Exploration work in East Kazakhstan

The East Kazakhstan Regional Museum of Local Lore expedition conducted a survey in the Tauride region along the Zhartas, Kovalevka and Irtysh Rivers. Nine kurgan groups, a deer stone and five anthropomorphic stelae were discovered. As a rule, next to the burial grounds there are Kazakh cemeteries of the 18th-20th centuries and the remains of abandoned winterings. It should be noted that in the designs of the grave structures of the Kazakhs, some commonality with ancient monuments is seen: the presence of family tombs in one fence and a stone embankment over the graves, the custom of placing steles on the eastern side of the embankment.

In this regard, the kurgan groups Kovalevka I-IV, located on a cape at the mouth of the river, are of interest. Kovalevka, which flows into the Irtysh River. The burial ground covers an area of ​​more than 2 square km. The Kovalevka I complex includes 24 Bronze Age fences 3–24 m in diameter, stretched in a chain from west to east along the left bank of the Irtysh. Some of them show the outlines of stone boxes. Group II is located at the foot (from the east) of the Kovalevka hill and has 36 fences with a diameter of 5–18 m. Group III consists of 20 stone mounds with a diameter of 5–20 m and a height of 0.2–1.0 m and nine rounded fences with a diameter of 15 m of the Bronze Age, located on a flat area between the southern slope of the Kovalevka hill and the bank of the dry bed of the Irtysh. Near one of the burial mounds, a fallen anthropomorphic stele made of gray granite was found in this group. There is a horizontal groove on its front side in the belt area with an oval recess resembling a dombra. The secondary use of a stone statue of the 13th-14th centuries at the Kazakh grave of the beginning of the 20th century was also recorded on the territory of the kurgan group III. Group IV includes 15 Bronze Age fences and 41 stone mounds. It stretches from north to south along the left bank of the dry bed of the Irtysh. There is also a Kazakh cemetery on the territory of this group. Here mounds with a stone embankment 5–45 m in diameter and 0.2–4.5 m high and earth mounds were noted. At the base of some earthen embankments, there are vertically placed slabs forming a circle or a quadrangle (5x4 m) and calculations of square-shaped stones laid flat. One rounded fence with a diameter of 30 m covers 11 smaller fences built from vertically placed slabs.

Burial ground Zhartas I, located 2 km northeast of the Gagarin village on the left bank of the Zhartas River, includes 114 burial structures of different times - from the Bronze Age to the 3rd-4th centuries. In the northern half of the burial ground, a mound with a "moustache" was found. It consists of two stone mounds with a diameter of 4 and 6 m and a height of 0.4 m, adjacent to each other along the west-east line, and two arched stone ridges - mustaches. The southern "mustache" length is 30 m, the northern one is 28 m. A deer stone made of fine-grained pink granite was found on the territory of the burial ground - a bar-like monolith with a beveled edge from the side of the "nape". Eight slanted relief lines render the face. On the right bank of the Zhartas River, Zhartas II and III mound groups were recorded, consisting of rounded fences of the Bronze Age and stone mounds of the Early Iron Age.