Намогильные памятники адыгов в XIV-XVI вв.: общая характеристика и проблема культур-но-этнической принадлежности

Abstract

The funeral and memorial rites of the Adygs are one of the fundamental, structure-forming elements of the spiritual culture of the people. Starting from the late middle ages and up to the present time, the burial practices of the Adygs have been transformed under the effect of external and internal factors. In the late middle ages, when the predominant part of the Adygs adhered to paganism, under-barrow rite of the dead was dominated at the entire historical space of their residence. Barrows of the XIV-XVI centuries are represented by earth, stone or mixed mounds about a meter high, erected above the buried in a wooden block, usually oriented along the line W - E. Late medieval Adyghe mounds are on the plane and in the foothills. Adyghe mounds can be divided into three local groups: The Eastern Black Sea, Zakubansk (Belorechensk), Kabardino-Pyatigorsk. Each of these groups has its own specifics. The late medieval barrow burial grounds by Adyghs occupies the area from the Northern Black Sea region in the west to the borders of modern plain Chechnya in the east; from the Kuma River in the north to the foothills of the Rocky and Caucasian Ranges in the south (except for burial grounds in the mountains of the North-Western Caucasus, near the modern Karachay villages of Kart-Dzhurt, Uchkulan and Khurzuk). The belonging of the the North Caucasian barrows of the 14th – 16th centuries to the Adygs is confirmed by archeological data, narrative sources and folklore materials.