Ishkulovsky II Burial Mounds, a 13th – 14th Centuries Monument of the Mongolian Nomads in the Southern Urals

Abstract

Introduction. The Mongol conquest of the Eastern European steppes implies the presence of the conquerors themselves in the occupied territories which should be reflected in the archaeological monuments. The Ishkulovsky II burial mound is one of these monuments consisting of stone kurgans with a diameter of 3–5 m and a height of 0.15–0.2 m left by the nomads of the Golden Horde time from the territory of the Ulus of Jochi. The purpose of the article is to publish the materials of the necropolis and the authors’ attempt to identify the burials of the Mongols themselves for whom one of the main signs of funeral rites, among others, was the northern body orientation of the buried individuals. In the context of the article, the fact of Islamization of the Mongols under the influence of the Kipchaks is of considerable importance, which was reflected in the material of Kurgan 5, as well as in the burial mounds 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 where funeral things were not found. These burials can be considered Muslim with high certainty, if body orientation of the buried individuals is a western or north-western. Methods. The article uses the method of analogies and cross-dating to study the funeral rite and the material culture. The source of the study is 13 burials studied during the excavations of the 12 stone burial mounds of the Ishkulovsky II burial mound. Discussion and results. According to the funeral rite and clothing inventory, the burial mound was left by a mixed population of nomads, some of whom are associated with the Kipchaks, the other finds analogies among the burials of the Mongols. Thus, the dating of the necropolis fits into a narrow chronological period from the end of the 13th to the 14th century. A kind of confessional dualism can be observed in the rite in which both paganism and Islam were equally “legitimate” even within separate tribal divisions.