Research of the Chimkent Pedagogical Institute
The detachment of the institute continued to explore the monuments of agricultural and pastoral culture of the first half of the 1st millennium AD in the Sairam district of the Chimkent region.
The Karatobe settlement, located on the right bank of Sairam-su, 5 km west of Sairam, is a two-part hillock (tobe and platform) measuring 65x70 m at the base, up to 14 m high, elongated along the southeast-northwest axis. Excavations on the main hill (80 sq. m.) revealed the destruction of cultural strata to a depth of 1.8-2 m due to modern construction work (Over 200 sq). At a depth of 0.5-0.9 m from the daylight surface, the contours of five upper building horizons, rectangular in terms of the premises, were revealed. Ceramics, stone tools represent the material. The ceramic complex includes vessels of various functional purposes. Decor elements: corrugation, wavy lines traced on wet clay, ring tucks, engobe coating in brown, light brown and cherry shades, polishing. Boat-shaped grain graters, pestles, graters and whetstones were found. The monument is tentatively dated to the 1st-4th centuries.
The burial ground of Karatobe is located on a high ledge of the right above-floodplain terrace of Sairam-su, stretching along the riverbed for 1.5-2 km. It includes more than 120 burial mounds of various sizes. Excavations were carried out in the western part of the burial ground in a group of seven burial mounds. The mounds are structurally homogeneous (loess) (diameter 9-14 m, height 0.4-1 m). Six barrows have been unearthed. Two of them were robbed. The burial structures of the rest are catacombs of two types: 1) a narrow trench-stepped dromos adjoins the center of the burial chamber perpendicularly); 2) a similar dromos adjoins at an angle to one of the rounded ends of the burial chamber. The chambers are rectangular vaulted. The chamber and the dromos junction was laid with raw brick (rectangular or square). The chambers were located at a depth of 2.1-2.8 m from the day surface with significant (up to 3-4 m) displacement from the center of the mound. The funnel-shaped or rectangular mouth of the dromos was not covered by the embankment and was outside it.
A funeral rite is a group (up to five skeletons in one chamber) corpse position on the back, with the head oriented mainly to the east. The inventory is represented by jugs, pots, mugs, bowls and incense burners, round belt buckles, single-edged iron petiolate knives without crosshairs, beads made of vitreous paste. Sheep bones and coals were found in the chambers.
A single burial was unearthed with a rich set of beads, shell pendants, a bronze mirror, and a zoomorphic pendant in the form of a rooster (pheasant?). Preliminary burials are dated from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD.