Excavations of a Late Iron Age burial ground in the south-west of Kuzbass

The expedition of the Prokopyevsk Museum of Local Lore continued excavations of the burial ground of the late period of the Iron Age in the valley of the Ur river in the Belovsky district of the Kemerovo region. The object of the excavations was the eastern group on the right bank of the river, south of the village of Saratovka. There are 39 burial mounds in the group, two of them with elongated mounds. This year, 11 burial mounds have been excavated, in which 31 burials with a cremation ceremony have been found. The burial was completed at the level of the horizon of the mainland, directly under the dam. The rite of burial was performed in most cases outside the mound square.

The exception is a barrow with an elongated mound, stretched from east to west by 44 m. The barrow turned out to be a family cemetery with ​​327 square meters. m. In its eastern part, there was a hearth with an area of 4 square meters with a very thick layer of calcined sandstone. Traces of a wooden pole were found on the eastern side of the hearth. At various depths of calcined sandstone, 800 beads were collected. Undoubtedly, the hearth served as a place for performing the burial rite. On the buried area of ​​the mound there are 18 burials of adults and children, which contained burnt human bones, charcoal, bronze and silver items with strong scale.

Animal bones (horse and cow) and horse skulls lay in anatomical order next to burnt human bones. 138 objects made of iron, bronze, silver and bone were also found here. The most interesting of them is a carved stone from a ring with a hieroglyph, a whorl with signs, two massive gilded silver plaques, and a silver bracelet.

Among the items of horse harness were bits, stirrups, plaques from the bridle. Also found were bone and iron arrowheads clay vessels located in nests in the mound at various depths. The other ten excavated kurgans are small in size, with barely noticeable mounds. Among the things found in these barrows, two coins (silver and bronze), a bronze openwork spoon from a children's burial, and a bronze ornamented botalo (shepherd's bell) are especially noteworthy.

The whole complex of things and 235 of them were found, dates back to the first half of the 9th century.