Ritual imitation as a way of symbolic requalification of culture (on example of proto-Bactrian civilization artefacts)

During the epoch-making transition to early state (potestar) formations, the appeal to all kinds of ritual and imitative practices intensified. Imitative rituals were widely used by carriers of Sapalli culture in southern Uzbekistan in the IInd millennium BC. The article considers the features and semantic positions of the phenomenon of ritual imitation in the sociocultural process and funerary practice of post-primitive society based on artifacts of the early urban settlement of Djarkutan and its necrop-olises (mainly excavation materials from 1985-1992). Djarkutan is the largest early urban center of Proto-Bactrian civilization, in the cultural environment of which a new system of socio-regulatory relations and values was formed. The author explains some aspects of ritual transformation and symbolic exchange based on the funeral rite of Sapalli culture.