Research in Dzhetyasar tract

The Dzhetyasar detachment of the Khorezm expedition of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences continued excavations of Dzhetyasar 12 settlement in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya. The work was carried out on both platforms of the fortress, while more than two-thirds of the territory of the high central platform was uncovered in a continuous area. In addition to fortifications (three protruding towers, two parallel shooting corridors of different building horizons, later fortress walls), about 130 rooms were excavated, belonging to at least five building periods.

On the northern section of the lower platform, the excavation (7) adjoined the fortress walls of the upper platform. Here, seven rooms were cleared and the remains of the outer fortress wall, set on the mainland, were traced. The interior of these rooms is similar to that recorded in the rooms of the middle building horizons on the upper platform.

On the upper platform, excavations 1 and 4 were deepened within individual residential sections and premises, and the structures of the upper building horizons were dismantled. As a result, the original fortress wall was cleared in its western and eastern sections. The wall, placed on the mainland, expanded significantly from the outside to the base and was equipped with loopholes, located at a height that implied firing only in a standing position or using special bridges. Along the fortress wall with loopholes, a corridor was perpendicular to which there were corridor-like rooms and large “halls”. The bulk of the residential premises within the original fortress wall was probably built on a 2-meter platform of pakhsa blocks, placed directly on the mainland as the pits showed. All rooms of the lower building horizon had rather thick walls, which suggests the existence of vaulted ceilings. As can be judged already at present, the layout of the lower construction horizon differed sharply from the residential development of all overlying construction periods. The excavations have confirmed that the original central platform had an oval (or subrectangular with smoothly rounded corners) shape in plan. At the same time, the location of the entrance to the fortress did not coincide with the later one. Vaulted, sub-rectangular towers (five) were added to the original fortress wall during the second construction period. Two of them flanked the entrance to the fortress. In the same period, the entire inner space of the central platform was divided in two by a meridional corridor, with smaller corridors extending from it at right angles. The usual residential section included two or three functionally different rooms. The interior layout of the main living space with wide low sufas, a central hearth, and a fireplace is extremely typical. Inside the main walls of the section, the rooms were repeatedly rebuilt, even their number and location changed, but the interior remained unchanged.

In the upper building horizons within the section, the rooms were often located at different levels and communicated by narrow stairways. Almost every residential section was connected to a specific section of the shooting gallery, built (by blind compartments) between the towers in the third building period. Obviously, members of a certain family had to protect "their" section of the shooting corridor, using it in peacetime as a residential or utility room. After constructing the second ring of the shooting corridor (also with blind compartments), these peaceful functions remained the only ones for the compartments of the first corridor. Among the finds, besides the characteristic Dzhetyasar ceramics, we note petiolate bone arrowheads, stone and bone (and from fish vertebrae) beads.

Simultaneously with the work on the settlement, the study of the burial structures of the Dzhetyasyr people continued. To the southwest of the settlement, in a burial ground on the bank of an ancient riverbed, several burials were excavated that did not preserve ground structures. Like the previously opened burials, the grave pits were surrounded by ditches that were not enclosed from the south. Often in the eastern wall of a grave under a rectangular plan, a small food was arranged, where vessels and bones of rams were placed. The buried lay on reed-reed mats and sometimes were covered with them, stretched out on their backs, with their heads to the north with seasonal deviations. The burial inventory is similar to that found at Dzhetyasar 2.