Lazurite in jewelry from monuments of the Basandaika culture

Abstract

The Basandaika culture (11th — 13th centuries) occupied Tomsk and Novosibirsk Ob Regions, Kuznetsk Depression, and part of the forest-steppe Altai.

In order to study the stated problem, the authors have taken grave goods from seven burial grounds: Anikin Kamen (1), Basandaika burial mound, a burial ground at the mouth of the Malaya Kirgiska river, Konevo, Osinka and Sanatorny burial grounds (1) and Tashara-Karyer burial ground (2), in which lazurite pendants, bronze and silver earrings with lazurite rings and triangular plates, as well as individual beads were found among other grave goods and jewelry. The author examines in detail the mutual occurrence of lazurite jewelry with carnelian, amber, crystal, coral and glass beads. There are 49 graves with lazurite (25 intact and 24 robbed) out of total 399 graves in the above burial grounds. Graves have also been identified by sex and age as far as possible: there are 10 children and 24 adults (in the Osinka burial ground, only women were found among adults). In the Konevo burial ground, there was a girl of 8–10 years old. In other burial grounds, only a few graves were anthropologically identified. There are four graves with both adults and children, and one grave with an adolescent. Localization of jewelry on buried bodies suggests that the population of the Basandaika culture used them in headdresses and removable pieces (necklaces and other neck jewelry) and could sew them on clothes (some pieces were found around the neck and on a belt). There could be also belt garters.

Jewelry preserved in traditional cultures until the 20th century and thereafter among peoples of the Volga Region, Siberia and Central Asia, especially in the Turkic Muslim world, can help to determine both purpose and significance of jewelry in archaeological cultures. Although researchers find their description in written sources of the Kimak and Kipchak peoples, these sources are extremely scarce. In the author’s opinion, lazurite, amber, coral and nacre jewelry were symbols of prestige and status in pre-Mongolian and partly Mongolian societies. At the same time, they were associated with their beliefs.