NEWLY DISCOVERED CATACOMB BURIAL OF THE 8-9TH CENTURIES IN THE TERRITORY OF CHECHNYA

Abstract

The paper introduces material of two catacomb burials, discovered and investigated by the researchers of the Center for Archeological Research at the Institute of Humanitarian studies of Chechen Academy of Sciences during the archeological reconnaissance in the territory of Shali region of the Chechen Republic, on the land of one of the homeowners of the village Serjen-Yurt. The burial is located at the border of the Chechen plains and Cherny mountains, at their very foot, on a steep slope of the ridge, in the place of its transition into a flat terrace above flood-plain of the left bank of the river Khulkhulau. Remnants of three people (a man, a woman and a child) were revealed in the catacomb №1. In anatomical order, only the woman’s skeleton was found, while the bones of the other two buried were placed at the right side wall of the burial chamber. The woman’s grave goods included earrings, a neck ring (torc), bracelets, glass and cornelian beads, a “horned” buckle, etc. In an almost collapsed burial chamber № 2 remnants of a woman were found, the skeleton of which was purposefully destroyed. Among the remnants of the skeleton were her personal belongings: glass and cornelian beads, bracelets, a “horned” buckle, a pendant, bronze badges. According to the grave goods, the burials can be dated 8th – early 9th centuries. A feature of the investigated burial structures is that the long axis of the chambers was a continuation of the long axis of the entrance pit, while catacombs of the T-type were characteristic for the Alanian population of the North Caucasus of the 6th – 13th centuries.