TEN THE “ROYAL NECROPOLIS” AT GONUR DEPE: An attempt at systematization (plan, constructions, rituals)
INTRODUCTION
With the opening of the excavations at Gonur Depe in 1974, extremely rich information was brought to light on the funeral rituals and on the tomb architecture in the Margush country. More than 5,000 tombs, from several cemeteries within or outside the city have been unearthed up to now. The Gonur Large Necropolis and partly other ones have been presented by S. Salvatori (1993,1994,1995) and in more in detail by V.I. Sarianidi (2001, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Dubova 2004; Sarianidi and Dubova 2010a, 2010b; 2016; Dubova et al. 2018). However, not all the discoveries have been published yet.
Several types of burial construction are represented: shaft graves (i.e., pits with a niche in one of the walls) are the main one (55.2%), simple pit burials come next (32.3%), cists (i.e., rectangular pits surrounded by a mudbrick wall) are far behind (6.6%), followed by child burials in large ceramic vessels (2.3%). Underground roofed houses made of one or two rooms - also called chamber graves in the Large Necropolis, or hypogea in the “Royal Necropolis”' - with successive burials represent only 1.8%, and burnt pits with fired walls and bottom covered with a thick layer of sand or ash 1.45%. To these, six fractional burials and one dakhma1 found by Sarianidi in the Gonur North palace must be added. Depending on the cemetery, the distribution of these types differs (Sarianidi 2001, 2007b; Sarianidi and Dubova 2016). When he described the Gonur Large Necropolis, Sarianidi wrote that the richest offerings were present in chamber tombs and in cists (5%), the poorest in simple pits (10%), while they were medium or rich in shaft graves (85%). He concluded that these differences reflected the probable social stratification of the Margush society (Sarianidi 2001: 35-36; 2007b: 124-125).
In 2004-2005, on the eastern bank of the largest Gonur water basin, a complex of unusual tombs containing both humans and animals was first unearthed. It included: (1) five underground constructions (hypogea) that looked like houses with several rooms and, also, a special courtyard in several cases (graves 3200, 3210, 3220, 3230, 3235); (2) two very large pits of ca. 6 m in diameter also called “ditches”
(3225, 3240); (3) some simple chamber tombs situated between them (3205, 3245, 3250); (4) one pit with several bones from a boar (3206); (5) two wells, each with two legs of a donkey lying on their tops (3330, 3331); and (6) to the north of these tombs, a ritual burial of a donkey lying next to a double hearth (3340).
The complex construction of these tombs, the presence of four-wheeled wagons, various human and animal sacrifices, many symbols of high social status, and numerous gold and silver funeral gifts though the graves had been grabbed several times showed that representatives of the elite or priests were buried there. Therefore, it was named the “Royal Necropolis” (Dubova 2004; Sarianidi 2006, 2007b).
Further discoveries were added to this complex in 2009: (7) one “ditch” (3900); (8) four hypogea (3880, 3905, 3910, 3915); (9) one rich shaft tomb (3870); and (to) two bulls’ graves (3890, 3895) discovered to the south of the previous ones (Sarianidi and Dubova 2010a, 2010b). Finally, (11) three groups of dog burials were excavated in 2011 to the east, southeast, and south of the hypogea complex (Dubova 2012; Sataev and Dubova 2016).
Several publications concerning the very rich items that have been found in this “Royal Necropolis” have already been made (Dubova 2004; Sarianidi 2005: 204-116; 2006; 2007b: 184-185; 2008a: 216-240, figs. 70-178; 2008b: 148-225; Sarianidi and Dubova 2010a, 2010b). We present here only some of these artifacts. This chapter rather aims at a presentation of some of the major hypogea in order to present a preliminary systematization of the plan of the area, of the different constructions, and of the rituals that were performed in them. As will be pointed out, however, the severe looting suffered by these graves prevents any certainty.
