Kurgan (burial mound)

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Thracian tumulus near Pomorje , Bulgaria
Schematic cross-section of a mound

Kurgan ( Russian курга́н , kurgán "hill, mound", originally borrowed from a Turkic language) refers to a large, conical burial mound made of earth or stones, as can be found mainly in the area of ​​the former Soviet states. In German mostly referred to as " hill grave ", the term tumulus is common in the Romance-speaking area . Such burial mounds were created from the Neolithic to ancient times , in some places until the Middle Ages . They are often found in Moldova , Russia , Ukraine, and the East Georgian Trialeti culture (Middle Bronze Age). There are also numerous Kurgane in Southeastern and Central Europe. Most of the burial chambers in or under the hills have been looted over the millennia, but amazing finds are still being made during archaeological excavations.

etymology

There are two main sources for the Russian word kurgán : On the one hand, a derivation from the Old Turkish korgan (refuge, fortress) and then the Middle Turkish kurgan (fortress, rampart , main shrine) is assumed. Both are considered as a sound shift of the Old Turkish korigan , with the root korı- (protect, defend) and the Old Turkish suffix -gan . On the other hand, kurgán is derived from the old Turkish root qur- , originally from Urturkisch * kur- "(a building) to erect, to found". A clear separation between the Russian kurgán and the original Turkish * kōrɨ-kan (fence, protection) is difficult to establish.

Stone Age and Bronze Age

The Kurgane of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age (from the 5th millennium BC ) were mostly built along rivers by members of the so-called ocher grave culture ( bar grave , pit grave culture and catacomb grave culture ). They contain a burial chamber with a single male skeleton, sometimes together with skeletons of one or more women and subordinates who appear to have been sacrificed for burial . Grave goods are often weapons, in later graves also sacrificed horses and whole wagons.

The Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has summarized a number of these burial mound-building peoples of the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova due to common characteristics of their burials as " Kurgan culture ".

Iron age

During the Iron Age ( 1st millennium BC ) Kurganes were built mainly by Scythians and Sarmatians in the Eurasian region, mainly on the highest elevations in the Eurasian steppe . These burial mounds often formed a chain of five to ten kilometers in length, which perhaps also served to delimit the area. Finds from this epoch became known to the public mainly because of the " gold of the Scythians ". For decades, women's skeletons have also been found here in individual graves. The American archaeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball divides them into four groups, depending on the type and number of grave goods: female warriors , priestesses , warrior-priestesses and women of the hearth . Davis-Kimball sees here references to the equality of women in Sarmatian tribes, which is discussed as a possible origin of the Amazon myth.

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Experimental archeology

The experimental archeology has been found that at least 100 persons were employed for a month to build a Kurgan-grave hill in steppe areas, without the usual lining of the actual grave chamber (s) with wood or stone materials. There is evidence that wood for the burial chambers was often felled in winter (in the wooded winter quarters) and transported over long distances to the place of burial. Finished Kurgane could reach a height of over 20 meters.

See also

literature

  • Lyudmila Konstantinovna Galanina u. a .: The Kurgane of Kelermes: "Royal Tombs" of the early Kythian period (= steppe peoples of Eurasia. Volume 1). Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 1997, ISBN 5-89526-001-2 (2003 new edition: ISBN 3-8053-2807-9 ; searchable view in Google book search).
  • Anatoli Nagler: Kurgane of the Mozdok steppe in North Caucasus (= archeology in Eurasia. Volume 3). Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, ISBN 3-89646-252-0 (doctoral thesis 1993).

Web links

Commons : Kurgans  - collection of images
Wiktionary: Kurgan  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry kurgan. In: Etymological Turkish Dictionary Nişanyan .
  2. ↑ Entries * Kōrɨ- and * Kur-. In: Sergei Anatoljewitsch Starostin and others: Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Brill, Leiden 2003.