crimean burial complexes should be referred to the given set of antiquities.
Key words: the Steppe Crimea, the Sarmatians, burial monuments, barrows, Late Hellenism – Early Roman time.
Citation. Kropotov V.V., 2016. Sarmatian Burial Monuments of the Steppe Crimea. The Lower Volga Archaeological Bulletin, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 22-39. (in Russian). DOI: http://doi.org/10.15688/nav.jvolsu.2016.1.2
Sarmatian Burial Monuments of the Steppe Crimea by Kropotov V.V. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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