Taksai kurgans
51°11′48″N 52°10′37″E / 51.196575°N 52.176884°E
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Saka kurgans[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Taksai kurgans (more precisely Taksai-1, Ru: Таксайский курган) are a series of Saka[2] or Sauromatian[3] funeral mound or kurgan, located in the Terekti District of the southern Urals, in western Kazakhstan.[4] It is dated to circa 500 BCE.[4] The Kurgan was undisturbed and had provided numerous valuable artifacts.[4][5] It was the tomb of a rich Saka lady, dubbed the "golden lady".[4] Some of the objects reflect the iconography of the Achaemenid Empire, which must have been in contact with these nomadic tribes.[4]
The nomadic people of the southern Ural are traditionally identified as Sauromatians, but the people of the Taksai kurgan seem to be issued from the immigration of a new wave of nomads to the region around the 6th century BCE, who were caracterized by this type of kurgans, and may represent the immigration of Asian nomads to the Urals, possibly prompted by the conflicts with the Achaemenid Empire.[3]
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Taksai plan of barrow no. 6, burial ground Taksay-1; 2 – central pit covered by logs;3 – grave no. 3.
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Taksai-1, barrow 6 artifacts
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Taksai-1 Barrow 6 lady (reconstruction)
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Pendant, Taksai I kurgan 6, 6-5th century BCE.[6]
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Gold appliqués in the form of a ram’s head, Barrow 6 of Taksai I, Kazakhstan
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Taksai I, kurgan 6, 5th–4th century BCE. H. 46.0 cm. Collection of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan
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Small sewed-on plaque in the form of a swastika, formed from four heads of griffins. Taksai I, mound 6
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Taksai artifacts
See also
- Filippovka kurgans, about 100 km to the east
Sources
- Summerer, Lâtife (1 January 2020). The wooden comb of the ‘golden lady’: a new battle image from the Taksai-1 kurgan (western Kazakhstan).
References
- ^ Image file with complete data, Amir, Saltanat; Roberts, Rebecca C. (2023). "The Saka 'Animal Style' in Context: Material, Technology, Form and Use". Arts. 12: 23. doi:10.3390/arts12010023.
- ^ Times, Astana (27 September 2019). "Kazakh National Museum to present masterpieces of ancient and medieval art in Kuala Lumpur". The Astana Times.
the Saka mounds of Taksai in the West Kazakhstan Region
- ^ a b Summerer 2020, p. 604, notes 82, 85: "The southern Ural piedmont is traditionally associated with the Sauromatians, a collective ethnonym used for all nomadic people living in the vast region east of the Don at the time of Herodotus. However, recent studies see the inhabitants of this region as multi-ethnic and favour the more neutral term of early nomads of the southern Ural piedmont. While the Bronze Age in the southern Ural region is archaeologically well evidenced, there seems to be a hiatus in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. It has been suggested that new nomad groups came into the region during the 6th century BC. The earliest archaeological evidence of this immigration is a group of kurgan burials of the late 6th or early 5th century BC, of which Taksai-1 is part."
- ^ a b c d e Summerer 2020.
- ^ Lukpanova, Yana Amangeldyevna (30 November 2018). "A complex of ritual objects from the elite female burial in Western Kazakhstan" (PDF). Samara Journal of Science. 7 (4): 228–232. doi:10.17816/snv201874211.
- ^ Pankova, Svetlana; Simpson, St John (1 January 2017). Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia. p. 137, item 67.