Неординарне поховання у кургані скіфського часу біля Жаботина

• Published in: Археологія і давня історія України
• Date: 2020
• Main Authors: Козак, О.Д., Слободян, Т.І.
• Format: Article
• Language: Ukrainian
• Published: Інститут археології НАН України 2020
• Subjects: Антропологічні студії
• Online Access: https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/187352
• Journal Title: Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• Cite this: Неординарне поховання у кургані скіфського часу біля с. Жаботина / О.Д. Козак, Т.І. Слободян // Археологія і давня історія України: Зб. наук. пр. — К.: ІА НАН України, 2020. — Вип. 3 (36). — С. 445-451. — Бібліогр.: 22 назв. — укр.

У статті описані морфологічні, палеопатологічні та тафономічні ознаки, виявлені на скелеті підлітка 13—15 р. Посмертні зміни кісток
 пов’язуються зі специфічним поховальним обрядом. The funeral rite is a complex ritual process. It combines
 traditional worldview norms and rituals, includes
 various stages — the preparatory, process of
 burial and post-funeral actions as the funeral fest etc.
 From the archaeological point of view, the funeral rite
 is considered as the system of interrelated features
 which includes the funeral method, type of burial, form
 of the burial structure, grave goods and the remains of
 the buried people or animals.
 Mostly the reconstruction of the funeral rite is quite
 simple. However, there are the burials, practically
 having no analogies in archaeological culture and literature.
 Unusual postmortem transformations on the
 bones that appear during the preparation process or
 at the time of burial are sometimes hard to be seen,
 even more difficult to interpret. Recently, thanks to
 the spread of research methods, gaining the experience
 and opportunities to international consultations
 as well as fruitful cooperation with archaeologists
 we began (albeit very slowly) to collect the database
 of «unusual» cases of rites. The vast majority of such
 cases can be traced at the populations of Scythian Age.
 The examples are decapitated accompanying persons;
 skull fragments with signs of scalping and deliberate
 destruction; possibly boiled human bones found on the
 ash hills of the Bielsk hill-fort etc.
 From this point of view the Early Scythian grave in
 the barrow 524 near Zhabotin village in the basin of
 the Tyasmin River is undoubtedly interesting. The primary
 burial (N 1) was completely destroyed and has no
 traces of any skeleton. Our paper is focused on the anthropological
 study of human remains from the other
 grave.
 This is the burial of teenager aged 13—15 with the
 body of very gracile structure. Features on the skeleton
 indicate poor health from early childhood. The
 teenager suffered from frequent prolonged illnesses or
 starvation.
 The process of preparing the body for burial in this
 case is very complicated. The body and a wooden platform
 located near grave were exposed to low-temperature
 fire (100—200 °C). One can assume that the body
 was placed on the platform. There are no reasons yet
 to determine the motive of such rite — the ritual cleaning
 the wooden structure or body by fire or the purposeful
 process of mummification by low-temperature
 drying of the body on a smoldering fire. Spectrometric
 analysis of the black plaque on the skull fragments
 confirms the presence of mummified organic tissues of
 the human body. Cases of this type of mummification
 are known from ethnographic sources. The incision in
 the skull may have been caused by a procedure to clean
 the bones of soft tissue or by cutting certain tendons
 before burial.
 Until other similar cases would be found in similar
 cultural milieu the purpose and exact nature of the
 manipulation with the child’s body in the barrow near
 Zhabotin remain unknown.