Stone inventory

The stone inventory concerns an assortment of small and large items. The majority of the former are beads, arrowheads, flint blades; the latter are represented by grinding stones, pestles, and anvils.

Among the flint items, made of blades and flakes, one must note a piercer and a drill, executed with a few retouches on the face and more near the very tip. These are small tools up to 5 cm long, made of a brown or dark-green flint. Use-wear analyses show that these tools were used for cutting, drilling, and preparation work, and were widely used for stone jewelry craft production (see Figure 24.4,18-20).

Arrowheads are of two types: tangless elongated leaf-like shape and arrowheads with a notch at the base. The leaf-like arrowhead is made of a large, pinkish-gray flint flake with even sides and a carefully carved tip. It is made on both sides by thin, flattened, faceted pressure flaking. Its relatively narrow tip has vertical, graceful proportions, its base is round (Figure 24.4, 21). Traces of reuse are preserved - the tip of the blade is worn out, partially chipped and polished out. The character of the use-wear features shows that it was used as a drill for stone. A similar pattern of arrowhead reuse has been documented by different authors: G.F. Korobkova, when studying the Kel’teminar arrowheads (Korobkova 1969: 109, 113, 120) and those from Altyn Depe (Korobkova 2001: 147-148), or TSh. Shirinov during the analysis of those from Sapallitepa (Shirinov 1986: 39). The same is said about those from grave 1200 of a master stonecutter in the Gonur Large Necropolis (Sarianidi 2001: 71). Analysis of the functional purpose of the Sazagansaj burial stone items points at their use in certain technological operations for bead making.

Two other arrowheads have a triangular squat shape and a concave base with pointed ends. The widest part is at the base. The two ends were formed by the central notch and are slightly pronounced. The arrowhead section is almost lens-like. These arrowheads are very similar to those from the developed stage of the Poltavkino culture (II Berezhkovskij graveyard) in the lower Volga (Sinitsyn 1959: 119, fig. 38, 5; Kachalova 2001: 43, fig. 4, 42) and to some examples from Catacomb sites (Bratchenko 1976: 55, fig. 25,22,23; 99; 55, 7; Prjakhin 1982: figs. 11-12; Subbotin 2000: 374, fig. 11, 24, 25).

An important category of stone finds are beads made of various semiprecious stones. Beads are one of the most common items in burials. They decorate clothes, headwear, and footwear. In the Zeravshan collection, they are made of lapis lazuli, turquoise, carnelian, agate, and limestone. Most of this stone jewelry and decorative material was extracted in the Central Asian interfluve and in protohistoric Bactria.

Lapis lazuli beads are the majority of all the jewelry found in the Sazagan burials. They have different shapes: cylindrical (short and elongated), tubular, barrel-shaped, ring-shaped small beads, flattened disk-shaped, rhombic, truncated-oval, and nearly square. Their closest analogies are at Sapallitepa, Gonur, and Altyn Depe (Askarov 1973: 95, tab. 30; Kircho 2005: 390-400; Sarianidi, 2007: ny).’^2.

In our collection, one object deserves special interest. It is a clay nozzle (i.e., a pipe with an internal conical empty channel from Sazagan burial 1). It must be related to a copper-smelting furnace and is made of clay tempered with gypsum powder and fine sand. The surface is well leveled out, it has a reddish-brown color. The clay core is brownish-black. The cone-shaped hole for air intake is covered with a grayish coating. It is 8.2 cm long, the diameter of the conical air-blowing hole is 2 cm on one side and 0.8 cm on the other (see Figure 24.3, 25).

This find of a nozzle together with a functional set of tools for smelting and the processing of metal is extremely rare in BMAC sites. As mentioned above, fragments of such items have been found at the Tugai smelting place. Another unusual feature is that the “metallurgist” was a woman. Similar burials are documented in the Sintashta-type cemetery of Kamennij Ambar-5 (Epimakhov 2005: 150, 156).

Until recently, burials of metal- and foundry workers were known only in some cattle-breeder cultures of Eastern Europe (Bochkarev 1974: 48-53) starting with the middle of the 3rd millennium. Considering the chronology and the comparisons, the most significant parallel to our nozzle is found at the Poltavkino Kalinovsky burial ground (lower Volga region) (Shilov 1959: 15; fig. 2, 4, 5; 17, fig. 5, 6-9; Kachalova 1983: 9, tab. 3, 41, 42, 47-48, 53-54). There are also matches in Sintashta burial grounds, at Solntse II (Epimakhov 1996: 38, fig. 11, 11, 12), Sintashta III (Gening et al. 1992: 336; fig. 195, 6, 7), and a stone nozzle was found in a cemetery near the Berezovaja Mountains (Khaljapin 2001: 424, fig. 3, 11). Similar items were also found in the Arkaim settlement (Zdanovich, 1995: 32, fig. 6, 26, 27).

Bronze ingots and a piece of copper ore represent a special category of artifact in this Sazagan burial 1. Undoubtedly, the grave indicates the deceased’s specialization, connected with metal production. Burial 2 inventory also demonstrates clear evidence of the deceased’s crafting activities in stone cutting, as shown by the accompanying working tools and raw materials - uncut pieces of lapis lazuli and turquoise. Their processing is also proved by faulty lapis lazuli and carnelian beads and by a half-finished and unpolished oval carnelian bead without drilled hole. The high status of this master jeweler in beads and precious stones is further demonstrated by the presence of horn cheek-pieces in the grave. The closest analogy to such a burial type can be found in the Gonur Large Necropolis (Sarianidi 2001: 71-72). Burials reflecting the professional status of the deceased are also known at Sapallitepa, and include potters, carpenters, and weavers (Askarov 1977: 153).

Finds associated with craft production raise an important topic. The extraordinary Sazagan burials reflect the social ranks of the deceased, rarely encountered at BMAC sites. The appearance of these complexes in the Zeravshan valley can probably be explained by the work of the deceased on the nearby turquoise and copper-tin deposits (Avanesova et al. 2005: 17,18, 24). The high level of manufacturing (employing professional craftsmen) must have had a solid economic basis. It is assumed from studies made on some artifacts that stone craft production based on local resources existed in protohistoric Bactria and Sogdiana. The raw material for jewelry was mined both in the Zeravshan and in the Amu Darya basins. Turquoise, lapis lazuli, and probably metal were products of active exchanges with the inhabitants of the southern oases who imported both raw material and ready items. The tools discovered in the burials ensure almost the whole chaîne opératoire for mining and smelting activities and for stonecutting production (jewelry), which probably were separate specialized activities. Their expansion into the Zeravshan region probably had a transitory character, as shown by these isolated discoveries.