Research in the Shymkent region

The detachment of the Chimkent Pedagogical Institute continued a comprehensive study of the monuments of agricultural and pastoral culture of the 1st-6th centuries BC in "Ary's river basin, southern slopes of Karatau and Karzhantau". The settlement-fortress of Altyntobe (Bugun district, near Altyntobe) and the burial ground of the same name (0.8 km west of the settlement) were studied.

Altyntobe is an oval-shaped hill 150x90 m in size at the base, 85x35 m in the upper part, 16 m high, elongated with slight deviations along the north-south axis, and surrounded from the south, west, and north by ditches 15-20 m wide, which cut through the western slope of the settlement to the mainland base, the stratigraphy of the site and its typology (a single-layer settlement-fortress on stylobate) were finally revealed. The design features of the stylobate, which is a monolithic platform 12.5-13 m thick, made of rectangular raw bricks 46-48x26-28x8-12 cm in size and pakhsa, combined in horizontal masonry, are determined. The base-stylobate rests on the alluvial promontory ledge of the right floodplain terrace of the ancient river Ak-Bulak. The material of the pit (fragments of household vessels such as khum, khumcha, water-bearing jug) is similar to the material of the upper building horizon of the main excavation and dates back to the 4th-6th centuries BC.

At the burial ground Altyntobe, located on the left terrace above the floodplain of the Ak-Bulak river and including more than 300 mounds, work was carried out on barrows 4; a, 9, and 13. A burial robbed in antiquity in a soil pit measuring 2.2x1.5 m at a depth of 4.1 m from the surface was discovered in mound 13 (a disturbing skeleton without grave goods, oriented to the east). The peculiarities of the burial rite and inventory of some mounds of the burial ground allow us to interpret the latter as a necropolis of the nearby settlement of Altyn-tobe.