The tumulus is part of a big cemetery situated near the village of Borissovo. It was 8 m high and its diameter was 60 m. Seven burial structures and two pits were discovered under the tumulus. One of the pits yielded a chariot together with the skeletons of a couple of harness horses and the second one – the skeletons of two riding horses. The chariot was completely preserved. It was placed in a pit measuring 2.80×6.20 m, 1.40 m deep.
The long axis of the pit was north-south oriented and its northern part was slanting making it easy to drive in it the cart and the horses. Because of the narrowness of the pit, the spokes of wheels had been broken, the wheels had been detached and placed at the walls of the pit. As a result of this action, the naves remained attached to the axles. In contrast to the wheels, the framework and the basket of the cart rested on their original places.
The cart was supported by stones in order to be fixed in upright position. The fact that the axels, the framework and the basket of the cart were preserved in situ provided opportunity to define very precisely its type as well as the location of its parts.
The analysis of the position of the horses in front of the cart provided the conclusion that they had been killed in the pit. The horses were buried with lavishly decorated harnesses and a yoke. The iron bars were placed on the horses’ heads. The shape of the yoke can be reconstructed after the few traces of wood, the yoke rings found in situ and the silver ornaments of the horse collars.
The yoke is abundantly decorated with bronze appliqués and has 13 bronze rings. The central ornament of the cart – an exquisite figurine of a panther on a solid bronze stand – was found on the shaft, between the skeletons of the two horses. A skeleton of a dog was unearthed behind the cart, tied up to it with a chain. The chariot is dated back to the late 1st – the early 2nd century AD.
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Great Salbyk Kurgan - Khakassia
Büyük Salbık Kurganı - Hakasya
Turkish Kurgan
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Avusturya Kurganları / Austria Tumulus
The Burgstallkogel (458 m; also known as Grillkogel) is a hill situated near the confluence of the Sulm and the Saggau river valleys in Southern Styria in Austria, about 30 km south of Graz between Gleinstätten and Kleinklein.
The hill hosted a significant settlement of trans-regional importance from 800 BC to about 600 BC. Surrounding the hill is one of the largest iron age necropolises in continental Europe, originally composed of at least 2,000 tumuli.
The rulers and their aristocracy, which prided itself on military leadership, had the easternmost part of the necropolis to themselves. Naturally, their tumuli (of which four are known - Hartnermichelkogel I and II, Pommerkogel and Kröllkogel) were the largest and richest ones, containing significant amounts of bronze vessels and iron armament in addition to pottery. It is assumed that the chieftains' tumuli were modeled on Etruscan tombs. The cremation places have not been found, but are supposed to have been either near the grave site or near the hilltop.
The Kröllkogel was the last hill grave to be set up for a chieftain ruling the Burgstallkogel settlement, most likely dating to the first half of the 6th century BC. It had been scientifically probed (and clandestinely robbed) many times from the mid-1900s onward. (Among weapons and impressive bronze vessels, these early and badly documented digs yielded the famous small face mask with the pair of hands which subsequently became a symbol for the necropolis).
A final and total excavation of this large tumulus, conducted in 1995 following thorough geomagnetic and geoelectric prospections, unveiled an astounding amount of previously ignored pottery (much of it ritually smashed for the burial), and other very remarkable findings, including osteological proof of cremation of three people (two male, one female), several animals, and a bronze sword that was already about 200 years old (and totally outmoded for actual combat) when it was burnt and buried alongside the deceased ruler.
The central burial chamber was 8 x 8 m in size. From measurements and comparisons with similar graves in Slovenia, an original tumulus diameter of 40 m and an original height of 12 m could be inferred.
Bull's head pottery from a Hallstatt era tumulus in Southern Styria, Austria (museum display)
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ADENA CULTURE
Grave Creek Mound...At 69 feet (21 m) high and 295 feet (90 m) in diameter, is the largest conical-type burial mound in the United States. It is located in Moundsville, West Virginia. In 1838, much of the archaeological evidence in this mound was destroyed when several nonarchaeologists tunneled into the mound....
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TOTERFOUT - VELDHOVEN / HOLLANDA
Çapı 53 m olan KURGAN + etrafında 30m ve 40m çaplı Küçük Kurganlar
OSS/HOLLANDA
BELÇİKA - WALLOON BRABANT
The Tumulus d'Hottomont, Grand-Rosière-Hottomont,
Walloon Brabant, Belgium
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MACARİSTAN / HUNGARY
OĞUZ KURGANI (adı bu) UKRAYNA
OGHUZ KURGAN / UKRAINE
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The heavenly horse - Cheonmado
Cheonmachong, formerly Tomb No.155, is a tumulus located in Gyeongju, South Korea. The tomb was excavated in 1973 and is believed to date probably from the fifth century but perhaps from the sixth century CE. The tomb was for an unknown king of the Silla Kingdom.
Wood-lined chamber running east to west and is covered in a mound of boulders and earth. This kind of tomb is said to follow the pattern of a tomb in Pazyryk.
The tomb is 47 metres in diameter, 157 metres in circumference, and 12.7 metres in height.
A total of 11,500 artifacts were recovered from the tomb. The name of the tomb derives from a famous painting of a white horse which is depicted on a birch bark saddle flap, also referred to as a mud-guard.
The horse, a Cheonma (Korean pegasus), has eight legs and is depicted with wings on its feet. This painting is a rare example of extant Silla painting and indicates a strong influence by the Korean Goguryeo Kingdom.
The burial of horse trappings and the sacrifice of a horse with the king shows the importance of horse culture in Silla society and indicates the central role of the king in shamanism practiced by the people.
The entrance of Cheonmachong tomb located in Gyeongju,
North Gyeongsang province, South Korea
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Daisen Kofun - 5th c
the largest of all kofun, one of many tumuli in the Mozu kofungun, Sakai, Osaka
Kofun (古墳, from Sino-Japanese "ancient grave") are megalithic tombs or tumuli in Japan, constructed between the early 3rd century and the early 7th century AD.
Many of the Kofun have distinctive keyhole-shaped mounds, which are unique to ancient Japan.
More than 200,000 tumuli (kofun) were built throughout the Japanese archipelago from the southern part of the Tôhoku region on the main island of Honshû to the southern part of the island of Kyûshû. These kofun were burial mounds for members of the ruling elite, possessing powerful political significance as monumental structures.
Ōmuro Kofungun (in Gunma) - Japan
Namiuchi - Japan
Oka Kofungun - Japan
Tumuli with carvings in Shikoku. A group of 16 tumuli, 6 of them have some carvings in their passages or chambers.
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Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, in the English county of Suffolk, is the site of two 6th- and early 7th-century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance, now held in the British Museum in London.
The most significant artefacts from the ship-burial, displayed in the British Museum, are those found in the burial chamber, including a suite of metalwork dress fittings in gold and gems, a ceremonial helmet, shield and sword, a lyre, and many pieces of silver plate from East Roman (Byzantium).
Of the two grave fields found at Sutton Hoo, one (the "Sutton Hoo cemetery") had long been known to exist because it consists of a group of approximately 20 earthen burial mounds that rise slightly above the horizon of the hill-spur when viewed from the opposite bank. The other, called here the "new" burial ground, is situated on a second hill-spur close to the present Exhibition Hall, about 500 m upstream of the first, and was discovered and partially explored in 2000 during preparations for the construction of the hall. This also had burials under mounds, but was not known because they had long since been flattened by agricultural activity.
Carver believes that the cremation burials at Sutton Hoo were "among the earliest" in the cemetery. Two were excavated in 1938.
Under Mound 3 were the ashes of a man and a HORSE placed on a wooden trough or dugout bier, a Frankish iron-headed throwing-axe and imported objects from the eastern Mediterranean, including the lid of a bronze ewer, part of a miniature carved plaque depicting a winged Victory and fragments of decorated bone from a casket.
Under Mound 4 was the cremated remains of a man and a woman, with a HORSE and perhaps also a DOG, as well as fragments of bone gaming-pieces.
In Mounds 5, 6, and 7, Carver found cremations deposited in bronze bowls.
In Mound 5 were found gaming-pieces, small iron shears, a cup, and an ivory box.
Mound 7 also contained gaming-pieces, as well as an iron-bound bucket, a sword-belt fitting and a drinking vessel, together with the remains of HORSE, cattle, red deer, sheep, and pig that had been burnt with the deceased on a pyre.
Mound 6 contained cremated animals, gaming-pieces, a sword-belt fitting, and a comb.
The Mound 18 grave was very damaged, but of similar kind. Two cremations were found during the 1960s exploration to define the extent of Mound 5, together with two inhumations and a pit with a skull and fragments of decorative foil. In level areas between the mounds, Carver found three furnished inhumations. One small mound held a child's remains, along with his buckle and miniature spear. A man's grave included two belt buckles and a knife, and that of a woman contained a leather bag, a pin and a chatelaine.
The most impressive of the burials without a chamber is that of a young man who was buried with his HORSE, in Mound 17.
The HORSE would have been SACRIFICED for the funeral, in a ritual sufficiently standardised to indicate a lack of sentimental attachment to it.
Two undisturbed grave-hollows existed side-by-side under the mound. The man's oak coffin contained his pattern welded sword on his right and his sword-belt, wrapped around the blade, which had a bronze buckle with garnet cloisonné cellwork, two pyramidal strapmounts and a scabbard-buckle.
By the man's head was a firesteel and a leather pouch, containing rough garnets and a piece of millefiori glass. Around the coffin were two spears, a shield, a small cauldron and a bronze bowl, a pot, an iron-bound bucket and some animal ribs. In the north-west corner of his grave was a bridle, mounted with circular gilt bronze plaques with interlace ornamentation.
Although the grave under Mound 14 had been destroyed almost completely by robbing, apparently during a heavy rainstorm, it had contained exceptionally high-quality goods belonging to a woman. These included a chatelaine, a kidney-shaped purse lid, a bowl, several buckles, a dress-fastener, and the hinges of a casket, all made of silver, and also a fragment of embroidered cloth.
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SACRIFICING HORSE, BURIALS WITH HORSE
ONLY TO BE SEEN IN TURKISH CULTURE.
First was seen from the 16th c BC.
Turkish culture was carried with Scythian Turks to East Europe in the 6th c BC.
East Hun Turks, Kokturks (Göktürk/Köktürk), Kırghız Turks, Avar Turks, Bulgarian Turks, Kıpchak -Kuman (Cuman) Turks, Europe Hun Turks, Seljuk Turks, Aq Qoyunlu (Akkoyunlu- White Sheep Dynasty) Turks, Black Sheep (Karakoyunlu) Turks sacrified and buried the Horse.... Even in Ottoman Turks, Osman II was burried with his Horse.
LİNK
I'am not saying that Sutto Hoo is Turkish burial (but it can?!).
But, what I am sure of is that, they take this culture from the Turks.
The burial is from the 6th century.....they met each other long time ago......because it is not easily to take the "burial culture" from an other culture, takes time.
SB.
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| Turkish Kurgan in Mongolia |
Kurgan Culture
The Kurgan people culture existed during the fifth, fourth, and third millennia BC, they lived in northern Europe, from N.Pontic across Central Europe. The word "kurgan" means a mound or a barrow in Türkic. Kurgan culture is characterized by pit-graves or barrows, a particular method of burial. They are also called the Pit-grave people (Pit-grave culture), or Barrow people (Barrow culture).
The earliest Kurgan sites of the fifth, fourth, and third millennia BC are in the N.Pontic, from where they spread by about 2000 BC to Central Europe, crossing the Dnieper River. Wherever Kurgan culture spread, it was marked by common elements unlike those of the surrounding Bronze-Age cultures.
Fourth millennia BC: Kurgan peoples had spread across the entire area north of the Black Sea, across northern Europe, and probably east to the natural barrier of the Ural Mountains. In the Caucasus area, they enjoyed a primitive metal culture. When the portable archeological objects, like ornaments, weaponry and other objects more often used in exchanges, are combined with ceramics, and all this is supported by a similarity in the funeral ceremony, the most permanent ethnic attribute, then the ethnic movement is sufficiently proved. This is the case observed in the migration of the Kurgan (Pit Grave) carriers cultures ( Miziev, 1990, p. 18).
The carriers of the Kurgan Pit Grave cultures, the most ancient nomadic sheep breeders, at the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC spread fanlike from the Itil-Yaik center to the north into the Ugro-Finnish tribes. There they entered into a close contact with the indigenous population, which explains the mass of the Türkisms in the language of the Finno-Ugrians and vice-versa. From the Itil-Yaik center the ancient Kurganians spread to the west and mixed with the tribes of the Late Tripolie cultures (Tripolie is dated ca. 4,600-3,500 B. C.). This explains the penetration of Türkisms and the elements of the Türkic culture to the indigenous tribes in the N.Pontic steppes.
Those ancient nomads who left to the southwest entered a close contact with the tribes of the ancient N. Caucasus. From there they penetrated territory of the future Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Near East Asia, where they came into contact with the most ancient settled farming tribes. Some of them also began to engage in agriculture and settled on the land. Along with the nomadic husbandry, the local herding also appeared at that time.
Migrating to the east, the Kurgan people intermixed with tribes of the yellow race, gradually many of them acquired Mongoloid features. There, in the steppes of the Sayano-Altai mountains, Central Asia and Kazakhstan, they became one of the main components of the Türkic peoples: Kazakhs, Kyrgyzes, Khakases, Altaians, Tuvinians, Uigurs, Yakuts, Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc. Through the south of the Turkmenistan and Aral steppe the most ancient nomads penetrated into the Northern Iran and Afghanistan, where they also met the most ancient agricultural tribes.
The traces of influence of the Itil-Yaik Kurgan Pit Grave culture on the cultures of the neighboring tribes were shown in the works of M.P.Grjaznov, O.A.Krivtsovo-Grakova, S.V.Kiselyov, N.Ya.Merpert, A.X. Halikov, N.L.Chlenova, K.A.Akishev, I.I.Artemenko and other archeologists. So, in the N.L.Chlenova's opinion, the active links of the archeological cultures whose initial native land was the Itil-Ural region, were active in a huge territory during many millennia.
She writes that the ceramics with excessively extended shaded triangles is found in the Baikal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Northern Afghanistan, Ukraine and in the Danube Bulgaria. This culture extends from the Yenisei river to the Bulgaria for more than seven and a half thousand kilometers ( Chlenova, 1972, p. 120-126; 1981, p. 22-26). N.L.Chlenova's conclusions are confirmed by V.I.Molodin, basing on the results of the research in the Baraba steppes (Western Siberia). As he said, the funeral ceremony of the Barabians coincides completely with the Pit Grave ceremony.
The author unfolds a unique continuity of the Baraba culture with the Pit-Grave culture of the Itil-Yaik. By his belief, the carriers of the Pit-Grave cultures came to the Baraba from the north and northwest at the end of the Neolithic Age ( Molodin, 1985, p. 75-77, 171. Molodin, W. I. - US$36.00 BARABA IN THE BRONZE AGE Area of the Ob-Irtysh Rivers (Novosybirsk, 1985) 200 pp., illus., 175 x 268 mm). The retrospective study of the historical and ethnographical, and ethno-cultural features of Türkic peoples,
Kurgan ceremony,
Burials in timber, troughs,
Underlayment of the bottom of the tomb with grass, reed , felt,
Accompanying of the deceased with sacrificial horses,
Use in food of koumiss and horsemeat,
Mobile sheep-breeding character of life,
Residing in felt yurts,
- results in a conclusion that genetically these elements go back to the Pit Grave culture, Andronovo, Timber Grave and Scythian tribes. Stated differently, there are all reasons to consider the Pit Grave, or Kurgan culture a basis for the formation of the ethno-cultural features for the most ancient pra-Türkic tribes of the Euro-Asian steppes.
They practiced animal husbandry, in rubbish dumps at Kurgan hill-forts and villages are found bones of lots and lots of horses, many cattle, and a few pigs, sheep and goats. Few bones of wild game (such as deer) were found, so Kurganians were not a hunting culture. Horse-heads carved in diorite were found, with harness-marks cut into them to indicate bridles.
The Kurganian horse-herders, like the Scythians, may had rode geldings only, their main herds being kept wild under stallions, and controlled through the mares which were hobbled near the settlements and milked regularly. Both wild-horse bones and bones of domesticated horses were found in Kurgan sites, modern bone-analysis specialists can apparently tell the difference between the two types. Moreover, modern methods allow to discern between a harnessed horse and a herd horse. The chances of finding bridled horse buried with its owner exist even though for each riding horse were thousands of the herd horses.
Kurgan people used two- and four-wheeled wagons with big unspoked wheels of solid wood. Examples of these have been found, along with of clay images: toy wagons, buried with royalty. Also found were copper figurines of yoked oxen in pairs, so oxen probably drew these solid-wheel carts - which were of about the same proportions, wheel to cartbed, as a child's toy cart with a low rim around it.
Early Kurgan period: copper awls plus tanged, leaf-shaped copper knives or small daggers.
Late Kurgan period: daggers, awls, flat shaft-hole axes. The Kurgan people of the northwest Caucasus mountain region (a center for metallurgy from way back) at about 3500 BC and afterward possessed gold and silver vases, beads, and rings, also bull, goat and lion figurines, also copper axes, adzes, daggers and knives. No bronze objects were found, this means they either had no knowledge of alloying, or no access to tin. The last is unlikely, tin was available to the Persians and Greeks in later days, though the sites of the ancient tin mines are not known. The Kurgans would have panned their gold from rivers in the Caucasus mountains: gold, copper and silver can be found raw in their pure form, ready for use.
The lion figurines at first sound odd, there are certainly no lions in Europe or Asia today. But there is artwork depicting lions, and references to wild lions in the mountains of Macedonia and Asia Minor, which came down into settled lands and preyed upon livestock. So the Kurgan artisans were probably familiar with lions. Equally, there were wild bison in the north of the C. Europe right up to the modern times.
Graves: the Kurgan people left rich treasure-graves containing gold, silver and precious stones. These important graves are set aside in separate cemeteries, and the bodies are committed in timber or stone houses. One body of a man was dressed in a garment onto which gold ornaments had been sewn: 68 lion images, 19 bulls and 38 rings. (Scythians, who succeeded the Kurganians in N.Pontic, too wore garments decorated all over with small gold plaques, like beads but flat and stamped with tiny images.) Necklaces of animal teeth were common. Sun images were also commonplace. Also found were stag figurines with enormous antlers, ornamented with concentric-circle motifs, these were probably linked to rock engravings of stags with supernatural antlers. Also found were horse-heads carved from stone, mounted on rods and used as scepters.
(The scepters was the archeologist's interpretation, the garment hung with metal and horse-wand sounds shamanistic to me. Wands surmounted by horse-heads are a well-known accouterment of Mongolian shamans, who also make a point of sewing metal objects and ribbons onto their ceremonial garments. The more metal the better was their rationale, ie the heavier the garment, the more desirable it was, as for the wands with horse-heads, modern shamans use them as drum-sticks and also as "magic horses" for spirit journeys.)
Braziers were found in Kurgan houses and grave-houses: these burned charcoal and also cow's-dung. Ashes and charcoal were found in the graves: fires had been lit in the braziers inside the grave-houses. The charcoal deserves a special mention because while dung as fuel is free and easy to gather (and cow-droppings, pastoral peoples say, burns better than those of horses or sheep) charcoal has to be specially prepared, but dung burns with an acrid fume and people who live in homes heated by dung fires usually develop eye problems, while charcoal burns with little or no smoke and those who enjoy a charcoal fire are happier and healthier.
Also found were metal cauldrons. . . as in the Scythian graves, where the household goods were buried with the dead chief. The graves of poor people usually contained only a ceramic pot, a flint tool, or nothing.
Also found in some graves were bones from the tails of sheep, the rationale is that the tails of Asian fat-tailed sheep were buried with the dead. The fat-tailed sheep themselves have been raised in Central Asia since before history began. Herodotus mentions them, and they were commonly kept by nomads from the Bedouin of north Africa right up into Siberia.
Unlike European breeds, these sheep grow enormous tails (Türkic 'kurdük'), rather like the humps of camels, fat and marrow-like substances are stored in their tails, just as with the humps of camels, and the sheep themselves are better able to endure arid country. The tails themselves used to be cut off and kept to provide cooking fat, for the kitchens of Türkic, Persian and Arabian women. And they still are to this day.
And since the harnesses of Kurgan horses were made from bone and leather, the graves of poor Kurgans contained only flint tools, and the only worked metal was sewn on people's clothing, one might conclude these people were still well in the grip of the Stone Age.
The knucklebones of sheep were found in many graves (particularly the graves of children) throughout European sites. Knucklebones are a gaming device.
Male and female figures carved from stone (called in Türkic 'Baba') spread across the steppe from Danube to Amur Rivers, are attributed to the descendants of the Scythians, not to prehistoric peoples. According to late middle age chronicle, a legendary statue named Slata Baba once stood near upper Ob river.
Prof.Mario Alinei
Kurgan Culture
TROY KURGAN also known as AJAX TUMULUS
Schliemann's Ausgrabungen in Troja,
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