Specificities of burials of founder women in the Low-Vychegda Chezhtyyag burial ground

The materials of excavations of a separate group of burials of founder women in the Low-Vychegda Chezhtyyag burial ground dating back to the XIII century are introduced into scientific discourse. Based on the typological and chemical analysis of grave goods, the author identified the characteristic features of the burials. Grave goods include items of bronze foundry production, metal ingots and a scrap for making adornments, casting tools, many women’s adornments, numerous findings in the inter-grave space and a great number of artefacts that have been fired. There are no items related to the sphere of men’s production activities or weapons items. Next to the burials of women-foundry workers, there are small burials of teenage girls, apprentices of adult women. The rich implements of burials, many beads, a tamga trace on one of the vessels indicate a high social status of the buried founder women, endowing them with magical properties.