Preliminary results of excavations of the Tagar kurgans at Kazanovka-6 burial ground in the Askizsky district of the Republic of Khakassia

This publication provides materials from the study of 12 kurgans of the Tagar culture of the Kazanovka-6 kurgan burial ground, numbering 40 separate burial objects of various sizes and shapes. Excavations were carried out in the Askizsky district of the Republic of Khakassia as part of rescue work in the zone of the planned construction of the second railway track. A part of the northern half of the cemetery was examined. From a large row of mounds with a large earth wall extending between the soles of the Aar-Tag and Chollygpil mountains, one kurgan 4, which belongs to the Saragashen stage of the Tagar archeological culture, and the rest - to an earlier time, was investigated. Three separate children’s burials and three crypts were discovered in the embankment of kurgan 4. In their successive construction, traces of stone fence reconstruction were recorded. Among the sites of earlier times (7th to 6th centuries BC), a group of “individual” burial mounds with one grave pit located in the center of the stone fence was identified. The second group consists of family cemeteries with three to eight separate graves of adults and children. Analysis of their structure allows establishing the sequence of graves and noting the nature of social ties. It is distinguished by its structure and size of kurgan 21, which is a fence completely filled with masonry overlapping one large grave pit. A dog was buried in kurgan 21 together with a man. Most of burials were robbed. In the surviving graves, full-size bronze weapons for close combat (axes and daggers), plate knives as well as mirrors were found. Ceramic dishes are of different types, but predominant large vessels (up to 40 cm in diameter) are can-shaped, decorated under a whisk with wide grooves. Horn ridges, stone and paste beads accompanied deceased women.