Excavations of the Zhelduzek burial ground

The East Kazakhstan expedition of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, with the participation of the Regional Museum of Local History, began researching the Zhelduzek burial ground 3 km northeast of Vasilievka, Ulan district, East Kazakhstan region, in the zone of construction of irrigation systems on the "Krasnoaltaisky" state farm fields.

A significant part of the burial ground has been plowed up. Mound 1 contained a box (2.3*1.15*0.4 m) of six slate slabs oriented to the northeast. Human bones were found in the filling of the box at different depths; the crushed skull and the blue paste bead were closer to the northeast corner. In barrow 2, 15 m in diameter and 1.5 m high, a completely plundered rectangular grave (5.8x6.4 m) was discovered.

The burial chamber structure of the early nomadic mound 3 (diameter 20 m, height 2 m), built of large slabs, is of interest. Its lower part is deepened into the ground by 1.1 m, the upper part is built according to the principle of a false vault and is covered with powerful transverse blocks. Dimensions of the chamber from the inside: length 4.66 m, width at the western end 2 m, at the eastern end 1.34 m, maximum height 2.2 m. The east half of the structure (1.9 m) was a narrow dromos with straight sidewalls. When dismantling the dromos, a deer stone (without images) was found, used as a building material. On the floor of the "corridor," lined with slabs, were scattered bones of a person, the remains of food for the dead (the vertebra of a horse and the lower jaw of a sheep). There were also gold beads, paste beads, a bone handicraft earring (?) made of gold wire. In another heavily disturbed late nomadic (9th century) mound, mixed horse and man bones were found. Inventory: a set of silver belts, patch plaques, buckles, iron arrowheads, stirrup, a bone overlay for a bow and a fragment of a bow limb (kibiti), knot plaques, etc.