Excavations of the Bartogay I burial ground

The Semirechie detachment of the expedition of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR carried out work on the Bartogay I burial ground (Chilik district, Alma-Ata region) in the flood zone of the Bartogay reservoir.

The burial ground is located on the first terrace above the floodplain of the Chilik River and consists of two groups. The first is 55 mounds and 18 altars arranged in a compact group, the second is eight mounds and an altar located in a chain on the very edge of the terrace, along the left bank of the river.

The first group of burial mounds is interesting in that five mounds have an outer square stone fence (15x15 m), nine have an outer round fence with an average diameter of 20 m, both of which have an entrance oriented to the east. The altars are also different in design - nine rectangles (1.8X0.8 m), eight-round with an average diameter of 2.0 m. The second group - all round stone mounds. Nine burial mounds and two altars have been explored. Mounds were built using a combined method, the main building materials were earth, pebbles, river sand and stones. Burials were made in stone cists, ground pits, and pit. The stone box was located at a depth of 1.2-1.6 m under an embankment with two or three rows of flat stone ceilings. The box is oriented with its long axis from west to east (1.8х0.8х0.45 m). Burials in soil pits had two mounds. The original one is made of small pebbles with river sand, the second (main) is stone and earthen. Like the buried one, the pit is oriented from west to east. The lining was built in the northern wall of the grave pit at a depth of 1.6-1.8 m and was covered with wooden trimmings that were round in cross section.

Single burials, two children's burials (including one in the side chamber). Near the right humerus, close to the southern wall, all the buried had a ceramic vessel; iron knives were found in four cases. Vessels (bowls, bowls, jugs, mugs), both handmade and easel (in smaller quantities), date back to the 3rd century BC - the border of our era, have analogies in the adjacent regions of Ferghana and Kyrgyzstan. Made of light red clay with an admixture of gruss and sand, the surface is smoothed or polished.

At present, the northern part of the burial ground is under the water of the Bartogay reservoir.