Ртутный странник: об исследовании одного средневекового погребения
Mercury Wanderer: a study of a medieval burial

Author(s): Zvezdana V. Dode
Subject(s): History, Archaeology, Middle Ages, 6th to 12th Centuries, 13th to 14th Centuries
Published by: Издательский дом Stratum, Университет «Высшая антропологическая школа»
Keywords: Central Asia; Mongol Empire; Golden Horde; medieval nomads; Shumaevo cemetery; burial with mercury; archaeological textiles; defleshing; radiocarbon analysis; embalming; funerary rite
Summary/Abstract: The excavation process of a unique medieval burial containing mercury in one of the kurgans of the Shumaevo burial ground was conducted with a number of methodological and analytical errors, that resulted in an incorrect attribution of the complex to the period of the Golden Horde. “Technical details” that were taken for granted without any critical examination were reproduced in a number of publications and engendered a number of invalid conclusions regarding the origin, social station and spiritual habits of the Shumaevo warrior. New data obtained from studying textiles from the burial indicate the mistaken dating of the burial and the premature nature of the conclusions regarding the complex’s connection with the political and cultural history of the Mongols. The burial was made by the early medieval nomads that were dominant in Central Asia long before the arrival of the Mongols.

• Details
• Contents