C DATES

Only three radiocarbon dates could be obtained from the Gonur “Royal Necropolis” (Figure 10.22): He-7998 from grave 3210, JIe-9970 from grave 3915, and JIe-8782 from grave 3900 (see the Appendix at the end of the volume). The earliest date, made on animal bones, is of little use because of its large spectrum. The latest date has also a large spectrum (tomb 3210), and the charcoal sample used for the dating comes from the “courtyard” and could be related not to the burial itself but to its later looting. Unfortunately, in general, there are only very few charcoal remains in these elite tombs. Taking into account the archaeological context of the site, we consider the dates between 2200 and 2000 BC for the whole “Royal Necropolis” to be adequate. We nevertheless hope to be able to make accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates in the near future and to get better reliable information from them.

CONCLUSION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The aim of this chapter was not to fully describe the whole Gonur “Royal Necropolis” but only of some of it in order to attempt a systematization of the data. Some comparisons of the material have already been done by Sarianidi (2005, 2008a,

2008b). It has to be underlined again that these hypogea are the first to be discovered in the BMAC area and in the surrounding regions, and are also unique at Gonur Depe. The only place where analogies can be found is at Ur, where partly underground hypogeums with several chambers said to belong to the kings of the Third Dynasty (or the major priests) have been found close to the sacred area. They were originally lavishly decorated with gold, lapis lazuli, and were also surrounded by shaft graves containing simultaneous multiple burials of men, women, and children. Unfortunately, they had been totally looted, probably by the Elamites when they conquered the city (Moorey 1982: 163-174). Furthermore, in Shulgi’s hypogeum room 1, remains of faience mosaics were found, probably coming from the wall (Moorey 1994: 175) (see Chapter 11).

The overall data coming from the rich Gonur cemetery shows, once more, that the culture brought to light presents an astonishing association of indigenous Central Asian traditional features together with influences from southwestern Asia, ancient Elam, and the Indus valley.

The works of the Margiana archaeological expedition were made effective and possible as a whole only thanks to the support of the Turkmenistan high administration, the efforts of many local workers, and scientists from different institutions and universities in Russia, Turkmenistan, and Finland, as well as to the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, the Greek Government, and the Pontic Greek societies. We are very grateful to all of them.

NOTES

• 1 Hypogea and chamber tombs are both house-like constructions but the latter are smaller and their architecture less complex than that of hypogea.
• 2 A dakhma is a place where the corpse of the deceased is placed for birds of prey or dogs to deflesh it according to the Zoroastrian ritual.
• 3 For a more detailed description of the tombs of dogs, see Chapter 12 and Sataev and Dubova (2016).
• 4 This pit has no number.
• 5 For a preliminary publication of tombs 3200, 3210, 3220, 3225, 3230, 3235, 3240, and their schemes, see Sarianidi (2005, 2006); tomb 3200 is also discussed in Dubova (2004). For tombs 3880 and 3900, see Sarianidi and Dubova (2oroa, 2010b). The three tombs 3905, 3910, and 3915 are not yet published.
• 6 There is no evidence of a vaulted roof. Flat roofs are more likely.
• 7 A few stone headrests are known at Gonur but they are simple, without any specific decoration.
• 8 Only their skulls were in the niche, and their(?) long bones were scattered in the room.

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