MENU
|
|
. |
. |
MAYKOP PEOPLE LEFT FOR A BETTER LUCK
Natalya
Ivanona
Moscow, state
Historical Museum |
|
CC-Literature
and History Department |
. |
Russian
archaeologists excavated burial-mounds at the South of
Kalmykia and found a burial, which is thought to have been
made by Maykop people - the mysterious people that lived more
than five thousand years ago near the Kuban River.
|
|
|
|
. |
The
scientists believe it to be the traces of colonization:
these formerly very rich people tried to assimilate
other regions at the end of their history. The
disappearance of Maykop people still remains a mystery.
Natalya Shishlina, the custodian of the Bronze Age
collection of the Eurasian steppes and the Caucasus,
State Historical Museum, have for almost twenty years
been working in Kalmykia, excavating burial-mounds
spread all over the steppes in great quantities. It was
ten years ago that the scientist first came across
Maykop people - the mysterious tribe that lived more
than five years ago near the Kuban River. They left this
fertile land quite suddenly and without any clear
reason. Maykop people were rich crop-growers and
cattle-breeders with a developed culture. They are
believed to have moved from the Near East, most likely
from Anatolia (modern Iran). They brought the newest
technologies with them. They mastered the potter's
wheel, weaving, metallurgy, elaborate jewelry
production. They introduced these technologies into the
life of people living across the Caucasus aside from the
great ancient civilizations. After having spent some
five hundred years in the fertile valley of the Kuban
River, Maykop people disappeared suddenly from there and
now the scientists find their traces between the Caspian
Sea and the Sea of Azov.
According to modern data, Maykop people moved from the
Kuban River valley to the North, to the banks of the Don
River, and then turned to the Southeast, to the open
steppes. There were some artifacts left by Maykop people
excavated in the Stavropol Territory, but only solitary
burials were found so deep into the steppes. The
scientists did not believe them to be the traces of
Maykop people, but of some accidental strangers. With
time a hypothesis developed, saying that they did
proceed so far searching for a better luck and here came
the finale of the drama - the last Maykop people melted
away among the steppes cultures of the Bronze Age,
nevertheless, introducing their knowledge and culture
into the live of the latter. N. Shishlina was eager to
get more facts to prove this hypothesis. This summer her
expedition found a burial place of the Maykop period.
Under the high burial-mound there was a right-angular
hole covered with wooden boards. At the bottom of the
burial there was a skeleton of an adult lying writhing
on its right side with its head to the South and its
hands at the face. A long bronze knife of a fine form
broadened to the upper part was by the head. Only Maykop
people had such knives. Nearby there was a kind of a
stone tool. Round the pelvis there were stone beads
strewn: the dead is likely to have had an embroidered
belt on. All the features make for a Maykop man. Still
the scientists can be sure of it only after the
radiocarbon analysis dating of the skeleton bones and
anthropological examining.
"Our excavations bring about more questions, rather than
answers", says N. Shishlina. "Why did an agricultural
people decide to leave for the open steppes, where the
only possible mean of existence is cattle breeding? Did
they grow crops there? Did they have settlements?" At
least now the scientists have a chance to find out, how
Maykop people looked like, for until now all the
skeletons ever found were in a very poor condition.
|
. |
. |
|
|
. |
|
|